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Trainning Results
How to make the results of training programmes stick
© Andrew Bass
How many times do delegates return from training events full of enthusiasm and resolution, only for changes to last a couple of weeks? This is the norm in the personal development seminar business (and guarantees the 'gurus' plenty of repeat business - you can usually get discounts for repeating the seminar). But it's also a problem with in-house training, delivered by competent, serious-minded and well-intentioned trainers who score high on delegate satisfaction questionnaires.
Often, there's a brief boost in performance after a training intervention. This can be true even if the content is mediocre: maybe it was nice to get out of the office for a while, perhaps the trainers were entertaining, told good stories or had interesting exercises. Whatever the cause, the bubble of enthusiasm bursts pretty quickly. What is perhaps more surprising is that the same can be true of relevant, understandable and well-delivered training. In fact any training, regardless of its intrinsic quality, can easily end up yielding a very low return on investment unless a number of additional key elements are in place.
These elements somewhat overlap each other, but the guiding principle is to ensure that it's in returning trainees' best personal interests to apply what they have learned in their workplace.
The training must help the trainee to get results that are valuable to the organisation
In that way, the trainees become more valuable to the organisation and everybody wins. This may seem obvious, but very often, training can seem like a solution looking for a problem..
Reward systems must reinforce the new behaviours
Using Robert Mager's memorable image, the workplace needs to be organised so that the person who puts the new behaviours into practice finds their world gets a little brighter, while the one who does not, finds it gets a little darker.
Promotion criteria should match, or at least not undermine, the desired behaviours
Ideally, the new behaviours create results that increase the person's value to the organisation, and in due course progression follows. But notice that this is one where it's easier to lose than to win. Nothing will undermine an initiative quicker that staff seeing someone who doesn't do the behaviours being promoted over someone else who does.
The culture must support the new behaviours
If it's an organisation which has traditionally had a hunter mentality toward acquiring customers, long-term business development activities such as networking and client care, ("farming"), may not be supported. They're certainly unlikely to be valued especially, as happens, when the hunters are the one's who keep getting bonuses and promotions. In these situations, the cultural immune system will simply reject the attempted skills transplant.
Non-participants must not undermine returning delegates
Sometimes returning delegates, full of enthusiasm, find themselves undermined through teasing or sniping - their world gets darker, which quickly stops them from using what they've learned. This is particularly insidious when it comes from supervisors and managers.
Any successful programme must include steps to develop buy-in and understanding among the work team is vital.
The message
There's a lot more to skill-building than running a training seminar. Any programme can be undermined unless the consequences for putting the training into action (personal rewards and relationships, career progression, and ultimate business results) are in the rational self-interest of the trainees.
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