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Senior Managers Are Accountable for Training Results Too
The conventional wisdom: Trainers should be held accountable for training results.
The reality: Many people - including senior managers - play key roles to influence whether training translates to workplace performance and has an impact on business results.
Yes, there's a lot a trainer can do to focus courses on performance gaps, motivate learners, make the content behavior-based, stimulate involvement, and integrate workplace-relevant practice exercises.
Obviously, the participant is responsible for his or her own learning and is a key factor in whether the skills taught are actually translated to on-the-job performance.
Consider what the learner's manager can do in the role of performance coach, both before and after training - senior managers play an important role, too.
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Should We Evaluate Training...or Learning?
The traditional mindset about training has been that it’s an important event that takes place at some point in time and hopefully has the desired effect at all four measurable levels of impact.
The problem is that training may be an event, but learning is not. For most of the challenging knowledge and skills that participants have to master and apply, learning - when it happens - is an extended process.
Click here to read the entire article
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Message to Decision-Makers: Why Training Doesn't Transfer
“Most leader and team development programs don’t produce significant changes in behavior. The evidence of this fact has been in front of us for many, many years. Talented trainers present excellent programs, participants usually enjoy the programs, and many of them come away enlightened and motivated. But in most cases, many months later, there are few if any noticeable changes in behavior to justify all the expense and effort.”
Of course he wasn’t the first to say this. His “shocking” statement was actually just the latest reminder. In the world of HRD, this challenge has been referred to for over a decade as “transfer of training,” the fact that what is learned in the classroom often doesn’t transfer to improved behavior patterns on the job—where it counts.
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The Impact of Training on Workplace Performance and Business Results
High Impact Learning (Perseus, 2001), by Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Anne M. Apking, approaches the topic of “transfer of training” with several fresh perspectives. For starters, the book introduces the practice of “impact mapping,” which determines the linkage between specific business results, workplace behaviors, training, and individual performance shortfalls. The rationale is that training isn’t likely to transfer to business results if there is no cause-and-effect relationship.
The authors say that part of the problem is the conventional view of training as an event.
Click here to read the entire article
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Make Training a "Process," Not an "Event"
In the case of improving leadership behavior patterns, only a small percentage of what needs to be learned can be acquired in the classroom. Changing leadership behavior takes a long time, so the majority of skill-building must be gained through practice and experience—on the job. Even with great instructors. Even with great curriculum. Even with motivated learners. What is learned in the classroom is a vital beginning, but only the beginning.
In the May 2005 issue of Fast Company, John Kotter said: “The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.” The article reported that if ten people were given the ultimatum…change or die…in the end only one would successfully make long-term behavior change. A good example of this is when a person suffers a heart attack. Immediately after this frightening experience people typically try to change their toxic habits. But most people revert back to their old habits within a year.
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The Plain Truth About Your Pain
The following is an accurate summary of the most common complaint we’ve heard from senior leaders over the years:
We agreed that our line leaders knew the business, but most of them weren't very effective with their people. Frequently we noticed friction and a lack of cooperation. Disagreements and arguments festered. You could sense the tension out there. Morale was low in many areas. It wasn't the positive, high-energy culture we wanted. We lost several of our best people.
We concluded that our managers needed to be better leaders, and we decided to bring in a top-flight leadership effectiveness program. The trainers were fantastic and our managers raved about it. We were satisfied that it was money well spent. In the months afterward, we saw an improvement in several managers, but we noticed that most of them weren’t using the new skills. To be honest, these were the same folks doing the same things.A year later, I look around and can’t say there’s been much change at all. It’s hard to believe that a program of such high quality didn’t get better results in the long run. It’s been a huge disappointment.
The executives expected and deserved a far better return on their investment. The employees desperately needed better leadership from their managers. The programs should have been a big success story for the trainers. But what about the learners????
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The Dallas Morning News: A Leadership Development Success Story
In a business where deadlines are the headline, Paul Webb is the plant manager for The Dallas Morning News. Printing half a million newspapers each day, while managing costs and budget constraints, Paul understands that time is money. He also understands that if you want faster and better performance from a production team, you need more than improved technology. You need committed people.
According to Paul, “You can have the best technology in the world, but people make the difference.” In this highly demanding business, dogged by unwavering deadlines, Paul has learned that you need leaders who can build commitment, not just compliance. With that goal in mind, in 2001 he invested in training for the plant’s supervisory team. He created Production Management University (PMU).
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How Leaders Learn to Lead
Leadership is one of the most popular words in business literature today. It is cited as the thing most needed, the trait most important to the continuing strength of the global economy. Complicating the issue, however, is that over 100 years of leadership research has led to a remarkable lack of consensus about what it is. Is it a process? Is it power? Is it a position? Is it management? The next question for those in the leadership development field is: what is it we are developing and what is the most effective way to do it?
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A Familiar Tale of Woe...And a Solution
We agreed that our managers knew the business, but most of them weren't very effective with their people. We noticed friction and a lack of cooperation. Disagreements and arguments festered. You could sense the tension out there. Morale was low in many areas. It wasn't the positive, high-energy culture we wanted. We lost several of our best people.
We concluded that our managers needed to be better leaders, and we decided to bring in a top-flight leadership effectiveness program. The trainers were fantastic and our managers raved about it. We were satisfied that it was money well spent.
In the months afterward, we saw an improvement in several managers, but we noticed that most of them weren’t using the new skills. To be honest, these were the same folks doing the same things.
A year later, I look around and can’t say there’s been much change at all. It’s hard to believe that a program of such high quality didn’t get better results in the long run. It’s been a huge disappointment.
This is a fair summary of numerous stories we've heard in recent years. The executives expected and deserved a far better return on their investment. The employees desperately needed better leadership. The programs were excellent. They should have been a big success story for the trainers. But what about the learners????
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A Process That Achieves Accountability and Long-term Behavioral Change
Participants of training typically give their programs high marks, even though long-term, measurable behavioral changes rarely occur. Understandably, senior leaders would like to make sure long-term changes actually occur and people are held accountable.
With the help of two award-winning programs, we’ve been able to develop an implementation process that consistently produces highly motivated learners and measurable behavioral changes in the long term. The Vital Learning leadership series is a behavior-based, skill-acquisition learning program. 20/20 Insight Gold is the platform that automates initial and ongoing feedback. The combination of these two systems with our process supports a long-term program of reinforcement learning, coaching, feedback and ultimately—accountability. And several months after the initial training sessions, executives have evidence that the new skills have been acquired and are being used.
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To discuss your specific needs, please contact an ALD representative
ALD, Inc. | 3021 Lake Forest Drive | Hayden Lake, ID 83835
PHONE: 1-888-762-9699 or 208-762-1322
FAX: 208-762-2653 | EMAIL info@ald-inc.com
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