How Organizations Set Themselves Up for Training to Fail
In the past year (2014), companies that wanted to do business with us asked us to do the following egregious activities in order to sabotage their own training effectiveness. These are the types of situations we don't want to be a part of:
Cutting time from the delivery process in order to save time and money.
Many organizations think that the same learning outcomes can be achieved in less time if we could just whittle this class down by 3 hours. In their minds, saving training time equates to saving money when organization's figure they are taking people away from their "real work" in order to attend training. But by not providing adequate time for training (and practice and coaching), people will inevitably make mistakes on the job which will cost money.
Cutting practice time out of the learning process so that participants are simply subjected to new content but have no ability to work with that content.
Most individuals do not make the 'transfer of training' on their own. And in many cases it is impossible to go from learning-to-doing without a period of practice. How did you learn to drive a car? Classroom only? Did you watch a video? I remember helping my niece learn to drive; she had a "habit" of braking right at the stop sign rather than slowing down as she approached it. When I asked her why she said, "That's how I learned - you can't crash the simulator."
No interaction or collaboration.
Companies often rely solely on the delivery of information without any activity or collaboration among the learners, even though we know that adults learn best through collaboration and application of their learning with others. Yes, it might only take 25 minutes to teach the information / skill, but it takes another 60 minutes to "get it" while working with others in order to hear their perspective, practice, get feedback, etc. Try brainstorming as many uses for a brick as you can - by yourself; now try it with 3 other people. Point made.
No time for reflection.
Organizations that want their training delivered in one shot, by default exclude time for observation and reflection which is a key adult learning principle
Adults have a lot of "rules" in their heads and a lot of learned behaviors in terms of how they conduct their job. If we ask them to change those "rules", they need time to reflect on the ramifications of those changes - what's in it for me? is this a good thing or a bad thing? Will I have a better outcome in the long-run? etc. A one-time training session does not allow for this critical need for processing information.
Happy with mediocre designs that sort-of get at the necessary learning.
One client asked us to create "the best design possible," and then, during the design review said "This learning process is too long and we will never get participants to do the pre-work or on-the-job assignments, so cut out the parts that aren't critical" (if this was the best design possible, exactly what parts would not be critical?).
Cut topics to save time.
When redesigning training to accommodate less training time and people's busy schedules, organizations often cut topics or content from their training programs. Our question is: at what point did that particular piece of content become unnecessary? If it was relevant in the original design, how did it become irrelevant in the redesign?
Cut feedback.
One of our clients has an independent assignment which learners have a month to complete. In its original incarnation, that assignment was then graded by an expert and feedback was provided to the participants. It was entirely possible to fail and be requested to re-work the assignment.
In an attempt to save money the grading of the assignment was eliminated, which of course, trickled down to the learners asking, "Then what is the point of doing the assignment?" or "Why do a quality job?"
Training is both an art and a science. It is much more than providing information and saying "good luck with that!" Transmission of information is only half the battle; in fact, it may only be 1/3 of the battle (with the other two-thirds being practice/collaboration and on-the-job application/coaching)!
If you want your organizational training efforts to succeed, please, don't fall victim to the missteps just discussed!
Tell us YOUR "fail" story here !https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XXMBCZX
Quotable: Bob Mosher
To survive, and thrive, we need learners to own their own engagement, not an organization that drives it.
Excerpted from: It All Starts with Learners, Bob's regular column in CLO Magazine
Adults Need Time for Real World Application
Real World Application
Trainees need to return to their jobs behaving differently than when they went into the training; therefore workplace training relies on 'real world application.' Unfortunately, most training designs don't allow for real-world application. They include a lot of theory or rules (we pre-qualify a sales lead so that we don't waste our time pursuing someone who will never buy), practice in a fabricated manner (work with a partner to create or practice the pre-qualifying questions you would use back on-the-job), stories of successes (Jim, our star salesperson, spends 80% of his time pre-qualifying and only 20% making sales), and sometimes a checklist or job-aid reminder of the process / steps we have taught.
Is this how you would teach someone to ride a bike (Let's hear from Mike, who has experience in bike riding) or counsel a drug addict (Work with a partner to come up with some questions you might ask the patient)? No. But far too often this is the "design" we see in corporate training programs.
The point? Training, in order for it to stick and be sustained, must include real world application so that people understand what the task or process is and how they would actually perform it on the job. We know about chunking, we know about timed-intervals, now we need to also embrace real-world application.
Have trainees go back on the job and actually practice what they have been taught - BEFORE the training is over. Give them time to practice and fail and report back on what they have learned. Give them time to try two or three techniques to see which they are most comfortable with. It's much smarter to learn from one's own experience than Jim's or Mike's.
Training Design with Adults in Mind
There are a few techniques you can use to make learning easier on your workplace learners:
Structure - helps learners to keep track of detail; give them an agenda to follow-along
Known to unknown - Flying a plane to flying a helicopter
Easy to difficult - Painting with a brush to painting with a roller to painting with a power painter
Problem to solution - Getting lost to learning to read a map or compass
Frequent to infrequent - Running weekly payroll to running monthly invoices to running yearly W-2's*
Overview to detail - This is how government works to this is how an election is conducted
Theoretical to practical (big picture to doing your job) - The importance of eating right to planning menus
Order of importance or performance - Checking safety of machinery before operating it
Steps in a sequence (chronological) - Filling out a form; validating customer information
How participants would most likely interact with material - Teach blackjack by sitting at a blackjack table, not reading a manual
Exercises - are very effective, unless...
"Unusual" or complex exercises interfere with learning - learners may miss the point
Adults don't like far-fetched or artificial exercises - respect their maturity
Need some challenge (but not too much) - remember to keep the environment safe
Stories-are "sticky" - stories help learners to remember. Anytime you are about to go in to lecture mode, ask yourself, "Is there a story I could tell that would illustrate this just as well?" and then, at the end of the story, ask your learners "So what is the moral of this story?" THAT is when the true learning comes about; give the audience time to process the point of the story and draw a conclusion - otherwise it was an interesting story that happened to somebody else.
Keep 'em active! - nobody sits for hours on end at the job - don't expect it in training either.
Blended Learning Uses the Best of all Training Methodologies
Organizations have displayed an increased interest in blended learning, which takes the best of all training methodologies from the perspectives of demographics, economics, and instruction.
Demographics
For the most part, the demographic factors affect learning in the workplace and concern the population of learners. Especially in today's globally diverse work environments, organizations need to make adjustments for multiple languages, various time zones, multiple generations, and cultural differences. While the content of the learning program may be the same (basic selling skills, for example), the design or delivery may have to be altered to accommodate varying demographics of the audience.
Economics
Often, training delivery options are dictated by the economics involved. For example, classroom-based training will require travel expenses, maintaining or renting classroom space, and the printing and reproduction of materials. Computer-based training options are more economical in many ways; however, they require their own set of economic decisions such as adequate server space, the hosting of a web site, and secure access and record keeping.
Instruction
The design of the actual instruction can vary greatly based on things such as individual learning styles, how immediate the need is for the training, or what access learners have to instructional methodologies. Do they have individual computer workstations? Are they able to leave their jobs to attend a 4 hour or 8 hour training class?
Want to learn more? Order your own copy here !
Adobe Connect Tip - for easier classroom management
One of the wonderful things about Adobe Connect is the fact that the pods make it so malleable... one of the maddening things about Adobe Connect is trying to get all those pods in place easily and at the right time.
One option: Create a layout for your activity instead.
Say, for example, your activity is for participants to respond to the question, How Do You Create the Perfect Impression on a New Client? What do you do before, during and after the sales call? and you have a separate chat pod for each response (before, during, after). Rather than try to move the pods in to the participant viewing area quickly and neatly, use a separate layout where they are already set up. Then, with one click, you can move the whole group to the layout.
From the menu bar, click Layout > Create New Layout
Then choose to create a blank layout (you will have to bring in every pod you want in this layout) or duplicate an existing layout (if you know you want video, attendee list and chat, you might want to duplicate the standard 'sharing' layout)
Give the layout a name so you can easily find it in the list of layouts on the right of your screen (using our example above, we'd probably call this layout Before, During, After)
Click OK. Populate the room with whatever pods you need (again, using our example, we'd need 3 chat pods)
Now, when that time in the course arrives, simply click on the Before, During, After layout thumbnail and voila! your three chat pods are at the ready and participants can begin their activity much more quickly.
Quotable: Jay Titus
Millennials will account for close to 50 percent of the workforce within the next five years. Corporate learning leaders need to be the champion for making professional development an organizational priority. We need to be taking educational benefits out of the last page of the employee handbook and shining a spotlight on it. In the next five to 10 years it’s going to be a key differentiator for employers who do it well.
Jay Titus, EdAssist
Excerpted from: http://www.clomedia.com/blogs/1-ask-a-gen-y/post/6303-millennials-will-work-for-knowledge
Are you going to that place-based class?
Heard around the water cooler: Place-based learning to identify learning that is classroom-based or face-to-face.
Quotable: Lora Reed
Online learning is "consistent with where we are going with employers and teams." Employers need people who are self-motivated and who can work independently and collaborate online with colleagues, including critiquing each other's work - exactly the skills that online learning builds.
Lora Reed, Assistant Professor, Ashford University Forbes School of Business as quoted in HR Magazine, May 2015
Collective Differences equal Better Learning Outcomes
Research now tells us that what makes a group truly intelligent and innovative is the combination of different ages, skills, disciplines, and working and thinking styles that members bring to the table.
Scott E Page, professor and director of the center of the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan has demonstrated that groups displaying a range of perspectives and skill levels outperform like-minded experts. He concludes that "progress depends as much on our collective differences as it does on our individual IQ scores."
Source: Institute for the Future for the University of Phoenix Research Instituted and Scott E Page, "The Difference," published by Princeton Press
Training: Free? Money Maker? Or Gift of the organization?
In an article in SHRM's HR Magazine in May 2015, an interview with the VP of Organizational Development and Chief Talent Officer at Hospira, Inc., Pamela Puryear, revealed an interesting approach to learning and development: employee-teams can apply for a grant from the Training Department to meet a learning and development need in their business unit.
Quotable: Suzanne Martin
Everyone who comes to Google comes with a learning hat and a teaching hat - they have to teach as much as they learn, says Suzanne Martin, head of global people development, brand and marketing at Google, referring to the company's g2g (Googler to Googler) program that puts employees in teaching roles.
Source: HR Magazine, May 2015
Guest Blog: 3 Ideas for Leadership Development Outside the Classroom
By Halelly Azulay, TalentGrow LLC
Your current leader population wants to grow and needs to continue to improve their leadership competencies. You have Baby Boomer leaders set to retire, but many of those 'on the bench' to succeed them are not quite promotion-ready. Millennials are chomping at the bit for ongoing leadership development opportunities.
You need to create 'bench strength' in the form of a pool of ready-to-lead talent .Does this sound familiar? Don't despair. Hope awaits...When we deploy a wide variety of development methods to get our leaders to the next level, everyone benefits. It is not merely a training issue, either. It's bigger than that. Here are three ideas to help you approach leadership development in a broad, and inclusive way that doesn't require developing coursework or having people attend classes!
Rotation/stretch assignments
A job rotation means that the leader is temporarily assigned to a different job, usually laterally, in another role in the same organization, for an agreed-upon period of time. A stretch assignment is a task or project that these leaders perform usually within their current role but beyond their job description that challenges and broadens (stretches) their current skills and capabilities.
In leadership workshops or seminars, leaders are usually isolated and focused on learning outside the context of their workday. But when they are strategically working in a job rotation or stretch assignment with a developmental lens, leaders learn new skills in the context of their daily work experience and apply their lessons immediately, continually.
These kinds of assignments, when coupled with specific development goals, are a rich growth opportunity that yields many benefits to the leader as learner. They are a wonderful platform for leadership development that is readily available and completely scalable to the specifics of the leader, team, and organization.
Volunteering in a leadership role
How can your future and current leaders practice new leadership skills on-the-job without any downside for your organization whatsoever? By practicing on someone else's turf as a volunteer.
Volunteer jobs in leadership positions provide a great opportunity for leaders to 'get their feet wet', try new approaches, and practice skills they haven't yet mastered. And they do this all away from work where their mistakes don't affect your organization directly or cause any hardship.
There are endless leadership positions in non-profit and community-based organizations that need volunteers to serve their constituents. Leaders can craft a development strategy for leveraging a volunteer job for their own learning and growth, then deploy the plan and bring back the newly developed skills back to your organization. It's a win-win-win.
Mentor/protégé
Do your current or high potential future leaders have a mentor? And, are they mentoring someone themselves?
Lots of employers already have, or are considering adding, a mentoring program. Often, we view these opportunities as intended to benefit the newest members of the workforce. Yet, the potential developmental benefits of mentoring and being mentored can be equally valuable to those in leadership positions.
When in the role of protégé (aka mentee), leaders can gain insights from those who are a few steps ahead of them on a similar leadership journey. Even the most experienced and successful executive coaches have an executive coach of their own.
Leaders of all levels should also keep their skills sharp by getting a mentor. These leader mentors create value for their protégés, but don't they also grow their own skills as a result of mentoring others? Yes! For example, they may develop patience or empathy, or gain a new perspective on organizational challenges and trends, or enhance their coaching skills while playing the role of a mentor. These new skills can then be leveraged back on the job. This is leadership development at its best. There is dual-value delivered to the organization as a result of both parties developing.
Developing leaders is an ongoing challenge many organizations face, and by expanding the idea of "development" to include non-training-related methods, we can all benefit richly. Whether by completing a stretch or rotational assignment, volunteering in a leadership capacity, mentoring or being mentored, current and future leaders can grow their skills, stretch outside their comfort zone, and bring the benefits of their expanded skillsets to their organization without ever stepping foot in a leadership development workshop.
Look for these and many more non-training employee development ideas in Halelly's book, Employee Development on a Shoestring published by ATD Press.
About Halelly Azulay, TalentGrow LLC
Halelly Azulay is an author, speaker, facilitator, and leadership development strategist, as well as an expert in communication skills and emotional intelligence. She is the founder of TalentGrow LLC.a consulting company that develops leaders and teams experiencing explosive growth. TalentGrow specializes in people leadership skills, which include communication skills, teambuilding, coaching and emotional intelligence. TalentGrow works with all organizational levels, including C-level leaders, frontline managers and individuals.
Halelly is the author of two books, Employee Development on a Shoestring and Strengths Can Help You Lead a MoreFulfilling Life .She also hosts The TalentGrow Show, a leadership development podcast. She brings 20 years of professional experience in workplace learning and leadership development to her work with corporate, government, nonprofit, and academic organizations.
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