Aids for Training
Good listening skills are an important contributor to successful interpersonal relationships. But where should the ambitious corporate executive or independent professional turn, when they want to develop better listening skills?
Training Options Include:
- Book or audio book training
- On-line tutorials
- Trainer-led groups
- Personal Coaching
How can you identify which training option will be the most effective learning approach for you? Your decision will be driven by the amounts of time, effort and money that you are willing to invest. Other factors that influence your training choices are discussed in Is Video Training for You?
When you have identified your preferred training option, you’ll need to source a specific training format. If you choose a trainer-led group, you will have a few more options to consider. They include:
- Classroom Training
- Local or Destination Conferences
- Local or Destination Workshops or Seminars
When you choose to learn using books, audio books or on-line tutorials, the success of the training depends on you, the trainee. When working with a personal coach, the best outcomes are achieved by the coachees who devote the most effort and attention to the coaching process. But in trainer-led training formats, the success of the training depends on the trainer. Who’s Training You? talks about the sorts of training that trainers do and don’t receive. Clearly, the trainer you want at the front of your training room is someone who IS well trained. But not just in instructional design and presentation. The very best trainers also have training, and a high level of expertise, in the use of training tools. The majority of trainers do not.
Good Trainers:
- Spend more time asking questions than lecturing
- Know how to use training aids effectively
- Use training tools to build the interactivity that enables trainees to grasp and internalize learning
- Require trainees to demonstrate that the learning has “stuck”
Bad Trainers:
- Inundate their trainees with information
- Spend more time lecturing than asking questions
- Believe that all that’s required to transfer knowledge from Point A (their manuals) to Point B (their trainees) is simply presenting them with the material
- Hold an enduring false belief that says, “If I tell you this, you’ll get it”
Talking Is Not Training!
I think we’ve all endured more than enough training sessions where the knowledge presented does not stray from either the head of the instructor or the materials they present. We’ve been talked to but not trained.
One such instructor was my university Statistics Professor. He not only wrote the textbook we were assigned, but had the impressive ability to rapidly cover the three massive whiteboards at the front of the lecture hall with complex equations. And sometimes he covered all three with one incredibly long equation. Or at least that’s what I think he was doing. You see, I had no idea WHAT he was talking about. It was clear that HE knew. And it was equally clear that he was unable to impart his knowledge to his students. He told us. He showed us. But we still didn’t “get it.” From the outside, this professor looked like the ideal instructor. He knew his subject, inside and out. He wrote the textbook. But he was unable to effectively facilitate learning.
As Easy as Slicing Bread?
Effective learning and development requires far more than mere instruction. Imagine “telling” someone how to slice bread. You might direct them to “pick up a knife and cut the bread.” You may even take the time to tell them which knife to use, and describe it so they can find it easily. What you cannot “instruct” or “tell” is how they need to stand to put their shoulder into the cutting process. Or how it will feel in their body when they are doing it correctly versus incorrectly. The technique behind the skill needs to be experienced. It cannot be instructed in a way that connects the trainee with the experience.
Measuring Effectiveness
The effectiveness of any training can be measured. Simply observe a structured demonstration of the trainee effectively using their newly acquired skill. They must be able to demonstrate the skill. But they likely won’t be able to instruct another to do the same. In most cases, that’s alright, as instructing is the trainer’s skill. And if the trainee took the training to gain personal proficincy, their mission will be accomplished. But if the trainee took the training in order to train others, those “others” can expect to recieve more pain than gain.
Let’s look at another example that’s a little more complex than bread slicing. Our Personal Branding program combines instruction with interactive and experiential training. This approach enables our clients to develop the “technique” they need to successfully bring their personal brands to life. But we don’t only teach our clients how to build brands that will serve them today. They count on us to equip them with the “techniques” they need to grow and evolve their personal brands over time, so that they can achieve the success and fulfillment they desire. This is one of core reasons that our Personal Branding Clients choose to work with us.
To learn about another false belief that strikes out a lot of promising rookie trainees, read Practice Makes Perfect.
Who’s Training You?
Our Corporate Training article establishes that one of the challenges faced by the people responsible for delivering corporate training is that within an organization, every level of staff, from hourly clerks to salaried senior executives, is made up of individuals with very different training needs.
“The vast majority already have post secondary education from a wide variety of colleges, universities or technical training programs. Many have been working in their specialty field for a few years, or much longer. So their levels of training and shallowness or depth of on-the-job experience are all over the map.”
Our Video Training article addresses the array of learning styles that drive the trainees’ ability to take in and apply the information that is presented to them in a training session. (Our free learning style assessment will enable you to identify your learning style preferences.)
So now that we have looked at the various needs of the people receiving corporate training, let’s take a moment to examine the people who deliver it.
What makes a good corporate trainer? What sort of outlook, academic background and work experience equips an individual to excel as a trainer within an organization?
One of our clients decided to become a corporate trainer after going through our Personal Branding Program. Today she’s one of the best in the business. Here’s her story:
Sara was a teacher who came to MIBOSO wanting to shift her skills from classroom teaching to on-line distance education. In the process of developing her personal brand she realized that her passion for teaching was fueled by being at the front of a room full of living, breathing people. Personal branding led Sara to become a seminar leader and corporate trainer, a role which puts her in front of hundreds of people each and every week. This career choice was an ideal expression of her talent, passion and years of teaching experience.
If Sara had followed through with her plan to teach through a distance education program, she would have really missed the human contact that her corporate training role provides. So I think it’s also fair to say that in addition to having teaching and educational program development, or instructional design skills, it’s important for trainers to be people who really like being with and interacting with other people.
Is Sara the norm when it comes to corporate trainers? It might surprise you to learn that she’s far better equipped than most. So just who is delivering training within organizations? Let’s address that question by reviewing some baseline data.
1. Most companies do not keep full-time trainers on their payrolls.
A December, 2006 survey by the Novations Group reports that responants identified a very stong trend towards an increasing use of e-learning (57%) in their organizations. The survey also identified trends towards fewer classroom hours (30%) and an increased outsourcing of trainers (25%).
2. Trainers tend to be people who can present well and process paperwork quickly.
Many have no experience in either teaching or instructional design. Nor do they have formal training in developing or delivering corporate training.
3. Corporate Trainers are often people who have attended a specific training program and have the natural ability to duplicate the delivery of that training within their own organization.
Due to an increasing need by corporations to quantify the results of the training and development deliverd to their employees, (and by validating the return on their investment, justify furture expenditures ) the vast majority of corporate training needs are being fulfilled by outsourced trainers/training organizations. This has largely reduced the remaining in-house trainers’ roles to that of training brokers. And those who also develop a facility to work with measurement metrics and the alternate training options that are being increasingly embraced by corporations, (e-learning 57%, on-the-job training 41%, and personal coaching 35%), will be able to deliver sufficient value to keep their jobs—for now.
This leads us to the question of who decides which specific training programs need to be delivered within an organization? It turns out that the answer to that question warrants an article of its own.
Is Corporate “Training & Development” an Oxymoron?
While studying the topics of corporate and executive training, this question kept repeating in my head, at ever increasing levels of insistence, “Is training and development an oxymoron?” To find the answer, and thus dismiss it from my internal “question queue,” I opened my old Webster’s Dictionary and began thumbing through its delicate pages. Surprisingly quickly (for a die-hard web searcher) I arrived at my first destination.
On the right hand side of a page covered with dense, tiny type sat the definition. “Training: The act, process or method of one who trains.” “Development,” Webster’s went on to say, is “The act, process or result of developing.” Putting these terms together joins the process of training with the process of developing, which produced another question. “Can training and development occur simultaneously?”
As Webster’s definitions only served to deepen my curiosity, it occured to me that I might find the answer I was seeking by looking at “the processes” of training and development. So I turned to the Goliath of the training and development world, the entity that offers recruits the opportunity to “be all that you can be,” the US Army.
Basic training gives new recruits rigorous physical and mental training. Its level of difficulty comes 
as much from the challenges of the physical training as from the challenge of adapting to a totally unfamiliar environment. Most importantly, the US Army’s basic training effectively separates those who have the potential to do well in the Army from those who do not.
Basic Training is divided into two parts: Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) . After 9 weeks of BCT, recruits move into AIT where they get training specific to their chosen Army roles, such as operating tanks, firing artillery, being a medic, etc.
Making a Case for Basic Organizational Training
In the business world, the Army’s “Basic Combat Training” could be compared to a comprehensive orientation program for “new hires” that teaches them how to handle themselves successfully in their new environment. (And let’s not address the dearth of such programs in the business world. That topic that could easily fill a book or two!)
Combine Corporate Culture and Skills Training to Build Sustainable Productivity
To continue examining the parallels between the military and civillian business models, it seems that specific professional skills training programs could be compared to the Army’s “Advanced Individual Training.” Investing in ongoing employee skills updates would be an excellent way for organizations to ensure that the top people they attract continue to stay at the top of their game.
And when you look at the Army’s training model, it’s interesting to note that during AIT, recruits continue to fulfill the same duties and adhere to the same disciplinary rules established in BCT. They are also regularly tested on physical fitness and weapons proficiencies, two competencies that are essential to top performance.
A comparable corporate model would require that the skills that are key to an employees’ success within the company - the cultural, procedural and navigational proficiencies specific to their organization - would continue to be developed throughout the first few years of their employment.
To stay true to the Army model, during this period, they would also receive ongoing advanced training in the specific skills they need to maintain or grow the special knowledge that they were hired to utilize on their employer’s behalf.
What a marvelous approach! Simultaneously productive, practical and visionary.
Unfortunately the Army and Corporate training and development comparison falls apart on a number of fronts:
So what do corporate employees typically get, under the corporate training and development banner?
1. Productivity Skills Training
This training typically focuses on training that will resolve functional deficiencies within an organization, division or department. For example, people in the Finance Department may be encouraged to sign up for “Advanced Excel Training” if a lack of proficiency with this software is causing productivity issues.
2. Management Training
These programs address “teamwork,” or “time management” and are offered as perks based on rank. Middle and upper middle management are subjected to more of these programs than those at either the top or bottom of the corporate ladder. There is typically no attention paid to individual needs.
3. Corrective Training
This is when corporate training DOES focus on the individual. When an employee is having difficulty in their role, and is of sufficient value (or offers enough of a threat) to an organization to warrant correction, an executive coach will be called in to work with them on overcoming their specific challenges.
What do you think? Can we, in good conscience, call what the corporate world offers “Training & Development?” Are organizations truly joining “the process of training” with the “process of developing?” Or can this term only be used with certainty when speaking of Army recruits? (Perhaps “Military Intelligence” is not the oxymoron it’s largely held to be.) Will we continue to let the Army’s approach to training and development eclipse what’s offered in the civilian business world? Or will we choose to adapt their model and use it to create an elite force of exceptional employees who, through their choice of occupation and employer is also able to “be all that they can be?”
Choosing Executive Training by Function, or Dysfunction? Part 4
In this last part of our executive training series, we will be looking the greatest challenges faced by executives in three specific industries. We will examine them in point form, as what we are really looking for are common challenges that are indicators of broad based executive training needs.
In 2008, Fair Isaac Corporation commissioned The Tower Group to survey Banking Executives. Results showed that their greatest challenges are:
- Improving analytics - 75%
(Indicates needs for better risk management/long term planning) - Managing increasing credit delinquencies - 50%
(Indicates needs for risk management/reduction) - Developing enterprise-wide fraud solutions - 50%
(Indicates needs for risk management/reduction) - Dealing with the current credit crisis - 33%
(Indicates needs for risk management/reduction)
A 2008 NASSTRAC Member Survey asked Transportation Executives about their biggest challenges, which are:
- Concerns around increasing transportation costs (despite rising fuel costs) - 50%
(Indicates needs for innovation/cost controls) - Globalization: increasing international shipping demand / outsourcing to third-party logistics providers - 35.3%
(Indicates needs for effective collaboration/long term planning/contingency planning) - Market Conditions: coordinating transport sectors & technology/maintaining & restoring infrastructure/managing congestion - 29.5%
(Indicates needs for collaboration/teamwork, innovation/recruiting/retention, short and long term planning) - Fuel surcharges and runaway fuel costs - 35%
(Indicates needs for risk management/communication/innovation/efficiency) - Marketplace demands to maintain costs, ensure efficiencies and deliver quality, on-time service - 26.5%
(Indicates needs for communication/innovation/efficiency)
- Labor costs. 71% said this is the primary impediment to enhanced competitiveness
(Indicates needs for innovation/recruiting/retention, short and long term planning) - Tax policy and work rules - 66%.
(Indicates needs for compliance/risk management, short and long term planning/contingency planning) - Government bureaucracy - 65%
(Indicates needs for short and long term planning/contingency planning - Raw material prices - 56%
(Indicates needs for innovation, short and long term planning/contingency planning
As a number of core issues appear consistently across these different groups it is tempting to conclude that many of these executives would benefit from training that enables them to directly impact:
- innovation
- efficiency
- recruiting/retention
- short, long term and contingency planning
- risk management/reduction
- cost controls
- compliance
- communication
- collaboration/teamwork
That may generally be true. But are these “nice to have” skills, or “must haves?”
When you look at all of the challenges listed above from a solution-based perspective, what would equip these executives far better to address these issues—quickly and efficiently? I suggest that training these executives in Conflict Management, Problem Solving and Decision Making Training skills would deliver far better returns. To go further down that path, training in Focused Selection Interviewing, and/or Performance Planning and Directing would give them the additional insights necessary to turn their challenges into success opportunities.
The paradox in selecting executive training is that what will minimize the pain of the issue is often 
chosen over that which will tackle the source of the pain. From the inside, it can be very difficult to tell the difference, as the pain can be overwhelming. And indeed, in industries experiencing a great deal of pain, such as manufacturing executives who are facing a loss of competitiveness due to their huge labor costs, a general anesthetic may be a necessary prelude to life saving surgery. But the anesthetic will only hold the pain at bay for a short time. If surgery is not conducted, recovery will not be possible. The entity—as it was—will cease to exist and a new life form will emerge to take its place. Addressing what’s causing the pain in your organization requires courage. Anything less than complete truthfulness leaves remnants of the problem intact. They fester and reinfect the organization. Repeat surgeries increase the odds of executive or organizational mortality
Contact us to discuss your organization’s health. Our Training Needs Analysis is designed to diagnose the true cause(s) of your organization’s pain and provide a succinct and targeted prescription formulated to kill the infection and establish an environment for vigorous growth. And if, after reading this, you think, “Hah! Yeah, right,” perhaps the disease you are dealing with is indifference to the truth?