Training: Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

By Abhay Padgaonkar

“I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days.” – Bill Dana, Comedian

At the end of the famous movie, Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick, shoots Maj. Strasser as he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Capt. Renault (played by Claude Rains) saves Rick’s life by telling the police to "round up the usual suspects.”

As business leaders look to cut costs, the training department has become one of the “usual suspects,” an unfortunate and short-sighted occurrence. With literally billions of dollars spent on training, why is it not more effective in changing organizations’ practices?

Running the Gauntlet

Trainers should consider the following ten tips when invited to the head table:

1. Front-end alignment: Training needs to translate broad strategies into desired outcomes and needed changes in skills and behaviors. Training content and delivery needs to be geared toward delivering a tangible value.
   
   
2. Training ain’t learning: When something is said, it doesn’t mean it is heard. Trainers need to find out how much people have actually learned and retained.
   
   
3. Learning ain’t knowing: Training needs to be careful in ensuring that what is taught is real and that it doesn’t end when the class is over.
   
   
4. Knowing ain’t doing: Training needs to challenge the very basic assumption that “doing” happens through “knowing.” The new motto training needs to adopt is: “Hear it, write it, talk it, do it!”
   
   
5. Be careful what you wish for: If training is going to result in process improvements that will, in turn, result in job losses, what is the incentive to learn?
   
   
6. Cognitive dissonance: Training needs to be mindful of the reinforcement processes in place. Many times, what the organization says it wants people to do is not necessarily what is rewarded.
   
   
7. We’re all in it together: If there are contradictory goals among various departments such as sales, implementation, client management, service delivery, and information management no amount of training will put them on the same path.
   
   
8. One size doesn’t fit all: Adult learning research has shown that different people learn differently. Training needs to incorporate the needs of all different learning styles so everyone can track along.
   
   
9. Haves and have-nots: Beware of management training with the hope of a “trickle-down” effect. Training that involves removing employees from their revenue-generating activities is actually used against employees with the expectation someone else can share what they learned.
   
   
10. What’s measured is treasured: Training needs to develop, measure, report, and hold itself accountable for metrics at each level. Judge for Yourself

Whether you are a business leader or a training professional, it is important to ask if any of these obstacles apply to your organization, to what extent, and how best to overcome them. Unfortunately, most of the burden for figuring this out falls on training. Although the list of obstacles is long, a simple first step for training would be to examine the assumptions that are going into every aspect of the training activity.

Perhaps it's time for training to learn a new trick not remain a "usual suspect?"

A management consultant, author, and speaker, Abhay Padgaonkar is the founder and president of Innovative Solutions Consulting, LLC (www.innovativesolutions.org), which provides advice on turning strategy into action to major clients such as American Express. He was the recipient of ASTD’s Excellence in Practice award in the Workplace Learning and Development category for his work in the area of employee retention. © 2006 Abhay Padgaonkar

Published in Networking Today, November, 2006