Why is typical class-type training a “trust me” card?
Because you do the training and then trust change on the job – behavior and results of the trainee – will happen afterward.
Organizations don’t provide training just to have training. Training is really a desire for something different to happen after the training. Some type of change. Training is just a mechanism to help achieve the change.
However, just being in the class doesn’t make change happen. Behavior, especially, takes time to change into competent habit. Even the best constructed training doesn’t result in lasting change.
“But we’ve always done it this way … we wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t work.”
Actually, no and no.
We haven’t always done it this way.
“Training” over the centuries used to be mostly learning on the job, doing the job. Apprentices. Or working in the family business. Even universities largely started as discussion and research, not lectures and packaged “broadcasts.” Training Within Industry famously solved a labor shortage in the U.S. during WWII with training on the job.
Directionally, education changed – mostly in the 20th century in the U.S. – to deliver in a classroom setting more like an assembly line, with exercises done in class or as “homework” disconnected from real application. Organizational training followed the same path, especially in the latter part of the 20th century through today, as the training and development industry boomed to over $80 billion a year in the U.S. alone.
Typical training also doesn’t work … but no one can tell outside intuition. Training is usually evaluated with vanity metrics … how many people attended, “smile sheets” passed around at the end, etc. There is very little evaluation of what change, if any, happened in the workplace outside the training.
Training appears to be cheaper and faster done the typical way, but that’s a false economy if no real or lasting change occurs.
A better way is to combine “just enough” information with application in the workplace. Even better is to do parallel projects that achieve ROI … and more than pay for the training.
This also works especially well for leadership development.
Done well, people become natural change agents and collaborators for continuing change past the training. This compounds the ROI … and why it’s the Compounded Performance Projects Method.
👉 Want real change that leads to better performance and real ROI? Contact us to discuss how the Method can work in your organization.
Leave a Reply