An effective training design will help you achieve the outcomes defined in your needs analysis. Too often, however, we have seen training programmes that have compromised on the design. They have lost sight of the need to focus on one, or a combination, of the following:

• business needs and outcomes;
• the needs of the participant;
• the need to see some application or transfer of knowledge or skills in the workplace.

A business training event is not something that exists in isolation and you need to consider this when approaching its design. A training event might be the ‘public’ face of an initiative such as a change programme, leadership training or an induction programme but the context for its design is much broader than just the event itself.

Consider your participants, the people attending the event, and what might be influencing them as they walk into your training session. They are likely to have a job description that specifies key performance indicators (KPIs) (and the rewards associated with achieving these), their roles and responsibilities and other job specific details. Your training may or may not have a direct impact on achieving their KPIs and so they may not feel compelled to pay full attention to your content. They might report to a line manager who might have other expectations of the individual which, again, may affect your training. This might mean that the line manager is not going to support the learning or its application in the workplace. The participant and the line manager operate in an environment that will include colleagues (who affect performance in a variety of ways including informally through political and social means), a wider department, the bigger organisation and its processes, and more senior management. It is a complex web of connections and influences, all of which will have an effect on your participants.

We can (and should) pay attention to the formal business needs but on their own they will not guarantee success. What is needed is a holistic, ‘whole system’ view that feeds into the design of our training. A key measure of the effectiveness of business training is the application of learning in the workplace. The design must address any barriers to this. These barriers may not be addressed by the training event alone and it is important to consider what else needs to happen to ensure success.

In Ron Drew Stone’s book Aligning Training for Results (2008, Pfeiffer) he cites a survey that attempted to identify barriers to performance. Participants in a training programme were asked a key question: ‘What are the significant barriers that limited your effective application of these skills/behaviours at your job?’ They were only asked this question after enough time had passed to allow them to implement the learning back in the workplace. The top answers were:

• ‘My immediate manager does not reinforce/support my use of the skills/behaviour.’
• ‘It is difficult to break away from the way I have done it before (referring to old habits).’
• ‘I do not have enough time to apply the skills/behaviour.’

If a training design does not take account of the wider systemic or human issues that impact on success then it is likely to fail, however well the training event itself is structured.

The training professional needs to focus on three things to stack the cards in favour of success.

The three success factors

For a design to successfully deliver on the results of a needs analysis and address the likely barriers to learning transfer, there are three key success factors to focus on.

1. objectivity;
2. an understanding of people;
3. management support.

1 Objectivity

You will have personal beliefs and preferences that might detrimentally affect your design. Be aware of these. Without doing any research you may think that you know what is needed but this could cause you to make incorrect or flawed assumptions.

If your needs analysis has been rigorous then you need to trust the data you get back. You will find it much easier to argue a position or view if it is founded on objectivity rather than being unsubstantiated.

A big part of objectivity is also challenging the views of others. A good consultant will not simply agree with an opinion but asks questions to understand, clarify and challenge.

As a training professional this might result in having to engage in some robust conversations with business managers who themselves might be working from flawed assumptions. You might be tempted to agree with them but your reputation as a performance specialist will be enhanced if you challenge them appropriately and this will have a positive impact on the chances of success for your business training.

Some questions to ask yourself include:

• What assumptions or beliefs do I hold about the design or content of this training that I should challenge?
• What do the data from my needs analysis tell me, objectively? What do the data not tell me?
• Am I focusing on the business outcomes, participant needs and on ensuring learning transfer?
• How do I know I am being objective?
• Am I bringing appropriate challenges to sponsors and stakeholders? Are they being objective?

2 An understanding of people

Business training is about people and people are complicated. They do not just fit into simple boxes with instructions on what we need to do to achieve the desired result. All participants are individuals with individual needs, concerns and motivations and yet at the same time they are part of a wider system and do not operate in isolation.

In order to successfully design business training you must understand people. Your training must answer questions about why participants will want to listen, to learn and be motivated to apply the learning once they return to their workplace.

You need to identify and address the human issues that will either support or get in the way of learning transfer. In an article ‘The real reason why people won’t change’ by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (November 2001, Harvard Business Review) they cite the theory of ‘competing commitment’ as a personal barrier to change. Examples of competing commitments are dragging your feet on completing a report because you want to avoid getting the next one or not engaging with other team members because you want to avoid the possibility of conflict that goes with it. Understanding that people have competing commitments helps you define what needs to be designed in to training to make a real difference.

Some questions to ask include:

• What needs to happen for existing ineffective habits to change?
• Why would someone want to transfer this learning to the workplace? What’s in it for them?
• What rewards, relationships or mind-sets might limit success for an individual? (Rewards, interestingly, can work against success – be sure you are rewarding the right things.)
• Why would their manager help and support them in this? Why would they not?
• What is the right way to bring about this change (rather than what would the participants prefer)?
• What internal political considerations might affect the result? What can I do about them?
• What are the competing commitments that participants might have?

3 Management support

If your business training is designed to bring about some change in behaviour or development of a new skill (even if it is a behaviour or skill that the participant wants to develop) there is a slim chance of it happening without the active support of participants’ line managers. There are too many other things going on in a participant’s work life that can conspire to prevent learning transfer.

Equally, if you are trying to change something that has no direct positive impact for the participant’s line manager then the line manager might consciously or unconsciously sabotage the learning transfer.

So, management support is critical and it is something that needs to be reflected in the design. Managers need to support the training before and after it occurs and good training design will need to give them the ‘Why?’ as well as the ‘How?’

Often, some simple steps can help ensure the support of a participant’s line managers:

• Ask them questions about learning transfer as part of the needs analysis phase.
• Arrange pre-training briefings to explain the training and build the motivation by giving them the ‘What’s in it for me?’ Connect them with how the learning transfer supports the business needs.
• Help them understand what you need from them including conversations they should have with participants before the training and how they should follow up with participants after the training.
• Discuss barriers with them and what can prevent or overcome these barriers.
• Help them by providing coaching questions to use as part of their follow-up.

Some questions to ask yourself include:

• Why would a participant’s line manager support this business training? What’s in it for them? How does the transfer of learning from this training make their life easier?
• What would prevent them from proactively supporting learning transfer in the workplace?
• What must I consider as part of the design to maximise the chance of effective management support and reinforcement?
• What, specifically, do I need from line managers? What, specifically, do I need from my sponsors and other stakeholders to ensure success?

The impact of your preferences

Training professionals are no different from other people – we are, in part, a function of our largely unconscious preferences. These include:

• what we choose to pay attention to;
• what we feel is important and what we feel is unimportant;
• our beliefs and assumptions;
• our preferred style of learning;
• how we use language to communicate ideas, concepts and instructions;
• whether we prefer to be more directive or to ask more questions when engaging with someone;
• whether we prefer logical processes or ‘in the moment’ flexibility.

In designing business training you need to be aware of your preferences as it is likely that they will negatively affect the effectiveness of your design. Self-awareness is often a pre-requisite for change and so raising our own awareness as a training professional should be a constant priority.

Summary

You need to consider the wider context within which a business training event exists if you want to create a design that delivers on the business needs and maximises the chance of learning transfer into the workplace:

• A training event should rarely be considered in isolation. It exists within a human and organisational system. Ignoring this increases the chance of failure!
• Training design needs to be based on objective analysis of business and participant needs and on what else needs to happen to ensure learning transfer into the workplace.
• Objectivity requires you to challenge and question sponsors, stakeholders and yourself to ensure you design the right solution.
• Your understanding of people, their needs, motivators and influences is critical if you are to design a holistic solution that delivers on its objectives.
• Management support is too often ignored as part of training design and it is often critical to success. Engage line managers and others early, ask their advice and be clear on expectations. Support them in supporting participants to transfer learning into the workplace.
• Constantly seek to understand your own preferences as they affect training design.