We work as external consultants. We make our day-to-day living from organisations that hire us for training, coaching and consultancy. A large majority of the work we do has training at its centre. We have both existing clients who use us on a regular basis and prospective clients who have heard about us from one source or another. It may be that we are invited to deliver or adapt a core programme, or we are asked to respond to a new development opportunity. The reason that we mention this is that one issue that we see repeatedly is that by the time we are brought in, the decision has already been made that training is the answer. In isolation, it rarely is. On occasions we have talked ourselves out of work because we pushed back and suggested that training was not the best response. Here are three examples:

• A team requiring ‘training’ might be better served with mentoring.
• A manager who wants to invest in team development because the team is not motivated may require one-to-one coaching.
• A manager looking for training on appraisals may get better results by focusing on changing the appraisal tools or process.

So if we are truly to embrace the idea of becoming capability and performance experts, we need to assess if and how training fits with a development opportunity. This chapter will address the following questions:

• What mistakes can we avoid?
• How else can we develop people’s capability?
• What questions can we ask in order to determine what the best course of action is?
• If training is the best option, what is a sensible training process to follow?

A blueprint for extinction

This is aimed at training managers (you may well have a different title) internally employed in any organisation whose remit incudes arranging and delivering training courses. From our experience of working in this capacity, combined with over a dozen years as consultants, we believe we have what is now close to a blueprint for extinction. So if you are simply not prepared to adapt and are looking to join the dinosaurs, we have 16 top tips and ideas which will accelerate your decline.

We trust that you can see the tongue in cheek slant to the above ‘tips’! Hopefully, you do not recognise the majority of these tips to extinction in your own world. We have, however, seen all the above in some organisations in which we have worked. How can we adapt so we don’t die out? The very fact that you are reading this book now suggests you want to survive and adapt so here is the flip side to the list above – five key fundamentals to focus on in order to survive and flourish.

So how do you know if training is the right answer?

Development options

There is so much a training manager (you may well have another title) can do to help people develop, as we all know. It is not necessarily a matter of doing more, it’s about doing better – customising the approach to development to fit each individual and team situation. You are likely to be much more effective as an internal consultant in your organisation if you can develop your expertise in as many areas of development as possible so you can become a trusted adviser internally and help decide whether training, another learning intervention or blended learning is the best response to a ‘training’ need. Training can unfortunately, even now, be seen as ‘employee repair’, which is not a helpful attitude if you are truly working towards developing a learning organisation. Sometimes, it is necessary to intervene with business sponsors who are requesting training, to remind them of this misapprehension if you think they view training in this way. One gripe we often have as external trainers is when participants turn up on our courses to improve capability in areas that are not directly associated with their current role.

There is a plethora of ways to develop your people. You may already be an expert in several of these. Here is a list of approaches that are chosen in organisations (you may well have more):

• on the job – formal apprenticeship, work shadowing, job moves, special projects, just-in-time learning through development portals such as People Alchemy (www.peoplealchemy.co.uk), role modelling, coaching on demand or informal coaching to deal with specific issues (delivered by organisations like Coaching on Call (www.coachingoncall.com), e-learning, individual learning programmes, 360-degree feedback;
• one-to-one – coaching, mentoring, training, performance reviews and feedback leading to an individual development plan;
• group training – small/ large groups, conferences, delivered either internally or externally (often both), outside testing;
• group learning – action learning sets, study groups, project teams.

To find out more about any of the above go to www.ftguidetobusinesstraining.com.

Essentially you have four fundamental questions to answer when you get a group training request, if you are internally focused, which will allow you to form the right decision:

1. What is the change that is required?
2. Is it really a group need or is it an individual need?
3. Is training the best fit for this need?
4. If it’s not training, what is the best way to develop this group?

Often a blended approach to a development request works best. Blended (sometimes referred to as ‘hybrid’ or ‘mixed mode’) learning combines face-to-face classroom methods with other related activities such as the ones identified in this book. This choice creates a more integrated approach for both trainers and participants and shifts the locus of control from the trainer to the learner. So, a blended package is, if you have the resources and the will, often the best option. Part of your role, in liaising with other interested parties, is to decide the nature of the blended solution which should be focused on meeting the individual and business outcomes.

As an individual with responsibility, here are some important questions to ask yourself which will help you in your decision making about what interventions will work best.

• If the opportunity has come direct from a manager, to what extent has he or she completed a needs analysis and how well does he or she know the team?
• To what extent is this a priority for the group/manager/both parties?
• How important is this strategically?
• What is the motivation for change to the business, for their manager and for the individual?
• What is going to work best?
• If you agree that training will help, will a one-off training event be enough to get the change required?
• If not, what other development mechanisms does the group need to help them meet the outcomes?
• What am I trying to develop – knowledge, skills, behaviour, attitude, aptitude? A mixture of these?
• How important is speed?
• Does the learning need to be personalised or generalised?
• Do the learners need support from others in the business?
• What’s worked in the past?
• What sort of support is available and how easy will it be to tap into?
• What are the budgetary constraints?
• How can I resource this?
• What are the barriers to learning transfer?

Once a decision has been made, what is a sensible training process to follow?

A recommended training process

In order to really get the change that is required and deliver business results, a one-off training activity is unlikely, in most cases, to do justice to the development requirement. Let’s take two simple examples – presentation skills and induction.

If you are running a presentation skills course, there is a certain amount of change and improvement participants can make on the course itself: they can get more grounded, develop open body language and a slowing down of their delivery. If a participant goes back into the business and is tasked with delivering three presentations within the next two months, and is observed and given feedback by a colleague, he or she is much more likely to accelerate the improvements and therefore become more confident and competent faster. This, in our experience, is not common practice.

Proper induction training is increasingly a legal requirement. Employers have a formal duty to provide new employees with all relevant information and training relating to health and safety in particular. Induction training is absolutely vital for new starters. A well planned induction helps the employee to become integrated into the organisation, maximises morale through early success and quickly raises the level of performance. As well as information exchange, an induction may also include field visits, work shadowing, mentoring, on-the-job experience, skills training, delegated tasks and projects, presentation assignments, internet and e-learning, customer and supplier visits and attachment to project or other teams. So often induction focuses mainly on information exchange. The point here is that this variety will be more enjoyable and because it is not one-dimensional, it is more likely to get someone up to speed faster and more motivated to ‘hit the ground running’.

Figure 2.1 (overleaf) shows the best practice training model.

We trust this process will be useful if you are a ‘big picture’ person who likes a helicopter view. Each part of the process has a specific name, a simple question attached to it and three key elements. For many this will be aspirational and we are certainly not advocating following this process through with all training. That would be impractical. But for important and strategically aligned training or for training that involves large numbers, it is a robust process that works and is considered best practice in many organisations. You will find that all parts of the training process are touched on in this book.

Summary

Just before you move on to the needs analysis part, it is worth reflecting on the key elements that are included in this chapter:

• Training is not always the right answer.
• Extinction is a possibility and we have developed a blueprint if you want a quick exit.
• There are five areas to focus on if you wish to survive and flourish:
  • focus on becoming capability and performance experts;
  • create a pull and push strategy in your training offerings;
  • develop your own and your team’s flexibility;
  • ensure the key programmes you focus on include all parts of the training process;
  • observe the training that happens.
• There is a plethora of ways to develop your people, grouped around the following: on the job, one-to-one, group training and group learning.
• You need to answer four fundamental questions:
  • What is the change that is required?
  • Is it really a group need or is it an individual need?
  • Is training the best fit for this need?
  • If it’s not training, what is the best way to develop this group?
• A blended approach often works best.
• Follow the training process with major or vital programmes.