Overview

Just as knowledge can be powerful when students put it into action, a great philosophy also becomes powerful when instructors have a strategy to execute it. This is the driving message in Part two.

Chapter 5 provides an overview of a business strategy and may be helpful for executives to read and absorb. There are at least three main ways to run training as a business. One way is to operate it as a profit center. Usually that involves selling training seats. The more seats you sell, regardless of the audience, the more money you make. For some companies, this approach can be successful. For most, it is not, since the “profit” they are making amounts to barely covering their costs. As a rule, if you would not run a product line for the profit you are making through training, you should not run it as a profit center.

Companies can also run training as a cost of doing business. Sales people generally prefer this option, since it helps to limit the total cost of ownership for their customers. You should always have a price associated with training, even if you choose to give it away to certain or all customers. This helps to maintain the value of the training program. It may also lead to a hybrid approach. In this third option, managers run training as a cost center while submitting the payments received for training as an offset to the budget.

Regardless of the business strategy, the true value of training is what should be calculated, measured, and reported. If you are a product manufacturer and your company exists to make money by selling a product, the training department exists to do the same. Effective product training will increase sales. Resellers sell more of what they know better. Systems designers integrate the products with which they are most familiar. Consultants refer products with which they have the most experience. This is the true value of training, not how many people took the class. When you provide effective training to your channel partners, you will find that training is one of the most powerful sales tools you have. Technical instructors have the awesome responsibility of getting your partners to be more proficient in using your product than your competitor’s product. When that happens, your partners will lead with your product.

Chapter 6 takes the instructor through nine comparisons that will help them turn their good training programs into great ones. Different programs may require a different focus from this list. It may vary, depending on the maturity of the program and the reasons for which it was developed. The nine focus areas are as follows:

1. Aim at the right target: Doing versus knowing
2. Change the approach: Facilitator versus lecturer
3. Call it the right thing: Training versus presentation
4. Make it sustainable: Standardized versus customized
5. Measure the right things: Performance versus reactions
6. Value the right things: Results versus head count
7. Use the right delivery method: Effectiveness versus availability
8. Continue the conversation: Process versus event
9. Keep improving: Progress versus contentment

Chapter 7 is an introduction to evaluations, both for the student and for the class. Exams can help to evaluate whether the student met the course objectives. Surveys can help evaluate whether the class is meeting the goal. They should be more than just a reaction to the class. Follow‐up surveys help to determine if students are retaining and using the knowledge they gained in the class. Results from those surveys can significantly improve future classes.

How You Can Help

An instructor cannot build a strategy alone. It requires the authority of senior leadership to implement the strategy effectively. Many strategy items require acceptance and agreement from multiple departments and leaders. For that, they need your help. Little will frustrate a great trainer more than to know what the right strategy is, but not have the support to make that strategy happen. Here are three things you can do to help:

1. Help them calculate the true value of training

   Many trainers do not have access to the sales numbers required to make these calculations accurately. If they do, they may need some business guidance to make sense of the data. Help them get and interpret the information they need. Emphasize, across your company, that training is about revenue growth, cost reduction, or improving customer satisfaction, just like any other department in the company.

2. Insist on using the right terminology

   This can be a difficult task in some companies. Many events are often called “training” when, in fact, they are not (Table 23.1).

   If the training must be measurable, sustainable, and traceable, make sure the programs are run by a training department that can do all three.

3. Let them choose the right delivery method

   Good instructors know how to determine if their students can meet the objectives of the training course. They know if students will be able to meet the objectives in an eLearning environment or if meeting the objectives will require face‐to‐face instruction. Whatever the decision, do not ever sacrifice the outcome to simply meet a predetermined delivery method. eLearning (online learning) and mLearning (mobile learning) are wonderful tools that companies should use wisely. Using them ineffectively only dilutes their power. Good training programs will start with the objective and let that determine the delivery method, not the other way around.

Conclusion

Effective training can help you and your company be successful, but it starts at the executive level. Instructors need your leadership to help create an effective strategy of proficiency training. Make effective training an important part of your growth strategy. Help your trainers improve their skills to make it your most powerful sales tool. Most subject matter experts want to help others develop the same skills that they have. Help them help others.