Those are words a parent never wants to hear. After enduring sixteen hours of labor, my wife delivered our son, and due to general anesthesia from an emergency C-section, I was the first of us to see him. I can only imagine what the doctor and nurses must have thought, because he was one ugly baby. But this book is not about babies. It is about training. And in the course of what you read here I just might refer to training as the “ugly baby”; however, not so much at the course-level, but at the level of our intentions for the role that baby plays in giving back to the organization later in the span of its life.
Author: Gary G. Wise - Author - Grief Coach
Unsupervised, unfiltered, and occasionally undisciplined Writer of Things that thrill readers with engaging stories created by a seasoned storyteller.
A question many of us have sought to answer…or maybe “predict an ETA”…came up in one of my networking groups this morning. “When you do you know that the Learning & Development function in your organization is fully developed?” The answer to this may be as impossible to define as it is to nail Jell-O to the wall. Methinks being fully developed, means being in a constant state of “evolution” with a minimum of resistance to change.
A recent post “Evolving Training Into the Perfect Hole” brought a comment to me that I could really identify with as being a key challenge – justification for seriously considering learning @ the point of work. I find it stunning that the concept of learning @ the point of work is such a hard sell, especially when you consider that opportunities to learn and moments of potential failure happen at the same time…and very often in the same place – @ the point of work. Better training…or more training…have little-to-nothing to do with justification. What could you possible justify in the absence of real risk?
Deployment gets you to the end-of-training celebration party and the three-bite shrimp, the balloons, the creepy clowns, and the face painting. A frightfully high percentage of system knowledge packed into the heads and hearts of learners evaporates [unreinforced knowledge retention loss] almost before all the confetti is swept up from the gala celebration. Then comes something called GoLive, and heads and hearts that were “certified as ready”, struggle with crippled recall knowledge; some users settling for feelings of success when they can remember enough to sign-on to SAP or the EMR the first time. Now our learners are in their downstream, post-training environment called the work context. Now they are outside of the scope and charter of most training organizations. Now they are most dangerous. As Satchel Paige said, “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you; it’s what you think you know that just ain’t so!”
Having been a Sales Trainer, Sales Training Manager, and Director Sale Training in a couple of previous lives, I nearly jumped out of my chair when I read a blog post by a new networking contact, David Brock. Dave authors a blog, Partners in Excellence, and his post of December 7th “Let’s Put an End to Product Training” triggered a wee bit of a dance…not really, but I did unleash a couple mental fist-pumps. First-hand experience and many many road miles confirm how wasteful product training can be. I must add, it is not “What we train” as much as it is ‘How we train it.” Sales reps certainly need product knowledge, but the ability to spew features and promise of intangible benefits at a prospect is a waste of time and energy to both parties.
The original question… “What Kind of Learning Is Best Suited to Mobile Technology? …surfaced yesterday in a networking group and included three different learning contexts:
– Acquisition of learning
– Retention of learning
– Application of learning
The first thing that popped into my head was… “Yeah, all three are a good fit!” Then the consultant in me kicked in and the answer morphed to what we are all trained to give… “It depends.”
Having all my bases covered, I attempted to clarify…or was that justify…
C-suite’s addiction leads to relentless pursuit of ROI. There’s a headline for you! I recognize this affliction is common these days and any attempts to pry fingers off traditions are often seen as more of an assault than an effort to evolve beyond current paradigms. Methinks we ultimately must drive transformational change in the perceived role Training & Development (T&D) plays in the organization. Current T&D practices produce traditional training outcomes. What the C-suite needs to see…and will respond to…are a workforce that has the capacity to be agile and effective at the point of work…AND…produces sustainable business outcomes.
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Draw of the Flame
Who among us have resisted the urge to pass a finger through the flame of a candle? I certainly recall warnings that fire equals hot equals burn equals pain. Were you warned? I am sure you were, and yet, we all had to learn what hot meant by taking the risk, ignoring the sincere warning of one who had already made that same mistake. Is that a weakness? A flaw? Or is it just part of growing up? Unfortunately, as we leave childhood and pass into and through our teen years, risks are not as benign and simple as candles, and often the stakes are much higher…as are the flames.
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The Power of Choice
Is learning always about improving one’s self? On the windward side of 50 years of age, I would argue it’s not…and…I would argue it is never too late to learn. This post is the first in a new section of Living in Learning. It is dedicated to Learning About Living. For our teenagers’ sake, some of us may have almost as much to learn as they do about living.
When we strip away products & services and the marketing glitz & glitter, what is left that sustains [or not] the viability of a business? My vote goes to – the workforce. Even if we do not strip these things away, I still feel strongly that the workforce is at the root of a successful sustainable business. Obviously, there are other external factors like the state of the economy, cost and availability of money, and other environmental drivers and restrainers, but even including them, the pressures and demands on the business to survive, much less flourish, still is largely dependent on the effectiveness of the workforce. Why then do we insist on training them where direct business impact is not part of the outcome?