There is a myth involved…perpetuated by a long-held belief that training drives performance. In truth, training only drives potential; performance does not manifest until business results are generated by the workforce in a different area of the ecosystem called the Point-of-Work.
You’ll see it on their faces, and they’ll look up at you with questioning eyes and ask, “You mean this is not a training issue?”…and then you’ll dance like only a performance consultant can dance…right before spiking the folder full of verbatim interview responses like a wide receiver slamming a touchdown pass in the end zone.
Take heart. Our LMSs are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. Our training programs are as effective as training can be. We are as good on platform delivering training as the best trainers can be. Our Flash programming sizzles with the best, and our Level 1s and 2s speak an undeniable truth and that truth we can defend to the death…or to the moment of an unanticipated down-sizing…whichever comes first. We can honestly say this – “Training delivered!” No puns, please. This is our truth, but it is simply not enough to save our bacon…spoken confidently by one who has recently had his bacon drop-kicked through the window of opportunity.
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.