The Manager - Edition 62 - Training and how to measure it - By Rob Lambert
Welcome to the Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you've had a cracking weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead.
It's been a hectic weekend in Lambertville here with kids parties, football in the rain, football in the sun, swimming in the world's warmest swimming pool and plenty of tidying and cleaning.
I also achieved a personal best in my cross-fit training and recorded more videos for my upcoming online course too!
Although I've been speaking on stage and doing Keynotes for years, I need to still get better - so I also took the plunge and joined Toastmasters - my first session this Wednesday!
And as I write this newsletter I'm thinking a lot about training in the workplace.
Enjoy.
Rob
Training - Identifying needs and measuring
As a manager you will have to organise training. You may or may not have the right budget.
Many managers fight hard to get a big budget, or access to online training, or (if you're lucky enough) access to more L&D courses.
Almost all of this is futile if you're not sure what training your directs need, and more importantly, what the goal of training is. It's also futile as most training found in L&D systems is not designed to change behaviour.
It's not uncommon to find people who have been trained in everything possible for their industry, yet they are unable to deliver business results.
As a manager your goal is to achieve business results.
This is done by organising the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right behaviours.
Behaviours (what your people do every day) deliver business results.
Training should be designed to improve people's ability to achieve business results.
So, as a logical extension, effective training SHOULD change behaviours.
It should enhance or change someone's behaviours - so that they are better at delivering business results (directly, or indirectly).
But many managers simply organise training, have their people sit it and declare victory.
When I ran an L&D team the executives and managers alike did not care about anything other than measuring how many people sat courses. They could therefore say "we trained people". I refused to play ball. The measure of success for training is that people change their behaviours - and this is hard to measure. It's exactly why people don't measure it.
Here's some guidance on measuring training:
Make it clear what behaviours you expect from people in various roles
Study and observe people to discover what support, help and training they need
Find suitable training that has been designed to change behaviours (most training has not been designed with this in mind).
Give your people the chance to sit the training
Study their behaviours after the training and assess whether the training worked
Here are some examples:
You have a Technical Architect who constantly interrupts in meetings - derailing meetings, wasting time and causing people to omit him/her from meetings due to this disruption --> this results in lower quality decisions about the technical design, which in turn causes decisions to be changed in the future at higher cost. (This is a true example).
The behaviours expected should be articulated clearly - good communication skills are essential in the workplace and interrupting is not helpful. You have studied him/her in meetings and know that they interrupt X times (average) in meetings. You have a measure of behaviour and the ongoing consequences of it.
You identify some training and send him/her on it - when they come back to the workplace they SHOULD interrupt less. If they don't the training hasn't worked, or it needs more support with it through coaching. If they do interrupt less - bravo. You can study them in a series of meetings over time to see whether it's working.
It's as simple as this.
Here's another example:
You have a team leader who has a terrible presenting style and they get nervous. The nerves means they keep saying the wrong thing. They are loose with their words, lack confidence at presenting, have a style of presenting that is aggressive, take ages to present simple ideas and all of this is leaving your team demoralised and fed up.
You observe this, you gather feedback, you track for behavioural patterns and you conclude they need some presentation training. You send them on it, they come back and they totally own the room and leave people energised, clear about the next steps and motivated to solve problems.
The training worked - behaviours are different - and measurably better.
Return on Investment of training
Training is about changing behaviours. Of course, there will be times when training is about ticking compliance boxes, or going through the motions - but don't pay for that training out of your budget.
Only pay for training out of your budget that is designed to change behaviours you have observed need changing (and you can't do that through coaching), improve skills that are missing or give guidance on how to use new technology and tools.
It's why blanket, everyone attend this course, training doesn't work. It might be inspiring but everyone is an individual - everyone has different needs - everyone has different behaviours. Training should be changing behaviours.
Sure - some training may be used to inspire people, to motivate, to tick a box and to cover "all bases". But why spend money on training that is not leading to better business results from better behaviours? It doesn't make sense.
It's why fighting for more budget for training might not be solving the right problem. Most training that solves individual's behavioural needs is usually quite affordable.
If you're spending money on training and business results are not improving - you've got the wrong training.
Go forth and train your people by changing their behaviours.
And if you get this right - you'll also have positive employee engagement as a side effect.
Rob..
Cool Stuff To Click On
1 - More empathy needed for remote workers. From Trello.
2 - I think we're seeing a lot more companies owning their own shadow of the future and seeing what impact they are actually having on the world with what they produce. I use Shadow of the future with my direct reports to show them to effects of actions and behaviours. Seth Godin sums it up nicely here about industrialisation. It's all the same thing. We do something, it has some impact, we should be aware of it - and own the effects or side effects.
3 - Why we crave sweet things when we're stressed.
4 - How to write super fast and interesting emails that get results. Not sure about all of this, but some helpful tips.
5 - Buffer openly documenting how it pays and structures their remuneration process.
6 - I see people driven by jealousy so much in the workplace. In fact, I've seen execs so jealous of other execs that they exhibit some really dysfunctional behaviours in order to compete. We are all jealous of others in some capacity, so image a world where there was no jealousy.
7 - What happens when we argue the other side's point of view. I do this often..
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Thanks
Rob..