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Eight Training Rituals to Avoid
1. Being teacher-centered instead of learner-focused
Self-discovery, team-based learning that builds upon interactive learning and metaphor is what captures the minds and hearts of adult learners, improves retention, and creates lasting memories. Stop the ritual of death by overhead!
2. Allowing managers to send their people to training—but not themselves
If managers are not involved in the training, how can they model and reinforce new behavior? Stop this ritual and engage managers in learning, doing, and reinforcing.
3. Using training primarily to build competencies
When you build learning around the result, then immediately apply it back on the job, you will produce quantifiable success. Stop the competency-driven ritual and start with results.
4. When money is tight, training just the managers
Every organization needs committed and empowered employees at all levels in order to succeed. So when you implement management training, share its essence with everyone on the team. Stop the ritual of empowering and educating some, but not all.
5. Expecting off-the-shelf training to achieve lasting results
Training materials that don’t connect to the results you need to achieve don’t deliver. Stop the ritual of one-size-fits-all and make your training fit your reality.
6. Not trying to measure your training ROI
The impact of training can be measured—in the achievement of the business goals you selected in the first place. Stop this ritual and hold your training organizations accountable for results. If you can’t tie your training to a business outcome, don’t do it.
7. Relying on “the experts” to train employees
In the most successful implementations, managers, not outside experts, act as facilitators. Stop the ritual of experts who teach while students merely listen. Make learners use their mental muscle, and get line managers involved in training.
8. Using training to solve all problems with employees
Training is not the solution for all performance gaps. Stop your organization from sending people to training to fix all their problems, and start training to get results!
Excerpted from “Is Your Training Investment a Sunk Cost?” by Richard Hodge, President, Real Learning, Inc. (Management Training, March/April, 1998)
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