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The Advantage Way^SM:
A Blueprint for Achieving Business Results Through Learning

Anyone who has been in training as long as we have knows this: Sometimes training leads to great business results and sometimes it does not.
Some trainees take their learning back to the workplace and use it in ways that pay off richly by increasing sales, getting more customers, attracting and retaining associates, and so forth. But there are also trainees who never use what they learn or use it poorly when they try—despite our great programs and best efforts to deliver thought-leading content and learning methods.

Imagine the impact that could be achieved if everyone who ever participated in training in your company put their new learning to use to drive a business result. Return-on-investment would be sky-high and training would be everyone’s hero.

Delivering on the Training Investment
This is exactly the challenge that Advantage Performance Group has taken on, and on which we aim to deliver. Helping us achieve this lofty goal is the work of Dr. Robert O. Brinkerhoff, creator of The High Impact Learning System® approach, an integrated conceptual framework and method with tools for increasing the business impact of learning investments.

Brinkerhoff is a world-recognized evaluation and training effectiveness expert, and coauthor of nine widely read books including recent offerings The Success Case Method and High Impact Learning.

Along with development partner Dennis Dressler, Brinkerhoff researched and evaluated the effectiveness of hundreds of training programs in scores of organizations in both the private and public sectors. What he found led to The High Impact Learning System, an innovative approach grounded in years of research and testing. Global organizations such as Delta Airlines, Motorola, Merck, QUALCOMM, Boeing, and Hewlett-Packard are some of the systems’ vocal proponents.

Working together, Advantage Performance, The Real Learning Company, Brinkerhoff, and Dressler have built the approach into an easy-to-use, consistent, and proven method we call The Advantage WaySM that will assure our customers that their training investments lead to specific, clear, and worthwhile business results. And, we will be able to prove it, using the innovative Success Case Evaluation MethodSM, also developed by Brinkerhoff.

A Flawed Model: Training As "Magic Bullet"
The old paradigm suggests that if trainees are given good training, then their job performance should improve. This "magic bullet" model is fatally flawed because it tries to separate what a system’s view of performance tells us cannot be separated. This model construes training as only the delivery of learning events, not as one aspect of a far more comprehensive learning-to-performance process.

In the "magic bullet" view, learning needs are not derived from and clearly tied to business needs. Business needs are not systematically analyzed into process, team, and individual performance objectives. Learners are not clear about why they are receiving training, or how their training is meant to benefit them and be used to drive business results. Their bosses are even less clear about these matters. All too often, management "support" for training is defined as, and limited to, approving budgets for training and giving permission to participate.

When learners return from training that supervisors were indifferent about sending them to in the first place, their new learning is met with benign neglect at best, and sometimes even open derision or suspicion. Performance support actions such as effective coaching, rewards, and other reinforcement are not provided at all or are not clearly linked to the new learning. In short, there is no systematic and cooperative effort between trainers, learners, and learners’ managers for continuously managing the learning-toperformance process.

Advantage has always known that a more systematic approach was needed and we have worked hard with our clients to "make the training right." Now, for the first time, we are able to offer a consistent and reliable method— a blueprint—that we know works. We can help our clients adopt it to get the business results they have always aimed for. And this method can be applied to existing programs or new learning initiatives, whether internally developed or externally licensed.

"It’s About Creating the Impact,
Not Measuring the Change"
The Advantage Way is a breakthrough approach, because the goal is creating performance that is tied to business results instead of simply helping learners change behaviors or acquire new knowledge. As one Manager of Worldwide Sales Learning described the approach, "The key was being able to share information that it’s about creating the business impact, not measuring the behavioral change."

The first step along The Advantage Way is a thoughtful and precise identification of the business and performance goals that will drive the most value for the client. Then, we dig in to forge the "deep business linkage" that ties each individual’s learning and performance improvement goals to an important business objective. We next design the appropriate learning intervention that combines the best from the APG solutions portfolio. An integrated set of methods and tools for managers is provided to nurture, support, and guide learning into continuously improved performance.

Finally, we build a thoughtful and constructive evaluation strategy, using the Success Case Evaluation Method. A Success Case^SM closely integrates performance- improvement principles and methods. This assessment process gauges:

• What learning is actually being applied, how much, and how well?
• What improved job performance and business results are being achieved?
• What are managers doing to support and reinforce the transformation of learning into improved performance?
• What systemic obstacles, impediments, and facilitating factors are interacting with performance?
• What new needs are emerging?

Then, and very importantly, we share this information with all of the parties involved in the learning- performance process, not just the training staff. By building learning interventions that pay attention to the realities of how learning must work handin- glove with managers to improve performance, training can help achieve huge dividends in improved business results. By focusing on a systemic approach to evaluation that actively involves managers as partners with the training department, client organizations can build shared ownership for the learningperformance process. When it works, they can celebrate joint successes; when it could work better, they can work together to understand why and make needed improvements.

Finally, by building on the knowledge this inquiry creates, organizations can build capability to continuously leverage their entire precious learning investment into improved business performance.

The APG Promise
"This blueprint will have a tremendous impact on our clients’ ability to not only justify their training investments, but also assure that they achieve the greatest possible business results," says Jackson. "The Advantage Way and our partnership with Rob Brinkerhoff are allowing us to consistently deliver on our promise to ‘make the training right.’ We are increasing the impact of every world-class training solution that we offer clients by ensuring that training organizations achieve a clear business result from each of their training initiatives."

Call Advantage at 1.800.494.6646 x321 to request information about The Advantage Way and FREE system previews offered by Advantage.