2 Key Questions to Kick Start Your Training Initiative

Your LT comes to you and says, we need some training! Sweet! Yes! Let's start developing some training ... STOP! Stop right now! Be sure you have solid answers to these questions before you begin. Stop the viscous cycle of the business not seeing value in training and training perceived as not getting the business!

1. What are you Trying to Accomplish?

It may take a little brainstorming and research, but by identifying the specific business objective you want to change, you’ll be on your way to building a training program that can accomplish those goals.

It’s easy to make assumptions about what needs to be trained – don’t! You need to expand your frame and look at the bigger picture. Organizations often jump to conclusions about what they need to fix, but end up only identifying the symptoms of a deeper root issue.

Take some time to define what “results” you want from your training. What is the needle you’re trying to move? It’s most likely performance – so what specific metric are you trying to affect and by how much? Here are some good examples:

• CSRs: “We want to decrease the amount of wrong parts sent in 2014 by 10%.”
• Engagement: “We want to increase the amount of participant information capture over 50% in 2014.”
• Automotive Repair: “We would like to increase the average repair order by 7% in 2015.”
• Sales: “We would like to increase average sales order by 4% in Q4 2014.”

Instead of setting a generic goal, such as increase sales, enhance customer service or decrease cost, these specific metrics provide your training with clear objectives and help point you in the right direction.

2. What’s Going on in the Field?

Now that you know the exact objective you want to reach, do the research to understand the “reality” of how this is playing out in your organization. Let’s use the CSR example above, "we want to decrease the amount of wrong parts sent in 2014 by 10%", here are some good questions to answer:

• Why are the wrong parts being sent?
• Where is the breakdown in the process?
• Who’s doing this right?
• What are they doing differently?

NOW ... all you have to do is go, watch, document and maybe ask a question or two. These are the basics of ethnography or observational research and will pay dividends during your development effort.

If you think about the diversity in your team, it’s quite likely that there are some bright spots in your organization. We love the saying, “We ARE doing every right; we are just not doing it everywhere!” Take a look at the employees or areas of your company that are producing the results you want and ask:

• What is different in their environment?
• What are they doing differently?
• What aren’t they doing?
• What’s missing or present that’s allowing them to perform better?

You may (and often will) find that training is only half the issue. “I had NO idea that was happening…” is a pretty common comment after these events.

While you may think the answers are obvious, it’s important to ask them anyways. Going the extra mile and doing a little digging you will most likely find some "Least Noticeable Differences". These are processes or situations that have existed for SO LONG no one notices any longer. Once you identify what you want your training to accomplish and what’s going on in your field, you can move on to the next steps of building an effective employee training program.