The Do (Way) of Training

“You can only fight the way you practice.” – Musashi

We are creatures of habit. You can learn new methods to do things. We do it all the time. When pressed into function we fall back on old habits and old methods and tired as they may be old strategies.

This blog series is here to offer leaders perspective in ways to improve their choices so as to become better leaders. Not a single one of the blogs you read (mine included), or books, or classes matter if you do not put this information into practice.  

One of the things we offer at the Shan Institute is train the trainer (TTT) and training consulting. How many times have you entered a class, was even interested and paid attention to the material but left with nothing more than that was a nice idea? My personal goal is to try to help change that… everywhere.

We really learn best by doing. So who here still thinks that you will get behavioral changes with a slide deck?

Lets talk about a few important factors. First, training is vital. Yes, I said vital. It is important to offer training to employees. If you don’t invest in your employees they will become burned out and they will leave. Do you have the $5000-to $50,000 it might take to replace every single one of those people? Not to mention the training and time it will cost to get them to the same productive level?  Think about that potential $300,000 and up to a year or more to get back where you were with even a marginal employee the next time you make a training decision.

So just how expensive is that training you are turning down again? How much more expensive can it be if you do not offer that training?

Let us talk about what an investment it can be. If you engage your people and train them you get a return. Both direct and indirect on your investment. The direct return is the benefits of good training on production. The indirect return is a more highly engaged and motivated employee even if the training is not that great if you show interest and investment in them they return the favor with higher production and motivation.

Engagement is the number one way to bring about retention. How do you plan to engage you team?

Make sure the training you get for employees and that you take yourself is not going to preach at you from a podium. To make training work, unless it is really nothing but exposing a new idea, needs to be at least 80% labs - activity 20% 'instruction.'

Wait Larry you come from a technical background what about a customer service course, or softskills? Certainly they can be taught ILT and be successful, right?

I stick to my guns. We learn from doing.

If the soft skills class does not have them actively participating in ways to improve their soft skills you might get them to pick up one or two ideas that they will put into practice. Dale Carnegie’s Skills for Success class is not a sit down course. What makes those skills taught successful in the graduates is because they get to practice every class putting the ideas into actions.

Often I would take my lesson plans that would have me showing slide decks and run through them quickly hitting the high points. Then I would take my students through some sort of simulation that makes them learn the material THROUGH application. Then I would wipe it all out and have them do it again. Then I would teach the next step, and have them go through the last one to get to the new lesson... etc.

It is amazing how some really big companies out there are still doing this wrong. Have entire departments that are dedicated to pumping out ILT courses with slide decks. Because that is what has worked in the past and what they think training is. There was one Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster that outlawed the use of powerpoint for ARMY personnel  for this same reason. 

I postulate that this is far from truth. That the training tends to function ONLY because the students are motivated to keep their jobs. They run with the material on their own to make up the gap, not happening in the classroom. I am certain if you think about the work you yourself have put into learning any particular subject with some if not most of those classes a good amount of that learning was not being done in the classroom. That is a shame.

One simple error often made is with a state dependent learning and technology. We have seen in studies that suggest up to 70% of material can be lost easily by moving a person to a new room to test them. When it comes to technology one of the things that keeps coming up is a need to explain something in the classroom, then have them plug into a system to practice.

Sounds normal until you think about the psychology again. If moving to a new room can lose 70% of your information and you switch from the room your are in, into a plugged-in state of a room in the computer….how much gets lost in translation? Where does the learning need to take place?

The reason why training ideas that focus on the learner, game theory, intelligence focused, learning methods, and applied learning theory are things being brought out by education elite right now it is because working training around the learner and their abilities and motivations makes for more application. More practice equals more retention, higher chance at application.

The more one practices the application of knowledge in class, in a simulated environment to the real world, the more likely they will be able to apply the training out in the real world. I learned this teaching martial arts combative applications to soldiers. It still holds true to any other class I have taught. If you do not make the information applied practice the ability for it to translate to real behavior is limited. You want it to work in the real world you have to practice like it is the real world. 

Kind of the point of it all isn’t it.

You want to practice the things you learn.

If you want an adaptive strategy of improvement don’t just read something for ideas. Make a task list of things you want to add to your toolkit. Place them on cards. Pull out a card you have in the stack and make sure you have a 3 to 5 attempts that day to do what you put on the card. Give yourself a point system with rewards at the end of the week for all the points you rack up. Reward yourself.  Keep a card in your deck until you don’t need it to prompt you to do the behavior you want to add to your tool kit.

Simple card could say “Praise.” Your goal will be to make certain that at least 3 to 5 attempts are made to praise people or their work honestly that day. If that is not an issue for you then there are plenty of other cards to put in the deck. I assure you.

There is nothing that you will do that you have not practiced.

Practice well everything you absorb.  

Make a better world by being better than you were yesterday.

All it takes is practice.

Until next time…

再见

Zàijiàn