A Full-Factor Learning Request Process

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Author's Note:

This article is Chapter 46 from my recently published book, The CEO's Guide to Training, eLearning & Work: Empowering Learning for a Competitive Advantage. You can learn more about the book at the book's website (https://www.ceosguide.net/) or on Amazon (https://amzn.to/4674JGS).

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Preface

In the book, I write as if I'm writing to a CEO, letting him/her/they know how to manage their learning function to get a competitive advantage. I tell CEOs how they might manage us better and I tell them how they can get the most out of our good work.

The book is not just intended for CEOs and other senior leaders. It's also intended for us, learning and performance professionals, so we can empower ourselves to our full potential.

The book has received advance praise from leaders in the workplace learning field, including by the following people: ?????????? ??????????, ???????????? ??????????, ?????????? ??????????, ?????? ??????????????, ?????????? ??????????????, ?????? ??????????, ???????? ????????, ???????? ??????????????, ?????????? ????????????????, ?????????????? ??????????, ???????????????? ????????????, ?????????? ????????????????, ?????????????? ??. ??????????, ?????? ??????????????????????, ?????? ??????????????, ???????? ??????????: ???????????? ??????.

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Your learning team is often asked to develop or purchase training programs. Too often, huge opportunities are lost in this process and too much money is spent on training that won’t work at all or won’t work as well as it could. The following process can be used as a template to help your organization maximize learning benefits—while also minimizing unwarranted costs. Using it, even if you modify it to your organization’s specific needs, will help educate key players in your organization to the most critical leverage points of learning and performance.

Here it is:

1.?If you have a preference, what type of learning or performance-improvement intervention are you requesting? Because learning-and-performance interventions can blend methods, feel free to select more than one:

• Training delivered in a classroom, seminar room, etc.
• Training delivered online through computers, tablets, or phones.
• Educational?experiences through local or online universities.
• Knowledge-repository development and support.
• Community of practice?development and support.
• Mentorship and/or coaching?for executives, managers, employees.
• Prompting?tools?development (e.g., job aids, checklists, performance-support tools, signage, etc.).
• Diagnosis of worksite and employee performance factors.
• Research on worksite and employee performance factors.
• Training or support specifically focused on learning—to help you and your team better utilize learning as a performance enhancer.
• I’m not sure—but want to partner with you on the learning team to determine what might be effective.

2.?[Optional—We can talk about this later.] Now, in your own words, describe the learning intervention you are envisioning. Don’t overthink this; we just need your initial thoughts at this stage.

3.?Why is this intervention needed now? Select the ONE or TWO most important drivers of this need.

• There has been a long-term performance problem.
• There is a new performance problem.
• We’d like to take advantage of a new opportunity, but we can’t until people have new skills.
• There is a new system, tool, product, software package, or piece of equipment that needs to be learned.
• We are taking a new strategic or tactical direction, and we need to get everyone on the same page.
• Somebody important suggested that this training is needed.
• We need to ensure that people are up to date with the latest thinking in their field.
• We need to ensure that people are aware of specific new knowledge, techniques, or procedures.
• We must do training to meet regulatory rules or legal compliance.
• We want to offer learning opportunities that provide employees with career skills they can use now and in their future work.
• We want people to think more creatively and be more innovative.
• We have tried everything else we can think of, but nothing has worked, so we want to try something different now.

4.?[Optional—We can talk about this later.] Now, in your own words, why is this intervention needed now?

5.?What other factors might be limiting the performance of the employees who are targeted by the learning intervention? Please list anything that might be relevant. This step is crucial because we don’t want to utilize resources on training or learning if some other factors are really at play.

6.?We don’t want to focus only on learning if other factors need to be tweaked as well. Select as many of the following factors you think MAY be at play in the performance problem/opportunity you are targeting for improvement. Note that, if these issues are too sensitive, we can talk them through later.

• Lack of clear goals.
• Lack of time to accomplish tasks.
• Too few people to get the work done.
• Too little budget to obtain needed resources.
• Inadequate tools, equipment, and systems.
• Inadequate management or leadership.
• Poor teamwork.
• Unclear standards of performance.
• Poor employee morale.
• Inadequate or inappropriate incentives for performance.
• Lack of an engaging or inspiring purpose for the work.
• High levels of stress.
• Unethical, illegal, or inappropriate behavior.
• Too many unproductive procedures, rules, or paperwork.
• Unhelpful personalities or work-style conflicts.
• Unhealthy or unsafe work situation.
• Discrimination, bias, and/or unfair treatment of some workers.
• I’d rather talk about these off the record.
• Other?

7.?In your own words, what workplace factors will have to be modified to obtain the desired results?

8.?What are you willing to do to ensure the success of the learning or performance-improvement intervention that is created? Select all the following that you are willing to be involved in:

• I will provide help in the design of any learning program.
• I will provide help in the design of any performance-improvement intervention.
• I will participate in the full program as a learner myself—whether the actual program or a pilot version.
• I will participate in an executive overview as a learner myself.
• I will participate as a trainer or facilitator when the program is ready to be deployed.
• I will tell my direct reports (and teammates, if I’m not in a formal management role) that they are expected to learn and implement what they learn.
• I will ask each of my direct reports or teammates to implement 1-3 specific action plans after the training.
• I will follow up with each of my direct reports or teammates to ensure they have followed through on their action plans.
• I will provide the learning team with feedback?about the learning or performance-improvement intervention a month after the program ends, whether I am asked or not.
• I will create my own mini-courses (on relevant concepts and skills) and deploy these after my direct reports or teammates have completed their training or learning programs—to ensure they are reminded of key concepts, and they know how important this is.
• I will NOT be directly involved, but I will guide, support, and monitor the performance of those who will be (for example, I will be attentive to the support given by learners’ managers).
• I will do whatever it takes. Please count me in as a full partner.
• I will do the following (please provide detail):

9.?If you are NOT the learners’ manager yourself, or there are other learners’ managers?involved, what will you expect those managers?to do?

• Help in the design of any learning program.
• Provide help in the design of any performance-improvement intervention.
• Participate in the full program as learners themselves—whether the actual program or a pilot version.
• Participate in an executive overview of the learning program as learners themselves.
• Deliver or facilitate some or all of the learning or performance-improvement program.
• Tell their direct reports that they are expected to learn and implement what they learn.
• Require each of their direct reports to implement 1-3 specific action plans after the training.
• Follow up with each of their direct reports to ensure they have followed through on their action plans.
• Provide the learning team with feedback?about the learning or performance-improvement intervention a month after the program ends, whether asked or not.
• Create their own mini-courses (on relevant concepts and skills) and deploy these after their direct reports have completed their training or learning programs—to ensure they are reminded of key concepts and they know how important this is.

10.?Finally—and most importantly—what do you want to accomplish in making this request?

• What do you expect people to be able to do differently?
• What organizational results do you expect as a result of this initiative?
• What benefits to employees do you expect?
• What benefits, if any, to employee families and friends, to the community, society, environs?

11.?The learning-and-performance department will contact you within one week to (1) review your request with you, (2) determine what level of additional analysis may be needed, and (3) decide on whether to consider your request for implementation.

The suggested process above is critical for two reasons. First, it educates your managers?that (1) training is not the only solution, (2) training may not be the best solution, (3) even if training is required, other factors also need to be utilized, (4) learners’ managers?play a key role, (5) after-training follow-through is critical, (6) learning can be designed to benefit employees and other stakeholders, and, among other things, (7) the learning team can help diagnose issues and provide a number of solutions—not just training.

You might ask, well, why do we need such a process? Why can’t we just train managers?that these things are important? Come on, now! If you’ve read this far into the book, you should remember that people forget, they get distracted, they need to have their attention?guided sometimes to be fully effective. It’s great to train them on the seven concepts above, but that won’t be enough. By having a research-inspired set of questions your learning team can use every time a training request is made, it focuses the attention of your managers?and your learning team toward learning-design considerations they should be thinking about—that they would certainly not remember fully without such a tool.

The process above is also critical because it wildly increases the likelihood that effective interventions will be created, and that money, time, and resources won’t be wasted.

I would recommend that your learning team incorporate the questions above into a survey tool for simple and effective responding—and that they track responses over time to look for trends and make adjustments in their outreach and operations.

Your learning team will also need to develop a follow-up process to (1) interview the people and teams who submit requests and (2) develop criteria for deciding the fate of the requested interventions. An impersonal set of questions like those suggested is not enough—it’s just a start! It’s critical that your learning team follow up with an empathetic conversation with the person or people who requested the training.

Your learning team also needs to be authorized to reject requests when training is unlikely to create benefits, when learning supports are unlikely to be delivered, or when stakeholders are unwilling to take responsibility for learning support and follow-through. In other words, your learning team should be entrusted with the same responsibility as other key units within your organization.

This level of tough-love responsibility will not be easy for your learning team. They’re likely to feel uneasy when your Executive Vice-President of Sales—or R&D, Marketing, Operations, etc.—makes a training request that has dubious merit. You’re going to have to lend support and sanctify the learning team’s new learning-request process.

You might consider role-modeling it, too! The next time you yourself are involved in thinking about training for your senior managers, for high potentials, for some strategic initiative, go through the process yourself. Answer the questions, go through the interview, reflect on your experience, and then share your enthusiasms with your team and managers?throughout the organization.

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===== CHAPTER NOTES =====

(Provided at the back of the book, so you can dig deeper, or peruse the research support).

In this chapter, I laid out a comprehensive learning-request process. For creating an immediate impact, it’s one of the most important chapters in the book. If learning teams would use a process like this, they would regularly remind themselves—and other important organizational players—about critical considerations in learning and performance design.

Some people are concerned about the first question in the process: “If you have a preference, what type of learning or performance-improvement intervention are you requesting? Because learning-and-performance interventions can blend methods, feel free to select more than one:” It then lists 10 potential solutions before giving the respondents a chance to choose, “I’m not sure—but want to partner with you on the learning team to determine what might be effective.”

The objection is based on the presumption that we should first ask about the business need and work from there to design the learning intervention. Here’s the subtlety. It is good practice to start with our ultimate goals and work backwards from there, but the Full-Factor Learning Request Process is not our design process; it is a process for beginning a conversation with a key stakeholder.

By first asking them if they have a solution in mind, we are meeting them where they are, not shocking them with our idiosyncratic process. Because they are human, they likely have some idea of what they want. We should honor them by listening to them. Later, we’ll focus on their ultimate goals—after we have acknowledged that they are looking for us to help them with a specific solution.

The first question also nudges?them to see that training may not be the only solution—even though most likely that’s what they’re thinking.

To summarize, the Full-Factor Learning Request Process is designed to gather valuable information while also educating our stakeholders to the full range of options available to help them solve their problem or seize an opportunity. The process is designed to get a conversation started—a conversation that is directed toward productive decision-making.

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How To Learn More

THE BOOK. You can learn more about the book at the book's website (https://www.ceosguide.net/) or on Amazon (https://amzn.to/4674JGS).

LTEM. (The Learning-Transfer Evaluation Model) is rapidly replacing older evaluation models. I invite you to join me in the LTEM Boot Camp open-enrollment workshop or contact me to arrange a private Boot Camp for your organization. LTEM Boot Camp LEARN MORE.

My Website. To access my research-to-practice reports, my blog, job aids, and get an introduction to my consulting services. WorkLearning.com/.

Coaching. I'm available as a coach, and offer a pay-what-you-can pricing option. Check out my coaching options.

Book Chapters Available on LinkedIn:

• Training Works! Says the Science.
• Learning Data is Often Crap Data.
• Learning Strategy for Learning Teams.
• Full-Factor Learning-Request Process.
• Separating Good Research from Bad in Workplace Learning.
• Your Experts Aren't Always Great at Teaching.
• Your Learners Don’t Always Know Learning.
• Why I Wrote the Book (not a chapter).

Other Articles Available on LinkedIn:

• LTEM Five Years Later.
• The Danger of Creating Learner Surveys Alone.
• Your CEO is an AI and has Advice for You as a Learning Professional.

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