"I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing..."

If you're of a certain age, you know the TV commercial of Speedy Seltzer coming to the rescue of that poor man sitting on the side of his bed, moaning to the TV audience, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." You'll recall how all those tiny Alka Seltzer bubbles combatted the overly full and bloated tummyache that accompanied his eating way too much. Developing our organizational leaders and managers is akin to Speedy's product pitch. All too often we realize, too late, what a big waste training programs can be. We know there was a lot there, but have little to show for it except feeling overwhelmed and fatigued. I know I'm not alone in wanting a more effective way of developing managers and leaders... an approach that is not overwhelming and expensive. Maybe the training response instead should be - bear with me - like those smaller effervescent powerful Alka Seltzer bubbles.

The  American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) say companies who spend $1500 per employee training per year make about 24% more profit margins than companies who don’t.

Now, I'm all for thoughtful, multi-day/multi-week, thorough training and development for newer managers. You know the kind, where you travel to spend quality time at a nice hotel - ideally in the winter and in Florida - spending days at a time drinking in a full immersive training experience - with talented trainers, great materials, and a solid design - on your way to moving from being a mediocre manager to a superior supervisor... there's nothing like it - when done right. And because they're so special and powerful, the experience is a costly one for organizations - especially nonprofits: The cost breakdown looks something like this: registration cost + lost work-time + hotel + travel + meals + ground transportation... equals, well, you do the math.

And maybe the cost is justified. After all, the cost of losing employees because of big-hearted, but under-trained, managers and leaders is staggering. The consistent Gallup statistic says that 55%-75% of employees, when they quit their jobs, they're not quitting their work, they're quitting their bosses.

I'd like to suggest there's another way of doing this - another way of creating exceptional performance, engagement, and productivity in our under-resourced, over-worked, disengaged middle management community. One less likely to exhaust our managers - and our budgets.

Instead of the one solid supporting pillar model of management training and development - the hugely expensive pillar - why not support our managers with many smaller legs and supports?

Why not orchestrate the highest leverage+lowest resource-consuming T&D (training and development) intervention that makes a huge difference in management competency and commitment - especially for smaller businesses and nonprofits that don't have cash to burn - but that want their organizational leaders to be much more ENGAGED, SKILLED, EFFICIENT, and EFFECTIVE.

If you have some familiarity with systems-thinking, you know that organizational systems respond best to interventions that are sometimes the least obvious. Although systems resist change, oftentimes they respond best to multiple smaller strategic interventions, rather than one large grand overwhelming intervention. It's like our poor Alka Seltzer guy - gorging himself on "the whole thing". Do you operate best getting all your calories in one meal (like Thanksgiving) - or when your caloric and nutritional intake is spread across 3-5 (or more) smaller meals?

If you are looking to develop your managers competency and commitment, please consider developing a program that has "snack-sized" densely rich workshops or training modules - filled with easy to digest, and easy to apply, tools and "hacks" that can shape your managers into resource-FULL organizational leaders. Let your managers digest and enjoy their management-meal together before you give them another. Let them learn together - and give them the energy, expertise, and support they so desperately need to be successful - but not overwhelmed.

I submit that training programs spread over time - with discreet and multiple short workshop/classroom experiences - are more effective than one big resource-intensive "on site". The Bootcamp approach is cost-effective and learning-effective for our managers hungry for training and support - spreading costs, learning, and energy across time so that the learning is digestible - and enjoyable!

You can do this on your own - create your own bite-size series of trainings that build on each other - with breathing room between each - but if you need help, let me know!

Time to get rid of training over-indulgence.

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, y'all.