Stop Wasting Valuable Training Money
So-Young Kang
Founder of Gnowbe: Empowering Creators to Connect and Amplify Impact | WEF Young Global Leader | Human-Centered Transformation Design
By So-Young Kang, CEO & Catalyst of Awaken Group and CEO of Gnowbe
I’m personally tired of having knowledge thrown at me. There’s a lot of interesting things I need to know that will help me to be a better professional and a better human being. The truth is, I can learn from so many different methods. But when I’m actually spending my training dollars, I want to do it in a way that’s tailored to me. And I don’t want to be talked down to having a teacher teach me things that I could’ve read. I want to experience and engage. I want to maximize the use of that time and that whole learning experience.
I think that if more business schools taught people in business not just about operations, finance, accounting, and management, but taught people ‘why’ those things matter, I think we’ll have lot less global economic and even political issues. So I’m pretty passionate about how we embed in principles. I think the intention of education was to build character. That actually would then make that whole training meaningful.
Many corporations are wasting a lot of training dollars, which can be so much more effectively used, because there’s a certain checklist that has to be done, and it kind of 'bums me out' that these dollars can be spent in a really impactful way with a bit of intention and, of course, with a design and plan and all those things. But it’s possible to do that.
I have 3 questions to help you as you’re making training investments.
1) Are the underlying principles of that course clear to you?
This is important because adults are beyond just learning the ‘what.’ They also need to know the ‘why’ because once they understand the principle of whether it’s storytelling, social media, or whatever topic it is, they can then take those principles and apply it to different parts of their lives, and ultimately help them make them better decisions with that principle.
2) Is it really designed in a way that adults engage and experience the content?
For example, we love to innovate on all kinds of ways to do adult learning. We’ve done everything from Legos, to stimulation, to snow cone machines, to mazes, to group dialogue, to individual exercise, to dreaming, and we’re constantly innovating how we create these experiences so that adults can self-reflect discourse with other people, and really apply this learning in an experiential way
3) Are we really adapting our modes?
Are we stuck to just the traditional one-way classroom kind of mode or do we recognize that technology and mobile devices are the way more people spend their time? Are we designing content that is accessible to them when they’re on-the-go, in different countries, in different parts of the world, in different languages, and in different modes? So, how are we adapting to the changing needs of learners real-time and at a pace that they need to empower them?
At the end of the day, for me, transformational learning is not just about the ‘what’ which is so readily available, but it’s really about getting to the ‘why’ and to the ‘so, what?’ of learning. That, I think, makes the difference.
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Original article here: https://awakengroup.com/?ag_share=stop-wasting-valuable-training-money
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About Awaken Group:
Awaken Group is a multi-disciplinary Transformation Design (TD) firm that that provides in-person experiential learning experiences. We integrate business strategy, leadership and design with values and purpose to achieve sustainable impact.
About Gnowbe:
Gnowbe is a pioneering mobile transformational learning platform that empowers people to build signature learning journeys while on-the-go, tailored to how they want to learn, not to how we want to teach them. This first mobile-only education app addresses soft skills using action-based learning consisting of “bite-sized knowledge.”
Our focus is creating agile leaders for a complex world. 3sixty global can help by facilitating the process by which leaders become more agile and thus more capable of interpreting the complexity around them.
9 年Having 'taught' in MBA programs and 'trained' and by the latter I mean engaging participants with experiential activities, I couldn't agree more with what you say. I think the quote you cited from Benjamin Franklin is very apt. Adults learn best when they are engaged in the process. You are also raise some interesting points about 'wasted' training dollars. I would like to leave that discussion for another time, because there is a lot we can say about it. Thanks for your insightful article.
Enabling Sales Mastery | Founder & Creator, Dealxpert Sales Performance
9 年You've raised some good points about making the training relevant as it happens. The ROI of training usually measures what happens after. We could have 100% engagement during the class, but it's what happens after is how companies evaluate if their training dollars are well spent. And often, the problem In performance is not even a training problem. To your point, knowing the Why is paramount even before you decide if training is even a potential solution. And to add to your point, deciding How to make training stick and deliver returns should be added to list before spending on training dollars.
There's certainly a place for lego and other training tools. I create experiential learning by using real-life examples from within the organization I'm working. For example, in project management we'll use one of their projects and in the workshop they'll learn how to create the team, scope, plan, risk assessment, etc. and we'll actually apply each lesson to their project as the workshop progresses. They not only gain a tremendous amount of new knowledge but have experienced it in a measurable way.
E-Learning, Performance Management, Sales & Marketing, Leadership, Management, Web Development & Graphic Design
9 年Learning and Performance Management software like Edmego, for instance, is helping learners attain better course completions, better proficiency and less of the negative effects from falling behind on their training assignments due to online training's former "stationary" positions. Mobile technology is extremely valuable. As for the world of Mystery Shopping and Market Research, data management software companies are now finally starting to become mobile friendly. This, is turn, is helping shopping companies fulfill their shops faster and more effectively due to shoppers capturing and transferring media more quickly with the use of their mobile devices. This of course is a tremendous help to the companies delivering the service as it can be verified and delivered back to the client much more quickly. Additionally, shoppers are recording their experiences right away so that more important details are not lost in a later mental struggle of recollection.
E-Learning, Performance Management, Sales & Marketing, Leadership, Management, Web Development & Graphic Design
9 年Great article! We love to see when companies get on board and with new learning technology that appeal to the masses, and more than ever, to the mobile masses.