Tackle Complexity

Like many, my company has a ton of processes, procedures, and content for people to learn, both in sales and operations. Businesses are complex and need to be so details aren’t missed, quality is on target, costs stay in line and our customers can rely on consistent results.

The challenge for a training professional is how to make the complex simple. New hires and even veteran employees can become overwhelmed with too much too fast. Building out training, communication and change processes can be much more effective by concentrating on a simplistic approach. A few of the key aspects I have found helpful are:

• Plan on pairing down your content. Go ahead and throw you content down in as many slides as you need. Then challenge yourself to cut that number in half! Met that goal? Challenge again to trim a little more.
• Build a foundation based on the classic questions: Who, what, when, where and most importantly, why! This method can help you stay focused and build a flow to your content.
• Focus on what impacts the audience now. You know that one little thing that only happens 2 times a year? Probably don’t need to include in new hire training. It would be better to have it documented and make sure people know where to go to find it – when they need it!
• Jargon? Acronyms? Buzz words? Leave those for advertising. Communicate to people in plain language like you talk everyday.

These tips can be applied to not just training, but also communication, meeting agendas, and overall collaboration with your team!

I always tell people a good training and development professional is like a librarian. They may not know all the answers, but they know the resources and how to help someone find them and learn!