The Traditional Method Just Doesn't Work

There’s a problem in the training industry that we don’t like to talk about with clients.

It’s responsible for much of the cynicism and grumbling about leadership training.

I’ve had the opportunity to develop and implement solutions, though.

The problem is this: You cannot develop useful levels of on-the-job skill from a one-shot training program.

After traditional training programs, the learner is released back to their work area and expected to “just do it” on the job. To use what they learned. To reap the return on the investment in training.

But this simply does not work.

Check this scenario and see if it seems familiar to you:

1. Your company promotes a smart, motivated, and successful employee to be a first-line manager.
2. This highly motivated person moves into the leadership role and their boss explains how they are now in charge of the “people stuff” and shows them how to do the scheduling and administrative details.
3. The boss supports them for a few weeks, giving them pointers and advice about how to handle the new responsibilities.
4. The new manager is signed up for the next available 2-5 day “Leadership 101” training class scheduled every 3-4 months. Or maybe sent to an offsite university certificate program.
5. The new manager does the best they can with a hodge-podge of support and advice and e-learning.
6. That leadership intro class turns out to be a survey course on a variety of topics. It’s all interesting and potentially useful, but the class is too short to be effective in helping them handle real-world issues.
7. When the new manager runs into their first tense situation–conflict on the team, giving tough feedback, convincing the team to accept a difficult change, or missing the numbers–they fall back on the skills that made them successful in their previous role. Naturally, this isn't optimal.

Training gives exposure to those management and leadership concepts, but doesn’t offer the chance to become skilled in using them. (The exact same principle applies to other types of training topics, too.)

How often have you seen this happen?

There are better solutions. Here are three:

1. We can coach the new leader on the transition they will need to make for the role, and provide time for insight, skill building, and real-world practice. Support is built in and guaranteed. The person’s manager can do this, or we can assign a mentor, or it can come from an external coach.
2. We can space the training over time instead of packed into a single course, starting as soon as the person comes into the role, with all of the expectations laid out and skills set up so that the new leader has insight, skill building, and real-world practice opportunities.
3. We can get the new leader into a mental fitness program that builds their readiness to handle all sorts of situations, both at work and outside of it. This prepares them with a “mental operating system” that better enables them to use the “applications” they learn in any other training they receive.

The third option of building mental fitness is a relatively new concept when applied to leadership development in this way. I am finding that it is extremely powerful for leaders at all levels!

Straight-up training programs done the traditional way don’t work. We don’t always like to talk about that, but we keep building them. There are better ways to help leaders transition into new roles and get the skills they need to be successful.

I used elements #1 and #2 along with parts of #3 in the solution for a regional insurance client I rolled out this past year. I also have a full solution with all three parts built for technical leaders. If developing a new leader onboarding or training program (or customizing either of these designs) could help your organization, I'd like to schedule time to talk to you about what that would look like and how quickly you'd be seeing benefits. Contact me and schedule a time to talk.

Leadership matters! I would love to hear your ideas and suggestions.

With focus on learning,

–Steve