You need vision...a common goal...
Beth, the Director of Training, strode into the conference room lugging a plastic tote. She thumped it down onto the table. Without a word, she popped open the lid and reached into the tote. She placed the small black box on the table. Then pulled out a hammer and nail. Walking to an empty spot on the wall she whacked the nail twice with the hammer leaving about half an inch protruding. Returning the hammer to the tote, Beth then pulled out a large dartboard. She affixed the board to the nail on the wall.
At this point, John, the CEO spoke up, “Beth, what are you doing?”
Beth moved silently back to the table and opened the small black box. From it, she took a dart. Holding it, cocking her arm back, the point caught the light and shimmered. Snapping her arm forward the dart launched across the room; All eyes in the room followed the trajectory. With a solid thud, the dart plunged into the board.
It was then we noticed that the board did not have sections with numbers. Instead, wedge-shaped pieces of paper were affixed to the dart board. Marching back to the board, Beth ripped off the paper where the dart had landed. She read it aloud, “Call Center Representatives will handle customer inquiries in the most efficient and expedient manner.”
“Yes,” John replied, “We all know that…” Beth cut him off.
“Do we? Do they?” She reached back into the tote, pulling out a laminated Strategic Vision poster, the kind plastered all over the walls of the company. “This is over 10 years old… there are points about improving our online presence, and oh…implementing the Affordable Care Act. But nothing about costs or call centers…”
“Well,” John said, “We have an upcoming retreat to update those…” But Beth cut him off again. Pulling binders, notebooks, and sheets of paper from the tote.
“Department guidelines…from less than half of the departments. Memos from Senior Leadership, issuing guidance that contradict those guidelines.” Beth went on, holding a paper in her left hand…
“Oh, here’s my favorite. From Operations, ‘Call Center Agents must present a comforting assuring tone to callers; without regard to time. A rushed call is an uncomfortable call.’”
Beth then held a paper in her right hand, “And here is an internal audit report, just a month after that Ops memo went out. It reprimands the call center for ‘Taking too long on calls, engaging in needless banter, resulting in excessive costs.’”
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“What’s your point, Beth?” John asked.
“The point,” Beth replied, “Is that since we do not have current corporate level strategies in place, and over half our departments don’t have anything, means we cannot effectively train our workforce.” Beth paused before a silent room, then continued.
“Learning objectives should support the mission and vision of the organization. If we want to make a butt load of money; great. If we want to be the most caring and comforting company in the world, that’s great too. But there must be a North Star…a direction, so we know where we’re going. Then we can train, and develop our people to get there.”
The room was transfixed. And Beth continued.
“Since we lack that direction, I thought I would provide it for my training team. And so the dart board. It’s better than anything we’ve got.”
With that, she picked up another and tossed it. Going to the board she plucked off the paper wedge.
“Leadership Training for Corporate Directives,” Beth read aloud. She then turned towards the door.
“I better get on this one right away!” she exclaimed on her way out.