Fred Nickols <
nickols@worldnet.att.net> has asked me to post this for
him--he's on the road.
Training "works" some of the time, and some of the time it doesn't. By
"works" is mean "achieves the purpose or goals for which it is intended."
In general, training doesn't "work" (i.e., it fails) for either of two basic
reasons: (1) it is the wrong solution for the problem at hand, or (2) it is
poorly designed and executed. In other words, it is doomed from the
beginning, or the job is botched.
Conversely, training "work" (i.e., it succeeds) because it is a suitable
solution and it is properly implemented.
These two questions, then, are fundamental to any examination or evaluation
of training:
What are the purposes or uses to which training may be properly put
(i.e., for what kinds of problems is training a good solution)?
How does one go about designing, developing, and delivering
successful training (i.e., training that "works")?
These two questions have occupied much of my thinking for almost 30 years,
since the time I joined the staff of the Navy's Instructor Training School
in San Diego (1969). Over the years, I've dealt with classroom instruction,
programmed instruction, self-instructional materials, instructional systems
development, and seminar and workshop design and facilitation. I've also
been part of training efforts where the emphasis was on experiential
learning (as in T-Groups and the like). I've seen training that was task
based and training that was subject matter based. I've seen all variations
succeed and I've seen all variations fail. Most of the failures I've seen
are traceable to the trainers. Frequently, it is the case that trainers
have a very narrow view of training and so are unable to respond effectively
when management seeks to use training strategically. Similarly, when
management launches a training initiative that is indeed wrongheaded, far
too few trainers know how to turn this budding problem into a promising
opportunity.
It will occur to some of you reading this to say, "But, as with other
workers, aren't failures the fault of the system, not the trainers?" True
enough, but who is to fix it if not the trainers?
I made my living as a developer of training materials, and as a trainer, for
many years. Financially speaking, I was quite successful, much of it the
result of repeat business over an extended period of time (which is a good
indicator of value perceived by my clients). But training leads off into
performance and productivity improvement. Eventually, if you're any good at
the training business, your practice expands and you wind up as a general
management consultant (at least that's what happened to me and to lots of
others that I know). Consequently, one of the "structural" reasons so much
training fails is that it's devilishly difficult to keep first-rate talent
down on the training farm. Look also, therefore, to the training,
education, and career pathing of trainers as one of the root causes of so
much training that doesn't work. Many trainers are taught that training is
a sometimes useful remedy for performance deficiencies, and a generally
useful means of developing skills where the skills do not exist. These are
good uses of training but they are not the only uses of training, and to
turn out trainers who themselves hold such narrow views of training is to
make them the victims of those views--and, worse, to consign training to the
hit-and-miss, sometimes it's useful and sometimes it isn't category of
organizational interventions.
In the end, it boils down to your definition of training. Define it too
narrowly and it winds up in the hands of specialists where it becomes rigid,
inflexible, and unresponsive. Define it too broadly and anything fits under
the umbrella, making of training nothing more than another nostrum. Get it
right, which means to me viewing training as a wide-ranging, flexible form
of intervention, and you have a powerful tool, prized by management and
wielded in the service of the enterprise by people who are proud of what
they do and who are respected throughout the organization.
As you can see, at heart, I'm still just a trainer... :-)
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@worldnet.att.net