You are approached by the Manager of Well-meaning stuff to create an eLearning programme that helps people to do “better”.
Our productivity is down and people need to do better and work harder.”
When he leaves your office after this direction (or mis-direction) you put your head in your hands and wonder what he means and where you should start.
If you’ve been in the training game for a while you probably created a “motivational” playlist and hope that he signs off on it, but you know it doesn’t have a chance of being really successful. When the programme fails to change anything in the organisation we all point our fingers at somebody else.
The question, therefore, is “How can we help the organisation make better decisions that lead to stronger impact?”
Often, I’m presented with this question. ‘How can I make the training sponsor understand their training ideas are useless?’ My response is: ‘You can’t make them understand anything. You have greater odds of success by leading them to their own epiphany. This requires better up-front training questions.’
This is the key. Do we REALLY understand what problem the business is trying to solve? Does the business understand the real problem? Is the problem really a training issue?
Most times the simple answer is no. Most organisation problems cannot be solved by training alone. Training is part of a larger, more holistic solution.
Participation in one training programme does not change behaviours and it’s only the beginning of skill improvement.
Towards the end, before we agree to develop any programme – it’s time to ask some meaningful, relevant training questions. I have broken the types of questions into four groups.
- Understanding Context
- Understand the People
- Understand the Challenge around the Problem
- Understand the Results.
Understanding Context
Here’s an example: “For Christmas, Sally received a bracelet.”
What happens if we phrase the question this way? “For Christmas Sally received a bracelet from her dying grandmother.”
Now we are intrigued. We want to know the story. What is the grandmother dying of? How much time does she have to spend with her family? Does the bracelet have a history? Having this context helps frame the remainder of the conversation.
When thinking about context, think these training questions:
- What root cause problem are we trying to solve?
- How is this problem impacting business?
- Where is the problem focussed?
- Who is involved?
- What is the situation around the problem?
- What is happening when the problem presents itself?
- Is this a training process, procedural, cultural or management issue?