What can you guarantee?

The training head of a large manufacturing organization asked me – “What can you guarantee”? And I very calmly responded “Nothing”. She was taken aback by my composure coz she had probably expected me to fall all over myself making promises of change in participants after attending the workshop.

I am sharing the excerpts of our interesting conversation to highlight:

1.    Organizations play a larger role than the facilitator in making training effective

2.    Can training really change people?

Here is the excerpt of our conversation.

I was very upfront in telling that Training as a standalone event can rarely change people. It does help in brining all participants to a common denominator & also helps in broadening the thinking horizon of participants. Training cannot be a substitute for feedback that the organization was looking for. I have often seen employees being pushed in a training program without any debrief about the workshop. If there is no dialogue between the participant & the manager about how a specific session can accelerate their learning or what are the changes that a Manager would like to see after the session, whose responsibility is it to make training effective?

I believe & I can surely guarantee success of my programs if organizations guarantee:

1.    Each participant have had a dialogue with their Manager about their current skill sets and on how the program can help

2.    The messages or outcomes of the training & that given by the Manager are same

3.    Manager/Organization gives opportunities to the participants in making the desired change or demonstrate the change

4.    Participation in training is neither used a yardstick to performance nor as a substitute for feedback

I do not believe that training alone can change people, however I do believe

1.    A well structured session with a supportive facilitator can help people accelerate their learning

2.    Along with training, a series of activities like debrief, feedback, action plans, reviews should be planned to continue the momentum of learning created/established during the workshop

Learning is owned by the learner. The Manager should own the responsibility of ensuring employees readiness to learn & the facilitator should be able to simplistically deliver key messages that can be readily experimented at work place