Learning Ideas

This week I had the opportunity to hear Bob Pike speak in a group of less than one hundred. The form of the event was a “fire-side chat” and the topic was “Top 10 Questions Trainers Ask.” Instead of making it a presentation – the “Trainer’s Trainer” made it an open discussion. He gave each group a chance to come up with a couple of burning questions and then answered most of them.

One question was “Where do you see the Training Industry in 20 years?” His answer, or rather the discussion, directly addressed one of my pet peeves in business today. He answered the question by saying that we need to change our name to “Performance Improvement” or we might not exist as a profession in 20 years. He continued by mentioning the top three issues of training 20 years ago.

1. How do you get manager buy-in?
2. How do you ensure retention?
3. I think the last one was: How do you deal with difficult participants?

Sound familiar? Of course, these are still the three big questions today.

Then he went on to explain that many people involved in T&D come into the field as a job assignment – perhaps they are a high potential employee needing to learn more about the company and T&D is a good place for that. They are in the position for a few years, learn what they need to manage the position, then move on to something else. The key point here is that in most T&D positions, we are simply ‘reinventing the wheel’ and not just once, but over and over.

This reinforces my complaint that the people “running” training should be training professionals. The difficulty here is that the training department is a good place to a) get an overview of the focus areas of the department/division/company and b) to meet and work with the employees and managers in the field. So what is the solution to using this great opportunity to develop future operations managers and executives?

Being a technical trainer has potential, but not as great as running the department. However, at one employer I worked for, they had a perfect position. This position had the responsibility of explaining the training programs to employees within an assigned region, of ensuring that employees worked through these programs and of working with HR and Management to help these employees advance into new roles. These people had to understand the training program, make presentations, meet with employees and management – all of the elements they should get out of the assignment for their personal growth, while enabling training management to focus on growing employees and improving performance.

Of course, the company still used the Training Management positions as growth positions as well. Whoever invented this role had a great idea – however they did not get the message on to HR and upper management. Maybe they were not Training Professionals themselves, and that possibility was not part of their thinking. Still it is something to think of for the future.

Every action has consequences. We know the consequences, and okay, the advantages, of using the training function as an executive training ground – what would be the consequences of using training leadership positions to grow the profession? I, for one, would love to find out!