Are you using training wisely?

We'd like to talk about the slightly wooly “Training requirement” 

You know the sort of thing …

The young line manager fronts up and interrogates the HR team
on what sort of training they can find for SoandSo.
This person is clearly deficient in such and such skills.

With a little gentle questioning the HR team begin to realise that
this may be a problem that just could be bigger than a training issue.

How do you deal with it?

Well we’ve all probably tried to TELL  the manager that
perhaps training may not be the answer...

At that point you may have had the discussion about fee earning and non fee earning positions... 
Or  you may have been being reminded of "The Golden Rules”
(They who have and get the gold make the rules). 

We may even have tried to SELL the manager a different idea .
You may have come up against a very fine mesh of the managers critical filter.
So that probably won’t work either.

However the idea from Charles Jennings just might…
Let’s invite the manager and as many others from the team that is involved with
the issue into a room with a flip chart.

Drop a divided pack of sticky notes and box of big pens on a table.
After discussing the issue in some detail, ask them each to write on the stickies,
in their own words all of it’s many and varied aspects. Give the group enough time
to write up lots and lots of stickies.
When the last one is written and on the table in front of it’s owner …
Then tell them that each sticky can only fall into one of four possible categories.

The 4 categories are 

• Knowledge of the person / people
• Skills of the person / people
• Motivation  (including Rewards? Recognition? 
                           Expectation to perform in role?)
• Environment (is it Supporting? Empowering?
                               Opportunities to perform / fail / retry?
  
  
  
  Now draw a 4 x 4 box on the whiteboard like the one below.

   

Knowledge	Skills
Motivation	Environment

 

Sort the stickies into the four categories.

Read out aloud what's on each sticky. 

Invite group members to comment, reach concensus and decide which box it goes in.
Eventually the grid fills up. Even the most obtuse manager should get the point by now.

Yes, the order processing team are taking too long to enter details on the system.

However that's not because they can't use the system (skills).

It's because the network connection slows them down, so they'd rather enter the information in batches at the end of the day (environment).

Yes, the tele-sales team are not productive but not because they don't know how to sell...
They just end up dealing with all the problems no-one else wants to deal with. 
They're just disengaged after years of sifting through someone else’s mess (motivation).

It is the process of discussion that gets people to this point, which means having enough of the right people in the room, in an environment comfortable enough to support respectful discussion.

When all the stickies are up, the person leading the discussion takes a big pen and draws a line across the grid:
 

You as the leader of this learning and development exercise then get a chance to say the following helpful phrase 

"Training can help with anything or any issues that are above the line,".

You can then continue and say.
"Knowledge and skills is what we can source the training to help improve.

However if there's something wrong with the working environment, or your employees' motivation, then I feel I need to ask you to put that right first or at least in parallel with me so that when the person returns from the training the rocks have been removed off this particular runway."

If you need any help with Knowledge, Skills or even help to get motivation into your environments then you know you call always call Rainmaker.
We can help with a little consulting too to focus on what really matters.

info@rainmaker-coaching.co.uk