In an ideal world training will be the cure for all ills and a well delivered course will immediately solve the problems it was set up for.
Sadly it doesn’t always work for that and I’ve seen training courses provided that totally failed – but not because of the quality of the trainer.
These are my top 3 training killers – if you have more then please do comment
Number 1 – Lack of C-Suite buy in
You can provide all the training you like but if the senior management aren’t on board with the need for training and the messages it conveys then you can forget it.
I once had a Director of a company tell me loudly that training was pointless and never solved anything. Luckily I wasn’t training his company!
I wonder if he feels the same about the doctors that treat him? Maybe they were untrained!
Number 2 – Generic training
The very best management training is where it is specific to the people that are attending.
Great training gives people the tools to do their job and enables them to make a specific and measurable changes to their work.
But the problem is that generic training is cheaper.
Of course companies that buy generic training also find out pretty quickly that cheaper isn’t necessarily better and in fact when measure in terms of ROI ends up being more expensive.
Number 3 – no clear aim
You should always start out with the end point in mind.
What changes do you want to see as a result of your management training?
How will your staff behave differently?
Having a clear goal gives you three things;
It allows you to make sure you can target your training budget effectively
It gives your training provider the chance to customise the programme to your needs
It allows you to measure whether it has been successful or not.
Start off with a clear goal in mind and then measure the effectiveness after the course.
If you feel like you need to buy in training for your staff then make sure you beware of these three pitfalls and you’ll have a better chance of success