Do you ever wonder why training doesn't stick?
So why do we send people to training? Why do organizations create training to send people to? We do that to get different results — presumably better results.
The Three Things That Have to Happen
And if we want different or better results, three things have to happen from the person who attended the training. They must change their behavior. They must use and apply the skills. And they must make it a new habit — make those new skills a new way of doing their work.
That's what has to happen.
Now, to get there, as the leader, we need to help people make those changes — because that stuff's not easy. Have you ever tried to change a habit? It's not easy.
So what can we do as a leader to make that happen?
Part of the answer to why training doesn't stick is this: leaders aren't doing what they could be doing.
Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap
Which means that as leaders, we have to help people close the knowing-doing gap. You may have never heard that phrase, but you understand it, right? I learned something. I know it. But I'm not doing it.
Which means that we have to provide post-training one-on-ones. We have to meet with our folks after they've attended the training to help them do this hard stuff.
The Three Questions to Ask After Training
I'm going to give you very specific things you ought to do during that one-on-one. I want you to ask people these three things.
So they've been to training. You say: What did you learn? You have a conversation about that.
How will you apply it? You have a conversation about that.
And then lastly: How can I help you do that?
All of this is setting an expectation — that when you went to training, when you come back, you're going to do something with it. And now I'm going to help you decipher, as your leader, what to do with it, how to do it, and how I can help.
If you ask those three questions as a leader, you're taking positive steps to help the training you send people to actually stick.
Make It Part of Your Leadership Training
So think about this from an organizational perspective for just a second. Before you schedule more training, help your leaders reinforce the training you've already invested in. Make the simple suggestion I just gave you part of your next leadership training.
If you teach your leaders to do what I just described, and if you make that an expectation of them, you improve the odds that the training you create — and the training you invest in — will actually stick.
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