Training "Stickiness"

Bear with me. I will tell you now that this blog would be even better if I were to show you a graphic. If, however, you are willing to use your imagination, I promise that the end of your imagining will be an understanding of why what we in professional learning call, "hit and run" training, rarely works.

So imagine a three-row, three-column table. Titles on the rows are the people involved in training--the trainer, of course, the learner, and the learner's manager. At the top of each column, envision the phases of training--before, during, and after. So far, so good.

Next imagine that we asked a thousand people to list possible actions, including analyzing performance gaps between current and ideal, planning, goal-setting, presenting, evaluating, and generally engaging in conversation around the training. Now put these actions into a survey and ask people to respond to the importance of each action taken at the various training phases by the various actors.

In terms of making the training "stick," what do you think is the rank of probable impact by phase and actor? If you are a trainer, you would like to think that the number one most important thing is actions taken by you, the trainer, during the training. You would be wrong. In the nine cells of the three-by-three table, trainer actions during training is not even in the top one-third of probable impact.

The number one predictor of effective training is (drum roll here) action taken by the trainer's manager before the training. Number two in impact is action taken by the trainer before the training. Number three refers to the manager and what he or she does after the training. Finally in a distant fourth place comes the trainer during the training. Interestingly, action taken by the learner falls into the bottom half of all impacts.

I wish I had conducted the research that exposed what I had suspected all along. Instead it was VitalSmart's social scientists whose work has resulted Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, Influencer, and soon-to-be released, Change Anything. In my experience, confirmed by research, training works best when it is embedded in organizational change and human performance improvement. Someone must lead the improvement and, generally, those someones are the managers.

In the last several months, we have featured in the TLA Monthly Update training results in three TLA intensive site schools, Forest Pines Drive Elementary School, Baucom Elementary School, and Lufkin Road Middle School in Wake County. In each case, the principal and TLA staff sat down and talked about how our training products could help their school. In one case, we customized training by designing it in-house.

In the other schools, we used proprietary products. But in every school, the principal participated in the training, talked with staff in between training sessions, and led conversations around the hoped-for change. After the event, TLA staff talked with the principal about what had happened and what might happen next. Is anyone now amazed that the staff in all three schools report that their improvement efforts have taken root?

I promised that you would leave understanding why "hit and run" training rarely works. If in the future TLA eliminates "open enrollment" training where folk come as they will and leave thinking that something significant has happened, you will understand why. Time is too short, resources too scarce, and our cause too important to be wasteful.

Change

It's true. People hate change. I believe, however, that it is not so much that they hate change as it is that they hate being changed. What's the difference, you ask? In one case, change is a planned choice; in the other, change is thrust upon them. What does this mean for leadership?

In my mind, the leaders' challenge is to help people understand that without change, whether in the course of a human lifetime or the life of an organization, there is no growth. All nature intends on change, the movement from one state to another. A child is born, matures under the love of his parents, grows to adulthood, and leaves his parents who themselves continue to mature.

Deb and I went to Meredith College last night to hear a lecture by legendary choreographer and writer, Twyla Tharp. Seventy-years young, in her heyday Twyla worked with the best--Balenchine, Paul Taylor, Joffrey Ballet, Martha Graham. Her work has been an inspiration for people the world over. Here is what Tharp said about change: "The only thing I fear more than change is not changing."

You need not know much about dance (and I do not) to appreciate the wisdom of Tharp's confession. If at the end of the lecture, I had been as brave as the young women of Meredith College who came to the microphone to engage the artist, I would have said,

"Ms. Tharp, you have no cause to fear not changing. It is already happening despite your feelings. Get over it." There are things one may do, however, to habituate ones' self to "getting over" change. Chief among them is to periodically and dramatically get out of your comfort zone by initiating change.

For example, last Sunday morning, I ran Raleigh Rocks, one in a series of half-marathons sponsored by numerous corporate interests across North Carolina. That was the first time in my life--but probably not the last--that I have run that far. And I finished in less time than I had predicted--a "blazing" sub-10-minute mile that put me over the finish line in just over two hours. Not bad for an old guy.

For my personal victory, I have many people to thank--my trainer, colleague, and fellow Gold's Gym member, Ashley Lindsay; the unknown runner whom I picked out of the sixteen hundred-man field to pace me; Deborah, my wife and soul mate who fueled, comforted, and followed me on her bike during my longest training runs; Jim Palermo who drove from his North Raleigh home early Sunday morning to cheer me on halfway through the race. No leader stands (or runs) alone.

I continue to appreciate the readers of this blog who wish me well in my imminent change--retirement. Whatever comes next, I am ready. I have a lifelong habit of pushing myself out of whatever comfort zone in which I find myself. I am not unlike the change haters, but unlike the change haters who become paralyzed in their fear, I have learned to embrace it through practice. Maybe I will see you at Raleigh Rocks next year--or not. The choice, as always, is yours.

Out of the Blue

I'm sure it's happened to you. You come to work, seat yourself, fire up your computer, become momentarily stunned by the screen full of unread messages, steel yourself for the long slog, then wham! Out of the blue, you get a phone call.

If you have taken FiSH training with Triangle Leadership Academy, you know what to do. The person on the other end of that phone line becomes your total focus as the rest of the world recedes.  That person is a customer. You are already excited about someone whose day you are about to make. You are ready to catch the potential and release the energy. You smile first then pick up the receiver.

If I had nothing of significance to report this evening before I answered that telephone call this morning, I certainly found then exactly what I needed to share now. My out-of-the-blue moment came when a voice on the other end of the line said,

"Hello, Dr. Bingham. This is Mary May from Stanford Middle School in Orange County. You probably don't remember me but I took Facilitative Leadership with you a little over a year ago. I remembered that you were once a band director and I have a problem that relates both to that and an upcoming meeting that I need some help with."

"Mary, of course I remember you. How have you been?" I said. I honestly did remember Mary and when she started to relate how she had been using the FL tools in her role as President of the North Carolina Bandmasters Association, I realized that my impression of her as an extraordinarily intelligent professional had not been in error.  After some small talk, she drilled down on her problem.

It seems that since my trading the band room for the principal's office nearly 25 years ago, some things have not changed. Apparently, the instrument used by band contest adjudicators remains imperfect and of minimal value in helping new and struggling band teachers convey to their students what really matters in quality performance. Yet some directors have been rewarded by the imperfect system through high ratings at the annual contest. Guess who is opposed to change?

"How can I get all the directors to understand that we need to adopt an adjudication instrument that serves both directors and students well? Mary asked.

Can you see yourself in Mary's shoes? If you substitute "directors" for your employees or stakeholders and "adjudication instrument" for the thing standing between you and success, you will relate instantly. How indeed do you get people to change? At that moment, I was wishing Mary had also engaged in one or more of our VitalSmarts offerings, for example, Influencer training.

Without going into further detail, I assured Mary that she had tools sufficient for the task, asked her a series of questions to surface what she already knew, and offered to review an agenda she was planning for her next meeting. I think she felt better. I know I did.

This experience affirmed in a single setting the value of our work, you and me, in this thing called Triangle Leadership Academy. I have heard from many "Marys" in the last six years, and I am grateful to have been in a position to help them all.

What downstream impact on teachers not in training and families and students of those teachers remains uncertain. What we do know is that since becoming a regional leadership development consultancy, we have enjoyed 15-20 thousand customer touches. Donna is still crunching the numbers. Some days, it's good enough just to know that, out of the blue, Mary called.