Throwback Thursday - Manager Involvement is Part of the Training
This was originally published in June 1993 in Bob Pike’s Creative Training Techniques Newsletter.
In a lot of companies training is viewed as a battleground, with the training function on one side and management on the other.
I even hear the lament, “If only they (management) would just get out of the way and let us do our jobs!”
Thinking like that, however, overlooks an important point:
Having managers involved is part of the job of training.
After all, the training we do isn’t our training. Ideally, training is designed and delivered in response to needs that have surfaced in the organization. And it would be difficult for those needs to surface without the involvement of managers in identifying them.
Yet sometimes a total needs assessment consists of a manager simply calling up and saying, “I need a program on XYZ.”
A need is expressed, and that’s the end of the needs assessment.
So now we are designing and delivering their training.
As trainers, we then need to focus on results rather than activities, and constantly ask the question, “What can I do to help generate results?”
Fostering ownership of the training process, a process that is not complete until the new skills and knowledge are being actively applied on the job, is essential to forging a productive relationship between the training function and management.
This is not trailblazing stuff.
We are all acutely aware of the need for management support. Yet the subject continues to deserve our attention and is certainly worth repeating.
Fostering ownership includes using some of these strategies:
Tying training to, and incorporating training into, your organization’s mission.
Obtaining full membership on the senior management team.
Linking training to your organization’s business plan.
Treating training as an investment with the same payoff as research and development.
Assisting managers in finding gaps in employee performance that keep the organization from achieving its goals. Quarterly meetings with executives, for example, are useful for exploring and communicating training and development needs.
Doing a thorough needs analysis, so managers get the most benefit from the programs delivered. Go beyond responding to requests for training to ask questions about why such training is important. Questions such as, “What problems exist that will be solved by delivering a training program?” or “How will this training make people more productive?”
Involving managers in the needs assessment, so they can see the value of the training being designed and delivered.
Instructing managers on how to prepare employees to attend training to help create the right learning environment.
Helping trainees identify opportunities to apply the new skills and knowledge on the job once training takes place.
Looking for opportunities to use managers in training sessions. Manager participation adds credibility to the training message and managers can sometimes reach across barriers that may be blocking communication.
All of the above strategies will help ensure that the organization gets the right results.
Pollyanna thinking? Perhaps.
But the organization that moves in this direction is the organization that will have its employees as part of its competitive advantage in the last half of this decade, and in the new century.
Duane’s Take -
The tension between training and management is still with us.
Sometimes trainers act like managers are in the way. Managers act like training is a service desk. Somebody asks for a class, L&D builds the class, and everyone wonders later why behavior did not change.
Bob’s point is simple: manager involvement is not interference. It is part of the job.
Training does not belong to the training department. It belongs to the organization. If the goal is performance, managers have to be involved before, during, and after the training.
Before training, managers help identify the real problem.
During training, they help reinforce why the work matters.
After training, they help create the conditions for people to actually use what they learned.
Without that, training becomes an event. Maybe a good event. Maybe even an enjoyable one. But still just an event.
The modern L&D team has to stop acting like an internal vendor and start acting like a performance partner.
That means asking better questions when a manager requests training.
What problem are we trying to solve?
What does success look like?
What are people doing now?
What do they need to do differently?
What support will they have after the session?
Those questions may slow the process down at first, but they save time in the long run. They keep us from building classes for problems that training cannot fix.
Bob was right. Management support is not a nice extra. It is part of the training process.
If managers are not involved, transfer is mostly wishful thinking.
And as Bob used to say,
Until next time, add value and make a difference.