There is no doubt that generally people like to know other people’s stuff and keep in touch, however strong or loose the connection might be.  The explosion of sites such as facebook, twitter and linked in have created a media vehicle that is not only instantaneous but is also hugely rich in “interesting” content.

I say “interesting” and I mean it, although there is obviously some filtration of what I deem this to be compared to my 18yr old niece for example.  Nevertheless, my niece and I share a lot of common contacts and we both seem to comment on their information, news and interests.

Now, imagine having a facebook just for your company.  Imagine having a Linked-In set up to develop the networks inside your business.  Hugely beneficial or potentially damaging?

The way I see it (and this is just my view), most of the development of individuals and teams I do with organisations often carries a common performance issue – not enough sharing of best practice and not enough time taken out to maintain working relationships and networks.  Yet, so often I see examples of situations where one person has faced a similar situation or issue to another yet they never thought to share it until it became obvious in a training session or development activity. Why? Because much of the time there is no “desire” or “impetus” to do so.

So how can we change this?  Well, it may require a bit of a leap of faith and some pretty good policy management but I think corporate facebooks and linked-ins present a real opportunity.  An opportunity to make some real leaps and bounds in our corporate networking, sharing of news, knowlegde, support, resource and countless other benefits besides.  We already have things like lotus notes databases and intranet sites that try to do this in a fashion but I haven’t seen a really successful example of one yet.

So, my challenge to you reading this – Do you you of one such system?  Have you seen it in use?  Do you use this within your current organisation?  Is this indeed an opportunity for some budding entrepreneur?

Give your comments, let me know your thoughts and views, get involved.

So, the other week I was running a leadership programme for a client and I had been getting that old familiar sense that there were a few delegates, actively disengaged or sitting back out of character. Now, on most of the programmes I run as a facilitator, there are opportunities for one-to-one feedback with each other and with me or whoever is running the programme. On this particular occasion it gave me a good chance to chat to each of these delegates individually.

I already had some hunches about what was going on for these individuals that I had picked up from their behaviour, the language they used and the way they interacted with the rest of the group at certain times and over certain issues. Being candid, I broached the issues with each of the delegates and sure enough, there were indeed underlying reasons for their behaviour. For one it was simply that they did not believe they were credible to be doing the job they were in because they weren’t from a typical university background like so many peers. This is a relatively straightforward issue to tackle with some coaching and support.

The other two individuals however had quite different anxieties. One was suffering from a lack of progression, feeling passed over, feeling as though time was passing them by and generally fed up. The other had been through some tough times personally, wasn’t convinced they wanted to try and compete and play the politics required in the client’s business and was seriously doubting their position.

What struck me was that both of these individuals must have been feeling the way they did for a reasonably significant amount of time. Both were really unhappy and dissatisfied with the current situation they found themselves in but neither was doing anything about it, just rolling along in the same rut.

So, back to my question. When is it time to stop developing someone?

This company was clearly doing a very admirable thing investing time, effort and money on developing this population of managers, but clearly not all delegates would return the investment made in them going forward. So why are so few organisation’s grown up enough and sensible enough to recognise the point at which we should stop trying to develop someone and help them find a new direction?

Instead we believe that development, or over development, will give them the chance to improve and change. Ok, in some cases this invariably works, more by chance than calculation I suspect. So, do we try and develop someone or performance manage them out of the organisation?

Both of the individual’s mentioned above are highly likely to leave the organisation through dissatisfaction, possibly over promotion and possibly a lack of decent promotion opportunity. There is little that is likely to change their viewpoint as their relationship with the business is pretty poor. Ordinarily these people will be developed or promoted to a point where they either start screwing things up noticably or till the organisation has had enough and starts down the route of performance management i.e. disciplinary. I have seen this situation happen so often during my career and I believe there has to be another way to manage these situations effectively. How? By being grown up and talking about things out in the open.

I have known people in teams I’ve managed who have been unhappy because they are struggling with the demands of their role. For some this has been a capability issue, for others boredom, hunger for promotion that doesn’t exist. In all cases, my connection to my team has allowed me to realise when these situations have occured. I have always tried to build the teams I’ve managed on trusting relationships that are honest and open. This has meant that when people have really had a challenge or problem they’ve been able to talk to me about it without fear of predjudice or reprisal. This is one of the most important aspects of creating an environment for grown up dialogue.

Sometimes people reach a point in time where their role doesn’t fit them anymore or they don’t fit the organisation and at this point it is time to make a change of some sort. It is important to recognise the point at which a very capable person and a very necessary role become mismatched. This does not mean that the individual is now useless and should be performance managed and cast aside like they have some sort of lurgy or deficiency. Treating someone like they are incapable will only damage their view of themselves long term. I have seen very clever and capable people get their confidence smashed by an over ambitious and demanding manager. I have seen personality shifts in people who were once outgoing and energetic and now struggle to find self belief that they are still capable. This thinking then creates a new, but false reference point for many of their choices moving forward.

Creating an environment where grown up conversations can happen and openess is valued can avoid many of these damaging situations. For example, I had someone working for me some years ago who, for a couple of years had done a great job for me. With changes in the nature of the role they found themselves struggling to step up and performance was starting to slip. Through one-to-one reviews I talked to them about the slip in performance and they were honest enough to admit the areas they were struggling with. Between us we knew that this wasn’t a case of going on a course or undergoing coaching, it was a fundamental lack of desire to fulfill the new nature of the role. They were still a very capable individual and I wanted to ensure they stayed believing this of themselves.

I could have easily started down the route of performance managing them out of the business in order to recruit a replacement, but I didn’t. Instead I put a support mechanism in place to help this member of my team begin searching for a suitable new role, whether inside or outside of the organisation. In return I asked them to support me in recruiting the right person to replace them and to do a full handover to get them up to speed. After two months the team member left the business happy and confident having found a new role with another organisation and I had a new team member who was up to speed and a much better fit with the role.

I worked out that the cost of me taking this approach versus me making life hard for them, pushing them out of the organisation and then recruiting someone new and training them was around three times less. As an added bonus, I had parted company with someone who still held the organisation in high regard and would happily return to the business in the future………………..for the right role!

Whether you agree with my methods or not, commercially, it makes more sense and ethically it makes a whole lot of sense.

So, in short, if you want to manage these difficult situations in a grown up way:

1. Be honest and open with your team and encourage them to do the same without fear or reprisal.
2. Take time to ask your team members how they feel they are coping with the role, particularly when you know they are under specific pressures. The more you do this, the more they’ll talk about it.
3. Be honest and genuine with someone when their performance slips and identify the root cause.
4. If it’s something fixable easily, great.  If not, work with them to help them understand it may be time to move on.
5. Create a win-win arrangement.  Support their search for a new role if they, in return, help you replace them.

Follow this 5 step principle and you will find that dealing with performance issues get easier, exiting someone from the role becomes less painful and you leave the individual undamaged and confident for their future.  You will also grow to become a much more valued leader.

In a knowledge-driven economy, chances are greater than ever that the value you offer comes from making use of expertise. Conventional wisdom will tell you that you get the best from your expertise by deeper learning your field, by keeping up with new developments and understanding the nuances and intricacies of your domain – in short, investing in knowing more.

If desperate for innovation, what is most any leader likely to say?  “Think outside of the box.”

Think about it.

“Out of the Box” is a cliché, a phrase that’s been around for decades. Everyone knows what it means, but it’s hardly a trigger for ideas that are fresh, creative, and original.

If the ‘’box’ is a metaphor for your organization’s experience, ‘out-of-the-box‘ connotes trying to find something that is completely new, totally outside of that experience. It immediately suggests a daunting task, a journey to a complete unknown, a safari. No wonder calls for out-of-the-box thinking are met with resistance. It’s difficult to integrate trips to unknown territory into your regular work, already over-extended – unless of course you are in the safari business.

In helping people to find creative ideas, I encourage people to focus on Edge of the Box thinking – especially if you need ideas with a high potential for useful application.

Edge of the Box thinking is based on viewing the world at the boundaries of your organization and experience, where inside and outside perspectives can be combined, and where fresh ideas most likely will emerge. In today’s knowledge-based world, useful innovation typically arises out of combining core competencies with ideas taken from places outside of your industry or field, but not so far out as to be inaccessible.

Architect Mick Pearce designed the celebrated Eastgate Centre, in Zimbabwe, a shopping and office building that uses only 10% of the energy required for heating and cooling by conventional buildings. In addition to his training in architecture, Pearce had an interest in the amazing structures produced in nature. His remarkable innovations making this energy savings possible arose from the study of how termites keep their mounds at a constant temperature of 87° despite their locations in harsh environments. An anthropologist, Gregory Bateson, helped create major innovations in the field of Family and Marriage Therapy in the 1970’s by suggesting the use of one-way mirrors to observe counseling sessions – something that that would never have occurred to clinicians but made obvious sense to an anthropologist.

Established conventions and ways of thinking create “associative barriers” that inhibit innovative thinking in any given field of endeavor. The perspective of another field or industry, however, does not carry the same thinking conventions and associations. Innovation happens most where fields cross, at what Frans Johansson, in The Medici Effect, calls the Intersection. “When you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures,” he writes, “you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary new ideas.”

EOB Thinking About How You Run Your Business

Toyota provides a classic example of adopting concepts from another industry. In the post-WWII reconstruction years, Toyota’s executives traveled to the US to get a first-hand view of the automotive industry. They found few surprises in automobile manufacturing, something they already well understood. What captured their fascination, however, were American supermarkets. They were especially intrigued with how supermarkets kept shelves of goods and produce freshly replenished almost as fast as consumers whisked products away. Adopting these principles not only changed how Toyota manufactured automobiles – creating huge gains in quality and profitability leading to Toyota become a world powerhouse – but led to innovations (e.g. lean processing) that are now used across the manufacturing sector.

Thinking about how your business would be run differently by someone from another industry is a great way to generate creative ideas and discover new insights. Disney, in fact, has created a thriving side business of consulting with other businesses to teach them The Disney Way of customer service – in short, how to treat people like guests when they come to your themepark.

EOB Thinking About Who Your Customers Are…or Should Be

Perhaps you can find a market sweet spot by looking just beyond the edge where your industry typically operates. Consider Southwest Airlines, an anomaly of excellent profitability, efficiency, and customer service in an industry suffering on all three counts.

Southwest’s success is not built solely on capturing a share of budget-minded air travelers, but also as an attractive alternative to automobile travel that competes well in terms of economics, time, and relative hassle.

Futurists Ryan Mathews and Watts Wader, in The Deviants Advantage, make a compelling case that tomorrow’s mass markets will come from today’s deviant edge. Free-spirited middle-aged, middle-class weekenders are as likely to buy a Harley as Hells Angels.

Lesson: look beyond the edge and study your non-customers – especially those who are not using any competitor in your industry. Is there something you can offer so they can benefit from your core competencies?

Whether creating new innovations in products or services, structuring your business model, or finding customers and markets – the most likely place to find useful innovation and creative insight is at the edge, where your professional discipline, company boundaries, or industry knowledge intersect with some outside arena or field. You don’t have to journey somewhere far removed from your core, but you do need to get off-center and to the edge. When there, take a thoughtful look at what’s just beyond, and then bring that insight back to your core competency.

You might be surprised how creative, fresh, and valuable your ideas might be at the Edge of the Box.

This three part article provides some answers to these questions. In the first we discuss what makes a guru, who they are, and how we determine their worth, crucial if a good leader is to learn from the best.

The second article, developing good leadership qualities by learning from the best, further explores the value of gurus, asking and answering the question: why should we bother to learn from the gurus?

The third article, leadership exercises: putting the best ideas to work, contains a useful tool to help you evaluate the ideas of the business gurus, and to apply them in your own work.

What do we mean by a guru?

The idea of management gurus is often ridiculed, associated with the creation and exploitation of “the next big thing” in management thinking. Nonetheless, serious thinkers support the role of serious management gurus. Charles Handy makes the case:

‘Great ideas lie wasted unless someone turns them into a viable activity or a business, through management.’“often use common sense, but they see the sense before it becomes common and that’s what can give companies and their managers the competitive edge. The insights and methods of the gurus can make a big difference to the way we manage our organisations.”someone who interprets and spreads what seems to be working.

Perhaps this is reason enough to explain why good leaders should learn from the best! Handy goes further though, explaining that the role of a guru is:

“to interpret and spread around what seems to be working, helping managers to cope in a world that changes fast.”

He suggests that they

Handy’s definition of a management guru is both pithy and pragmatic:

Who are the best?

If good leaders should learn from the best, how do you tell a genuine guru from the multitude of management writers and thinkers? The definition we’ve used suggests that the crucial criteria should be: do the ideas help, and is there evidence that they work?

As an old Italian proverb suggests: “it’s not enough to aim you must hit.”

Firstly, one useful way to identify the best is to look at those who have already gained widespread recognition. Who appears on the numerous lists of top thinkers in the fields of leadership, business and management? The Thinkers 50 is one example – an annual ranking of the most influential living management thinkers. It’s one way of seeing who is highly regarded, based on a survey (of business people, consultants, academics and MBA students), analysis of google references to candidates, and their scoring against 10 criteria. These give some indication of the nature and role of management gurus:

1. Originality of Ideas – are the ideas and examples used by the thinker original?
2. Practicality of Ideas – have the ideas promoted by the thinker been implemented in organizations? And, has the implementation been successful?
3. Presentation Style – how proficient is the thinker at presenting his/her ideas orally?
4. Written Communication – how proficient is the thinker at presenting his/her ideas in writing?
5. Loyalty of Followers – how committed are the thinker’s disciples to spreading the message and putting it to work?
6. Business Sense – do they practice what they preach in their own business?
7. International Outlook – how international are they in outlook and thinking?
8. Rigor of Research – how well researched are their books and presentations?
9. Impact of Ideas – have their ideas had an impact on the way people manage or think about management?
10. Guru Factor – the clincher: are they, for better or worse, guru material by your definition and expectation?

However, as The Thinkers 50 acknowledges, it only features the most influential living management thinkers. So giants, such as Peter Drucker who led the early lists until his death in 2005, are not included.

For an alternative, the International Institute of Management has researched two lists, based on similar criteria to The Thinkers 50 approach. One is a management guru “Hall of Fame”, whilst the other is the World’s Most Respected Management Thinkers”.

Secondly, good leaders can learn from the best by reading some of the excellent books which review some of the ideas that have shaped management thinking. Providing overviews of 34 leading management thinkers, Carol Kennedy’s book: “Guide to the Management Gurus” is just one example. For Kennedy:

“Timing is of the essence in achieving gurudom. Timing; originality; forcefulness; a gift of self-promotion and perhaps above all else, the ability to encapsulate memorably what others immediately recognise as true – these are the marks of the modern management guru.”

Finally, you could take the considered opinion of the gurus themselves. Warren Bennis suggests that “If Peter Drucker is responsible for legitimizing the field of management and Tom Peters for popularizing it, then Charles Handy should be known as the person who gave it a philosophical elegance and eloquence that was missing from the field.”

We have already explored Handy’s definition of a guru. On the BBC website Handy introduces his choice of twelve significant gurus in: “the Handy guide to the gurus of management”

Handy sums up his position with reference to the giant of management giants. “My view that the role of the guru is to interpret, explain and forewarn is one that is shared by the prince of guru’s, Peter Drucker.”

Good leaders have much to learn from the best but is time spent studying the words of management gurus really time well spent? This is the subject of our second article: developing good leadership qualities by learning from the best. In particular we explore six reasons why learning from the best really matters.

Why should good leaders learn from the best? Perhaps because:

“If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”

Sir Isaac Newton

At a recent networking meeting, I had the opportunity to hear Pernille Spiers-Lopez speak.

Danish born, Pernille immigrated to the United States about 26 years ago as a young woman. After a few jobs that didn’t pan out for her, she found herself working in the Marketplace at Ikea, an international home furnishings retail chain originating from Sweden. Rising quickly through the company, Pernille was vaulted to become President of Ikea North America in 1997.  An innovator and change advocate, she shared that her rise to success and personal life satisfaction was tremendously aided by her commitment to her spiritual and personal growth journey.

Here are the keys to success she spoke about:

1. Know your values – what you stand for. Live your life in alignment with your values so that you are being true to who you are.

2. Grow yourself as a person; invest in yourself and your people. As a result of changes she initiated at Ikea that were employee supportive, the chain has shown increases in profits and employee retention. Personally, she credits her own consciousness journey as adding more joy and peace to her life as well as helping her to be an effective leader.

3. Be courageous. As President of Ikea, she initiated multiple company changes that dramatically increased employee retention including: addressing flexibility needs, creating a “quiet room” for nursing mothers, and substantially increasing the number of women and minorities in management She spoke quite a bit about being willing to trust herself in her choices and actions. Knowing who she is gives her courage to make the tough and easier decisions as a leader, wife and mother with compassion and strength.

4. Surround yourself with good people. In addition to building a strong workforce, she mentioned her participation in two business groups gives her additional support in being successful.

5. Embrace innovation and change. She sees possibilities and improvement in the experience of change to be inviting rather than fearing the unknown. Attitude affects how we view things – as a positive or a negative; compelling or repelling. With all of the positive innovations she has initiated at work, she commented with a small laugh that her teams have asked her not to make any more big changes this year. Her pride in what she has accomplished as a leader at Ikea was evident.

6. Be passionate. What makes you feel the most alive, calls to your heart, and brings you the most joy? She acknowledged how her passion fuels her courage and willingness to show up.

7. Take a stand for what you believe in no matter if it’s an unpopular position or meets resistance. Trust in yourself and inner knowing without wavering when you feel solidly clear about something you believe in. Hold onto that power without giving it away to others. Her passion and trust in her instincts and abilities empowers her to stand strong as a leader. She stated she is not afraid to stand up for her values and fight for what she believes is right.

8. Set personal and business boundaries. With her busy schedule, Pernille clearly states that when she’s at work, she is fully focused on the demands of her job. She works 8-5, has no Blackberry, and turns her cell phone off when she’s at home. What keeps her strong is listening to her body and her intuition while having strong work-life balance boundaries. She’s learned to separate her work and home life so that she can be fully present to what matters most in her life.

Her favorite books include:

“The Art of Possibility” – by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander  (One of my all-time favorites too!!!)

“7 Habits of Highly Effective People” – by Stephen Covey (a classic)

“The Alchemist” – by Paulo Coelho

“The Leader Within” -  by Drea Zigarmi,  Ken Blanchard,  Michael O’Connor, & Carl Edeburn

“The Dance” – by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I found her presentation inspirational and confirming. We are the Creators of our own life; the architects of the reality we wish to create. The inner journey of personal growth is a critical component to creating a life filled with successes and failures (learning experiences) that lead to the fulfillment of deep desires, prosperity, and happiness.

Whether you run a company, lead a team, head a household, sit on a committee, or work with people to achieve a shared goal, we’re all leaders. You might be behind the scenes or highly visible in your company, your leadership contribution is critical to your organization’s success. At a minimum, you are the leader of your own life.

Passion is a great motivator and catalyst. When we align our decisions and actions with our passions, values, and soul path, our life can takes on greater meaning and joy.

Consider the following questions:

1. What are you passionate about?

2. How is your passion expressed in your life?

3. Where might you be holding back and suppressing your passion (s)? (fears, doubts, limiting beliefs)

4. What gives you courage? Recall some of the bravest things you’ve done that you’re proud of.

5. In what do you totally trust?

6. What are you gratefull for?

7. How can you use your trust courage, and gratitude to unleash your passions to be more fully expressed and live the life you are meant to live?

8. What are you ready to say YES to TODAY?

9. What actions will you commit to taking in the next 30 days? What do you need to help you succeed? (accountability partner, systems and structures, a coach, a therapist)..

It is a sad fact that many employees are still being subjected to the age old training ritual of “sheep dipping”. This is a process by which employees are “refreshed”, “cleansed” and “re-invigorated” by ensuring they attend set training courses or, perhaps, are placed on the ubiquitous “refresher” course. This refresher course is, of course, necessary, because most employees forget what they have learned on similar courses that they had been previously on. Do they?

Companies just love “the sheep dip”. Easy to create, easy to administer and can cut costs. Simply, get your Training Department to devise a list of courses that link to the company’s priority capability areas; decide who needs what training; tell which employees to go on what course, and then give everyone a “big pat on the back” for achieving the Training and Development Plan. Easy! But beware!

The “Sheep Dip” process can be flawed in the following ways:

1. The list of training courses that are provided can remain static from one year to the next. Has your business not moved on? Are the courses that you provided two to three years ago still valid? Are there not new skills emerging from one year to the next? A yearly audit of the skills and capabilities that are needed to deliver the company business plan must be done and the range of training offerings must be tailored, “chopped and changed” and added to if necessary. Employees’ skills must be kept up to date in order to keep competitive advantage.

2. The Line Manager decides to have no input into the “sheep dip”. All they do is send the employee through the process and then “tick the box” that says: “I have you developed my Employees?” Managers have to take ownership of what training interventions are provided and also of the standard of these interventions. Many managers when confronted with a list of training course options go no further than checking that a particular course seems OK for their employee. They do not analyse the content and the standard of the course. Of course, many would say that is not their responsibility and that those in the Training Department should be the people responsible. Do they not care what standard of training their employees get?

3. Staying with Managers. After having decided which course an employee should go on, how many managers actually sit down with employees to work out learning objectives before the course? How many will check the progress of an employee through a development programme? How many will sit down with the employee after the course or programme, review how they fared with their learning objectives, and then agree an action plan for implementation of the skills learned on the course?

4. The “Sheep Dip” is very rarely measured. How many Training Departments actually measure the effectiveness of their training interventions? What impact are these interventions making on the competency development and the

productivity of the employee being “sheep dipped”? Sure, the department, or external training provider, will have plenty of “happy sheet” feedback but what about the bottom line? Is the company getting a return on its investment in training?

5. The “refresher” course mentality has to be eliminated. If an employee needs a “refresher” course on skills that they should be using in their everyday work, then their original course did not deliver what it promised. This could have arisen through the standard of the content, the trainer, or through the employee’s application on the course. It may be that the wrong employee went on the wrong course! Whose responsibility sits with each of these areas? The Line Manager! There may be instances whereby an employee went on a course that was relevant to their role at the time and perhaps they go on secondment to another job where the skills are different. If they then go back to their old role, then perhaps a “refresher” type course is needed but big questions should be asked if someone who is still in the same role has to attend a “refresher”! I know of some manager colleagues who are on their third coaching course! Same content, same methods, same models. Return on Investment??

6. Finally, the “sheep dip” can be very de-motivating for some employees. No change from one year to the next and no innovation or creativity being exhibited by the company can lead the employee to think that the future success of the company could be in doubt. Do they want to stay with such a company? Also, if the line manager takes little responsibility for the true development of their employees and abdicates all training and development responsibility to the Training Department, then the employee will quickly become disillusioned with the lack of support and encouragement. Their skills will not improve as quickly as they should, either.

5 Steps to Avoid a “Sheep Dip” Mentality

1. Ensure Training and Development is high on the corporate agenda. The Training and Development Plan is as important as the overall Business Plan. Without the T&D plan the capabilities needed to deliver the full potential of the Business Plan will not be developed.

2. Do a full audit of the training and development interventions that the company presently provides (and also that of external providers) and ensure that these interventions are exactly what’s needed. Choose external consultants carefully and continue to develop the capabilities of internal trainers. Take the time to adapt, chop and change old course materials and methods.

3. Make sure that all line managers are made responsible and accountable for developing their staff. In addition to making sure that they source training interventions for their staff, managers must also be aware that they should have an input into the training process by challenging course content, capability of trainers and by taking time with their employees before, during and after the training.

4. Put measurements in place, which will enable you to calculate a return on your training investment. Measure improvements in competency and where possible, bottom line results such as sales etc.

5. Review your Training and Development Plan on a regular basis. Not yearly – at least every quarter.

When was the last time you reviewed your training plan? Still “sheep dipping”?

Article by Allan McKintosh of PMC Scotland

I have two major “gripes” with this approach. Firstly, a half-day on most management subjects such as coaching will only cover the basics and may serve only to frustrate delegates as opposed to actually develop their capability. Coaching, for example, needs time and practice and managers will not be able to coach after only a half-day or even after a full day’s training. It is an arguable point, but I believe that at least two days intensive training, in respect to coaching, is needed and that follow-up coaching to the training is essential. Similarly sales courses where there is more theory than practice and no sustained follow-up are, in my opinion, a waste of time and money.

The standard of training may be high on a particular course but the fact that if there is no follow up, either by one to one coaching or through “progress review” days concerns me. How is the learning from the course going to be sustained in the delegates when, most likely, they will all return to the workplace, and immediately be thrown back into regular routines and pressure of workloads? Most delegates will return to work practices that they know and are comfortable with and as such new techniques and/or practices may not be tried out. My experience also tells me that the “glossy” brochures or course folders are neatly placed on the library shelf and may never be looked again until it is time for a clear out!

To illustrate my point, let me tell you the tale of a former manager colleague. I telephoned this former colleague to try and find out what their present company policy was towards coach training for managers.
The manager stated. “The company policy is that all managers will undergo coaching training and that the model of choice is GROW. I like this model as it now gives me a structure for my coaching whereas beforehand it was a bit haphazard.”

I replied that, had he not remembered that we had been introduced to this model of coaching almost seven years ago and that we had actually been through a refresher, three years ago with a another training company? His reply to this was telling:

“I have a vague recollection, and I do believe I have the folders somewhere. But you forget that when I went through these courses I was new to the manager’s role and there was an amazing amount of change about due to restructuring together with changes of personnel and roles. There was no real time to digest the training and certainly no time to implement it! I never got any support anyhow!”

So, after seven years and three expensive training courses later, the GROW model of coaching has finally managed to be taken up by this particular manager. And I rate this manager as one of the better ones I have worked with. This is a manager who I know is dedicated to his development!

So what can you do to get a better return from training?

Firstly, choose your training provider very carefully. As well as checking on their course content and structure, check their price, reputation, and standard of trainer. Make sure that they can provide some form of follow-up coaching support service. You may have to pay extra for this but it can be very worthwhile. It could be face to face coaching, or telephone coaching, or simply an “open-door” support line whereby delegates if they have queries or need help with materials, can simply telephone or e-mail the provider, who in turn will provide support by relevant means. Avoid those companies that come in, deliver the training, hand over glossy folders and disappear!

In addition to the training provider supplying on-going support, I believe that line managers who put their staff on training courses have a duty to support them, before, during and after the training. An effective manager will sit down with an employee and coach them to identify what they are going to learn from the training. These learning objectives should be documented and once the training is over, then the manager should be sitting down with the employee and coaching them to self-analyse how they fared against the objectives that they set themselves. Vitally, how is the employee going to implement this learning in the workplace? What support is the manager going to give the employee to implement this learning so as it becomes sustainable and the employee’s capability grows?

Whether or not the Training Provider provides on-going or follow up support, the manager has in this case to act as a coach and mentor and ensure that employees get both the benefit of on-going training but also the follow-up support and challenge from their line manager.

Industry must spend “millions” on training (still not enough!) and I believe that a lot of it is wasted because Training Providers do not provide adequate follow-up support and also that company line managers do not take time to sit down with their employees to agree learning objectives and then review these objectives with a view to effective implementation of new skills into the workplace.

Let’s stop wasting training budgets. Choose your provider carefully and ensure line management supports employees before, during and after their training.

Article by Allan McKintosh of PMC Scotland

• reviews the thinking on evaluation of training
• emphasises the need to decide why training and learning are to be evaluated, before moving into how
• provides some straightforward techniques for valuing learning using the latest CIPD model.

The development of thinking on evaluating training

In 1959, Kirkpatrick¹ first outlined four levels for training evaluation:

• reactions – ‘liking or feelings for a programme’
• learning – ‘principles, facts etc absorbed’
• behaviour – ‘using learning on the job’
• results – ‘increased production, reduced costs, etc’.

For the next 45 years the evaluation of training moved on very patchily in terms of research and new ideas, and poorly in terms of practical application. In 2007, however, the CIPD produced a new ‘partnership of learning model’ which emphasises the need for all those involved in learning interventions actively to play their part.

Why is it so important to decide why training and learning are to be evaluated?

The simple answer is that until the purpose of any evaluation is established, the questions to ask, measures to seek, and stakeholder groups to approach cannot be determined. The new CIPD model is rightly about employers, line managers, individual learners and trainers/facilitators making sure that:

• intended learning and organisational strategies are aligned from before the start of any learning programme
• appropriate measures are defined
• skills and organisational performance are raised.

In this context, evaluation is in itself about ensuring relevant, integrated and continuous learning. In other words evaluation is an intervention to check alignment and to reinforce learning – as set out in the Levi Strauss case study³ where the evaluation questions are based on the deployment of relevant skills learned and, powerfully, posed by senior stakeholders in personal calls and interviews or on site visits.

What happened between Kirkpatrick in 1959 and the CIPD in 2007?

In 1989, Alliger & Janak⁴ examined the assumptions which had grown up around what Kirkpatrick had probably intended to be a simple four-stage guide. They questioned whether each level was positively linked to the previous one. Only a small sample of evaluations carried out in the 30 years since 1959 were found to be good enough for analysis, and the results for causality and correlation were not great – not much better than random chance! So, someone could almost equally love or hate a course and learn or not learn from it irrespectively, or could learn a great deal from it but not translate that into improved job or organisational performance.

In contrast to this training-centred approach, in 1989, Guzzo et al⁵ conducted a useful analysis of ‘psychologically-based interventions to raise worker productivity’. 207 studies had to be whittled down to the 98 having enough data and robustness, and findings showed that training and goal setting were best, with ‘management by objectives’ and supervisory methods the worst. Unfortunately, it seems that this sort of study (that is, comparing what actually helps to raise performance, rather than assuming that training alone will achieve it) has not been repeated seriously.

The emergence of four purposes for evaluation

1. Proving the value of training

Stemming from the call for evidence that the US Second World War ‘Training Within Industry Initiative’ was worthwhile, the push to use evaluation for proving purposes has continued to the present day. In the 1970s, the emphasis was mainly on scientifically-based research, a classic case being Latham and Saari’s study of training for factory supervisors⁶. Using sound experimental-and-comparable-control-group processes, they were able to confirm reasonably well that learning had been translated into better capabilities to perform the job, and had brought about a sustained improvement.

In the 1980s, concerns about proving a return on investment (ROI) emerged. Mathieu and Leonard⁷ showed that training for bank staff could be expected, over a 20-year period, to give substantial returns (ranging from US$63,000 for head tellers to US$255,000 for branch managers). Later, Morrow et al⁸ arrived at ROI figures for training in a pharmaceutical company. They found that the ROI on technical and sales training was over nine times greater than on management training (but the study took four years and cost US$ 0.5m!).

2. Improving the quality of the training offered

Back in 1963, Cronbach⁹ had introduced the concept of evaluation for the purpose of improving training.

Scriven¹⁰ soon highlighted the formative, action-oriented nature of this sort of evaluation, as compared to proving that training had worked. Nowadays, the accepted wisdom is proving the quality of the training offered should come before assessing the value of any particular course or programme.

3. Evaluation as a contribution to the learning process

Next came the very important strand of evaluation as a contribution to the learning process itself. In 1973, Burgoyne¹¹ applied action learning principles to a business school management programme and saw an increase in participant learning, as perceived by the participants themselves. Ruddock¹² built on the idea of learning from evaluation by introducing the concept of illuminative analysis to increase communal awareness of a programme. In 1967 Scriven¹⁰ had proposed the radical view that an evaluator should take no notice of the (politically-decided) goals of a programme, and should, instead, focus on how the programme impacted on other (receiving) stakeholders.

Guba and Lincoln¹³ took these ideas further, and proposed that, following the first three generations of evaluation (that is, measurement, description, and judgement), a fourth generation was essential. They called this ‘responsive constructivist’, and defined it as a form of negotiation in which the claims, concerns and issues of all stakeholders should serve as the focus for the meaning and implications of any programme and its evaluation.

More recently, Silvester et al¹⁴ partially used this sort of thinking in an evaluation of a culture change programme in a large engineering company. They found that three stakeholder groups – managers, trainers and trainees – all considered that the programme would produce positive outcomes, but also that:

• the trainees were the most optimistic about this – perhaps because of receiving attention and the chance to learn new skills (though not necessarily to be involved in the apparent push to change the organisational culture)
• the trainers were the most cynical – harbouring doubts about their abilities to bring about lasting change
• the managers the most pessimistic – (believing that the training was about quality not culture, and that it would thrive only locally).

4. Evaluation as control over training

Finally, in terms of the purposes for evaluation, back in 1974, Hamblin¹⁵ had put forward the need to evaluate training to control its costs and access to it. Bramley¹⁶ also showed that, particularly in the public sector, control might be necessary for consistency and compliance.

Pulling all this together involves Patton’s plea for attention to the utilisation of evaluation¹⁷, and Easterby-Smith’s neat encapsulation of the four strands or purposes of evaluation¹⁸:

• proving
• improving
• learning (reinforcing)
• controlling.

Choosing the purpose of evaluation

Consider for a moment that you are an evaluator with limited time and resources. What would your preferences be in terms of allocating your time and effort to one of more of the four purposes (and how would that affect the what, how, when and of whom you ask questions)? Alternatively, if you already have a strong stance about the purpose of training evaluation, how would you deal with a client who came from quite an opposite view?

Where do things stand today?

Exhortations to evaluate training continue to abound, systems are constantly recommended, and still little is done. Concepts like ROI have been strongly recommended, some individual events are tested for continuing validity and effect, and some attention has been paid to distinguishing different stakeholders’ views. But people still rarely pay attention to the purpose of evaluation (as the examination of the general hotch-potch of questions in a typical end-of-course feedback sheet will reveal).

Many ‘thinking practitioner’ trainers/facilitators would strongly advocate dropping what are seen as ‘happy sheets’, in favour of spending more time and effort on follow-up activities to ensure that action plans are implemented, learning is applied and reinforced, and that the training is not seen as an isolated event in space and time. Above all, there seems to be an ‘evaluation lament’ – lack of time, low line manager interest and absence of easy systems are cited all too often as reasons why evaluation is still patchy and poor.

How can the new CIPD model move evaluation forward?

The CIPD model is all about shifting perceptions from learning in isolation to relevant, integrated and continuous learning. The first task is therefore to raise the implications of this shift with key stakeholders in the organisation, and to begin to enhance senior management trust in the learning contribution.

As set out in our Change agenda², it is important to:

• consider the view of managers at all levels about suitable metrics for assessing and reporting on the value of learning
• ensure that all trainers/facilitators understand the business and can identify how to relate any given organisational metrics to learning initiatives.

Both of these tasks may be easier in organisations where ‘hard’ skills training can show immediate results, for example, proving value – as in a sales environment. The tasks may be less easy where ‘soft’ skills are concerned, for example management training, but it is still possible to uncover value through follow-up and discussion, such as in coaching environments.

Recent examples where general management training has been found to have value, through questions designed to reinforce learning, have come from a financial firm (where respondents explained how they had found that the application of new ways of cooperation was leading them to meet cost-reduction metrics), a newspaper group (where respondents were using new ways of thinking to find more revenue) and a government department (where respondents said they were now looking at higher quality problem solving). Interestingly, the Levi Strauss case study³ indicates that learning which affects top-line results will not only be measured by the interested stakeholders but will also mean less need to prove the effectiveness of the training team.

Some practical tips

Once a possible shift from ‘happy sheets’ to follow-ups is accepted, the what and how of information gathering about the value of learning (and improved event design) become much easier.

The ‘what’ must include management information about issues important to the organisation. And the initial question to put to hard-pressed senior managers is: What measurable results (both short-term and long-term) from the learning function would you like to see for your area of responsibility? Some possible measures, related to each of the four main purposes for evaluation, are:

The ‘how’ includes gathering feedback from two major stakeholder groups: learners and their managers. The main ways are:

• questionnaires from the learning function
• interviews and focus groups
• feedback from performance reviews
• one-to-one discussions between managers and their staff
• self-reporting by learners.

Questionnaires generally have a notoriously low return rate, and need to be very carefully thought through and piloted (to check for, amongst other things, question purpose and clarity, and the ease of and time taken for completion). They are, however, useful in large organisations, where interviews and focus groups might be too time consuming.

Interviews and focus groups allow for discussion and real exploration about learning, but they take time and cannot cover many people quickly.

Feedback from performance reviews seems to be a much under-used source of evidence of the value of learning. A few organisations do include a box to cover the use of training and other learning activities, but hardly any take the chance to link the results of such activities to organisational strategies, plans and metrics.

A few, go-ahead organisations have taken up the opportunity to ask managers for feedback about the impact of training and development for their staff along ‘Kirkpatrick’ lines, for example, different behaviour/attitude demonstrated on return from a learning event, evidence of impact on the job, and on the bottom line of the organisation’s business.

Self-reporting by learners has some significant advantages: it encourages people to think about what and how they have learned and are continuing to develop, to retain ownership of and responsibility for their development and growth, and experience shows that many gain pride from reporting successful learning. Problems to overcome, however, include generating the sort of culture that encourages such self-reporting, and ways to collect it consistently (performance review provides one way, others include following up on action plans from learning events and interviews).

Evaluation questions

Finally, some good evaluation questions for reinforcing learning include (with the underlying rational for each question following in brackets):

• What was the most important or valuable learning for you? Why? How did you learn this? (reflecting on the immediate past experience and looking for insightful, long-lasting ‘ah-ha’ moments that help people to see that they can learn, and how they learn)
• How can you apply what you learned to the needs of your job, your team/department, and the priorities of the business? (thinking about the present and looking for wider learning application and its relationship to the business and its chosen metrics)
• How could you integrate what you learned into further learning opportunities available to you, and the developing requirements of your job, your team/department, the organisation as a whole? (pointing to the future and looking for the multiplicative effects of the variety of ways people can learn).

References

1.     KIRKPATRICK, D.L. (1959). Techniques for evaluating training programs. Journal of the American Society of Training and Development. Vol 33, No 11. pp3-9.

2.     ANDERSON, V. (2007) The value of learning: a new model of value and evaluation. Change agenda. London: Chartered Institue of Personnel and Development. Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/changeagendas

3.     CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT. (2005) The way to sell: training’s contribution to a business problem at Levi Strauss & Co [online]. London: CIPD. Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk
/helpingpeoplelearn/_casestudies/_vlvistrss.htm

4.     ALLIGER, G. and JANAK, E. (1989) Kirkpatrick’s levels of training criteria: thirty years later. Personnel Psychology. Vol 42, No 2. pp331-342.

5.     GUZZO, R. and GANNET, B. (1989) The nature of facilitators and inhibitors of effective task performance. In: SCHOORMAN, F. and SCHNEIDER, B. Facilitating work effectiveness. Lexington: Lexington Books.

6.     LATHAM, G. and SAARI, L. (1979) The application of social learning theory to training supervisors through behavioural modelling. Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol 64. pp239-246.

7.     MATHIEU, J. and LEONARD, R. (1987) Applying utility concepts to a training program in supervisory skills: a time-based approach. Journal of Academic Management. Vol 30, No 2. pp316-335.

8.     MORROW, C., JARRET, Q. and RUPINSKI, M. (1997). An investigation of the effect and economic utility of corporate-wide training. Personnel Psychology, Vol 50, No 1. pp91-117.

9.     CRONBACH, L. (1963). Evaluation for course improvement. In: HEATH, R. (ed). New curricula. New York: Harper & Row.

10.  SCRIVEN, M.(1967). The methodology of evaluation. In: AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION. Perspectives of curriculum education. Monologue No 1. Chicago: Rand McNally.

11.  BURGOYNE, J. (1973). An action research experiment in the evaluation of a management course. Journal of Management Studies., Vol 10, No 1. pp8-14.

12.  RUDDOCK, R. (1981). Evaluation: a consideration of principles and methods. Dorset: Manchester Monographs.

13.  GUBA, E. and LINCOLN, Y. (1989) Fourth generation evaluation. London: Sage.

14.  SILVESTER, J., ANDERSON, N. and PATTERSON, F. (1999). Organisational culture change: an inter-group attributional analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, Vol 72, No 1. pp1-23.

15.  HAMBLIN, A. (1974). Evaluation and control of training. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.

16.  BRAMLEY, P. (1996). Evaluating training. London: Chartered Institue of Personnel and Development.

17.  PATON, M. (1986). Utilisation-focused evaluation. Beverly Hills: Sage.

18.  EASTERBY-SMITH, M. (1994) Evaluating management development, training and education. Aldershot: Gower.

This factsheet was written by Iain Thomson is a Fellow of the CIPD.