Business Transitions, Inc.

Newsletter   May 2002

Changing Paradigm: From Training to Learning To Drive Profitability

   Jay Kalawar, CEO, BTI and David Zwickl, Emerging Technologies Specialist, Cisco System, Inc

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“What sets it (GE) apart is a culture that uses this wide diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage.”  Jack Welch in his address to GE shareholders in 1997.   Ref: http://www.ge.com/news/welch/speeches/sigma.htm

Obviously, Jack Welch was far ahead of his peers. Today, in 2002, in a business environment where revenues are uncertain and budgets are constrained, changes in strategy once every quarter become par for the course. As strategies shift, people resources need to be re-deployed rapidly, effectively and efficiently A key requirement of such a re-deployment is that employee skills and competencies need to be responsively tuned to strategic shifts, while keeping to budgetary constraints.  For the corporate training manager this means finding innovative ways of providing effective learning services to employees at all levels who can access and use them as and when required.

For example, in a down market with a constrained sales force budget, truck drivers for a logistics company need to be their sales people too. This is not a wacky example, but a real life situation in early 2002, as global transportation corporations struggle to find ways of sustaining earnings in a slow market. How do you train truck drivers to sell? Or, in the case of real estate agents who are a single point of contact for their buyers and sellers, how do you train them to learn about mortgage markets, as well as the nuances of insurance and property taxes – to successfully facilitate a property buy-sell transaction? This is the creative challenge that training managers, who want to be players at the senior executive table, have as an opportunity today. Corporate training departments everywhere are grappling with how best to enable such learning, in a changing, uncertain environment, even as they confront the budgetary realities of a business slow down

Justifying Corporate Training Budget?

In a budget crunch, training departments are apt to feel the pressure to justify their budgets. Corporate training departments, in many organizations, are seen as overhead and in-house training seen as a perk that gives employees a break from routine. While the linkage between competencies and skills, on one hand, and achieving business objectives, on the other, is clearly made by executives, that connection is not carried through to the corporate training process. The connection of how (to quote Jack Welch) “an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage” is not made.

Why this disconnect? In many instances, corporate training may be seen as a ‘push’ offering a standard curriculum which remains the same, whatever the phase of the business cycle or the innovation-marketing cycle, They tend to fall into three broad categories: soft skills (leadership training, sensitivity training), regulatory (OSHA, sexual harassment) and vocational (industry/skill specific e.g. merchant marine certification in shipping industry). These currently are the staples of a standard menu in corporate training, whatever the phase of the business cycle or the innovation-marketing cycle. When the executive floor is looking for the nimble and the responsive in a roller coaster world, a standard “push” curriculum is not likely to get corporate training a seat at the executive table

Changing the paradigm

When it comes to safety records in manufacturing plants, “it’s not how many training hours we do, but how many plant safety violations we have,” he said. “The training metrics have to be about output, not input. It has to be about what drives the company.” Jack Welch Ref: http://www.ittrain.com/roundup/ru103001.htm

In other words, from a business executive’s perspective, impact of Learning has to be directly measurable in terms of how it helps achieve business objectives. Does the Learning decrease new product development time significantly, decrease sales cycle time, and improve manufacturing productivity? How can a corporate training manager even begin to understand the complexities of the myriad business processes in need of continual improvement, let alone design training for them? The answer is s/he should not.

Actual doers in the business process, their mentors and coaches need to continually identify what training will best help them become better at performing their responsibilities. Corporate trainers have to provide an easy and effective way for people to continually identify their Learning needs. Having the Learning needs identified is the first step. The next one is to provide a platform to deliver flexible Learning solutions as and when required.

What people need to learn depends upon a combination of business needs of the moment and personal needs. For example, a sales force of a company may need to know about how their products and services are being re-positioned given current market conditions – that is the business need; some of the sales people may need training in putting together animated power point presentations, given that support staff may be under budgetary constraints – that is a personal need.

When they need to learn implies that people have choices. For example, products and service learning may be best accessed through a self-paced video. Learning on power point presentation may be best made available “on the job”, through a combination of wizard and simulation eLearning tools, even as a senior account manager is putting together her slide show in the morning for presentation to client executives that afternoon.

Learning by a sales force will be successful if, to begin with, the combination of business needs and individual needs are continually monitored and accurately assessed.

What does this mean for corporate training managers? It means that they need to continually assess what Learning people need and how they want to access it. The underlying shift is from “push” training (as in, masters teaching novices in a controlled setting) to “pull” learning (where learners decide what, how and when they are going to best consume knowledge to help them perform in their work and personal lives).  And, that is not enough......More>>

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