Pure training could be described as “You turn up, tell them how to do stuff, and then leave again. Did they understand it? Who knows! Will they do it? Probably not….”
Clearly this is not a great way to operate.
A bit of coaching, both during the training and after it, would greatly increase effectiveness. Coaching would consist of getting them to try it, while you watch and help them, correcting any misunderstandings or gaps in the message they have received from you. By the end they know they can do it, and they are more likely to keep doing it after you’ve gone.
Also, a bit of consultancy might be worth adding to the mix – giving them answers that are specific to their particular current problem. Ideally they would work out how to apply the new tools you’ve given them to their own problems, but people often find this difficult, so you can help them make the bridge, on the training day. Or in a follow-up workshop.
Examples could be:
- Negotiating (coaching: try a role play exercise and get suggestions on how to do better, consultancy: here’s what you can do in your particular situations), or
- Project Management (coaching: plan a project while the trainer checks and helps, consultancy: let’s plan one of your real projects, or have a look at your current project plans and make them better)
- Strategy workshop – here are a few classic tools, but more importantly let’s work together to get your actual real strategy worked out for the next five to ten years. You do it, I’ll help you to do it better (coaching) and contribute ideas of my own as well (consultancy). In fact this workshop might have no training at all, it might be all coaching and consultancy.
- Team day – coaching as the team undertakes fun tasks and then we talk about how the team did, and how it could work together or more effectively better in future, and then we try another exercise using the new ideas. Consultancy as the trainer suggests ways the team could work differently, based on the many teams he or she has seen in the past. e.g. more planning, different methods of communication, ways to involving everyone etc.
You can see how great training is really a mixture of the three:
onwards and upwards
CC
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