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Here is a simple illustration, offered by Bersin & Associates, of where we currently are in the evolution of corporate training:
You could argue perhaps about some of the labels but in broad terms it seems realistic.
I’m not so sure though that most professional firms have yet made it to the top step. Indeed, many are still on the bottom step. The good news is that it is possible to jump up to the top step, from anywhere without too much effort or cost. Indeed, because training in many firms has developed in a fairly haphazard way, there may be savings to be made.
The top step is really the only place to be.
Why do people in your firm attend training – because they have to, or because they want to?
Some training might be compulsory to meet professional requirements, or because someone feels that “all our associates need this training” (unlikely). In UK law firms, October training sessions usually draw out people who simply need to complete their minimum CPD hours for the year – another form of compulsion. Some people may attend training because their appraisal highlighted this as a development need – does this lead them to want to attend, or do they feel they are being compelled to attend?
It matters because delegates who are there because they want to be there will be more receptive to the training and much more likely to learn. Delegates who feel compelled to attend will usually learn less and can also have a negative effect on other delegates.
The question then arises, do we do enough to “sell” training in order to get people to want to be there? Even when training is compulsory, there are benefits in creating a desire to attend.
Some training managers are very good at sending out frequent reminders to potential delegates publicising the availability of training. But how much thought is really given to constructing a persuasive sales message using proven principles of selling to create a genuine desire?
Do external providers of training (like me) do enough to help sell the training to delegates, or do we feel our job is done once we have sold it to the training department?
Maybe we all need to be better at selling.
Many people will have remained with their current employer over the past few months not through loyalty but because market conditions have presented them with few alternatives. That will soon change and as the market recovers we can expect a surge in moves from one firm to another. This is a real opportunity for those firms that position themselves to be able to attract the best of the movers. Yet some firms will lose out through this process, losing some of their best people and unable to attract good people to replace them.
It is therefore imperative that firms make a concerted effort to motivate and engage their people. The start point is to bring them up to date on the firm’s situation. Some leaders try to create a positive spin but this risks damaging trust. Instead, communication should attempt to paint an honest and fair picture, good news with bad. If mistakes have been made, leaders should be honest about this and show some humility.
It is not just about passing information downwards though. People should be asked about their views, their ideas, and their fears. Letting them know that a firm’s leaders do not have all the answers can help to build trust, and involving them in a dialogue as the firm develops its plans for the future can be a way to win their loyalty.
In the good times many firms spent lavishly on retreats. These have gone with cost-cutting but there may never have been a better time to engage staff through a carefully developed away-day. It does not have to cost much yet it may prove to be an excellent investment
Here is an interesting comparison from the ever excellent Jay Cross.
In a blog post entitled eLearning is not the answer Jay says:
If you want outcomes that are comparable or better than what you were getting from instructor-led workshops, you have to do more than just throw things online. You have to support electronic offerings with mentors, guides, help desks, FAQs, reinforcement, and organizational support. eLearning is not a free lunch.
Professional firms have become very used to push learning, and moving towards pull learning will require some changes in learning culture. This is likely to be the major challenge for learning and development professionals in firms over the coming years. It would be easy but wrong to carryon doing things the way they have always been done. Change has to come and right now is a good time to face it.
I am currently talking to firms about how they can make this transition. Inevitably there are apprehensions but when viewed positively it is an exciting time to be in learning and development. It is not really a question of whether to change, but merely of where to start.
 Here is an extract from Michael Hanley’s elearning blog about designing learning for the PlayStation generation:
L&D professionals must embrace the knowledge that change is coming, look to the training tools and technologies that already exist, and be prepared to embrace innovation in organizational learning. Understanding the demographics of the 21st Century workforce should influence future training techniques; if you’re smart, you’ll be developing training strategies and approaches already.
Some approaches to consider:
- Understand the importance of the peer group
- Incorporate viral marketing or word-of mouth/ referral strategies into learning
- Use an anecdotal style / storytelling to engage learners
- Use scenarios, risks, and consequences to develop skills, build cognitive awareness, and likely outcomes to events.
Dealing in theory, raw data, or pure statistics will not motivate this group of workers to learn.
I think the need to embrace new approaches is already with us, and not only for younger learners. The professional people for whom we design learning will continue to be more demanding than most learners. We need to keep them at the forefront in their areas of expertise, and we L&D professionals need to be at the forefront in ours.
 I have just revised my chapter on Talent Management in The Law Society’s HR Toolkit (it is just as relevant to other types of professional firms).
Last year I added a section on managing people through difficult times. Though difficult times are certainly still with us, the climate has moved on again. Here are some of the main messages:
All UK law firms have felt the effects of the recession and most have responded by reorganising, making redundancies or changing working practices. As the economic cycle turns, the challenges will be to retain and attract good quality people and to get the best from fewer resources. Achieving this will not be easy because, across the profession, motivation and staff engagement are currently low – perhaps at an all-time low. This makes it even more important that law firms start to see talent management as a business priority and that they take steps to become highly effective in this area.
In summary, to manage talent effectively in this climate, law firms need to:
- create a sense of purpose and a culture that will attract, retain and engage people;
- keep their people on-side through effective communication and involvement
- get the right people into positions of leadership throughout the firm and ensure they develop their leadership skills to a level of excellence;
- have those leaders:
- extend the firm’s purpose and culture to their teams;
- attract the right people to their teams and the firm;
- help to align the goals of individuals with those of the firm;
- coach, give feedback and otherwise develop their people; and
- deal appropriately with under performance;
- support those leaders with performance management processes that facilitate (or at least do not conflict with) achieving high-performance;
- get more value from their training investment by focusing on individual needs and using new approaches including coaching, mentoring, partner development programmes, web 2.0 technologies and informal learning.
- ensure that individual under-performance is dealt with supportively and decisively.
Firms now have an excellent opportunity to reassess how they manage their talented professionals. Those firms that choose to do so can reap rich rewards. In many ways this is an excellent time to make fundamental changes and those firms that seize this opportunity may find that the recession has had a positive impact on their long-term well-being.
For those firms that ignore the importance of this issue the effects could be devastating. They will blame the recession but the real cause will have been their failure to respond positively to their new environment.
I am currently having conversations with several firms about these issues, and I would like to do so with even more firms.
A new Change This Manifesto on brain science in management and selling comments that:
Brain science has proven that monetary rewards aren’t motivational at all. When we experience something as rewarding, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released by an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens, and creates an effect not unlike that of cocaine. Our mental processing speeds up, our focus is sharpened, and we experience intense pleasure.
But brain scans have shown that it is not the reward that causes the release of dopamine, but engagement in the work leading to the reward. The reward isn’t motivational; the work itself is. In fact, extrinsic rewards have been found to decrease our intrinsic motivation.
The report goes on to say:
The performance of average salespeople goes up dramatically when they’re told they’re high performers.
It supports my view that firms could achieve much higher levels of performance from their people, and save themselves money, by focusing more on giving their people high quality work and praising good performance.
A decade ago I briefed a web designer to develop my first web site. My specification concluded with the phrase “..also the site should allow users to download learning directly into their brains as they sleep.” It was more than a little tongue in cheek, but perhaps someday it will be possible.
In an experiment at the University of British Columbia (see Wired) test subjects who received a full dose of brain stimulation from the thinking cap were better at tracking repeated patterns than those who received a low dose, or none at all.
“Thinking cap” is far easier to say than “excitatory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation,” but the message is the same: a helmet that helps people learn.
Wired also reports that in the past year, researchers have developed technology that makes it possible to use thoughts to operate a computer, manoeuvre a wheelchair or even use Twitter — all without lifting a finger.
It seems though that scientists are already worried about the dangers hackers might pose to direct brain interfaces. “Neural devices are innovating at an extremely rapid rate and hold tremendous promise for the future,” said computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington. “But if we don’t start paying attention to security, we’re worried that we might find ourselves in five or 10 years saying we’ve made a big mistake.”
If anyone tries to hack into my brain they will get a piece of my mind!
A survey by Robert Half Legal shows that as a response to the economic slowdown firms are investing in BD training to help win new business:
Click here to get a free copy of the Robert Half research.
The following slide, shown at the recent ASTD conference1, depicts the split between formal and informal learning in most organisations.
You could argue about relative percentages but few would dispute the principle that most learning is informal. There is nothing wrong with that.
A more interesting question is: who is influencing the content and effectiveness of informal learning in your firm:
- - Individual learners
- - Partners and other role models
- - The training / learning managers
- - None of the above?
How much of that informal learning is teaching the right things (rather than bad habits or outdated thinking)? How many learning opportunities go to waste (and mistakes get repeated) through lack of feedback or failure to reflect on what could be learned?
Informal learning is important. So important that it merits more attention. The answer is not to provide more formal learning, but to provide more support for informal learning.
1You can watch the presentation by Tony Bingham here (you can safely fast forward through the first 15 minutes)
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