Why Training Doesn’t Work
14Apr2006 Filed under: Business Management, Human Resources Author: DUST!N
David Maister points out why he says training is useless.
He sums it up:
So, let’s summarize, I say. You’ve chosen people who don’t want to do the job, who haven’t demonstrated any prior aptitude for the job, and you are rewarding them for things other than doing the job? Thanks, but I’ll pass on the wonderful privilege of training them!
I tend to agree with David. Beyond that, I believe that in order to bring out the best in our people, we should be about doing more than just layering more ‘training’ upon them. We need to unearth the individual strengths and capabilities of our people. Training is for work horses and dog shows. Training is often what keeps people from discovering the greatness within. We condition people to act within conformity (the topic of the day I guess) and to settle for generic mediocrity.
How sad.
It’s about developing people, not just training them.
3 Responses to “Why Training Doesn’t Work”
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Michael Wagner
April 17th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
I would say from what Maister says in the quote that training works just fine. Always has. But…
“The corporate training system doesn’t work” is closer to the point. Without relevance, or passion or context training will fall flat. “Tell only” training doesn’t work all that well either - and maybe that is what he has in mind. But I would call that lecturing.
And corporate trainers that won’t courageously walk when given the kinds of assignment Maister talks about are part of the issue too.
Sometimes I will have my clients watch Karate Kid with me. And then I will facilitate a dialogue. If no is getting “beat up” by the marketplace, why would anyone want to humble themselves to be trained in business “karate”?
Wax on! Wax off! Anyone?!
Dmitry Linkov
April 20th, 2006 at 1:39 am
There was an awesome example that brought Janelle Barlow on her conference, talking about differenced between education and training.
She asked “Is here anybody who has a teenagers?”. Some people raised their hands. She continued “So what do you want them to have sexual training or sexual education?”…
That’s it
DUST!N
April 20th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Cute Dmitry.
Michael, please don’t get the wrong impression on what I’m saying. Sometimes, what we call training actually isn’t training at all. My impression of you is that you’re less about training and more about inspiration and orientation.
David Maister and I both apparently have our beefs with training. He is addressing the faciliation. I’m addressing the word. I flat-out think ‘training’ is the wrong terminology. It evokes Pavlovian concepts. I feel like it lessens our people.
I like the Nordstrom’s employee handbook with one page simply stating: