Learning Is Everyone's Business
Following is a review of The Learning Alliance by Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Stephen J. Gill, which appeared in a recent issue of TRAINING Magazine.
The Learning Alliance by Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Stephen J. Gill (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. 188 pages. $25.95.)
If your company has seriously embraced the tenets of total quality management but you’re still working with a traditional, centralized corporate training department that offers a catalog of classes, get ready to lead a revolution.
The authors contend that “new” organizational thinking requires a new approach to training practices, one based on the idea that “human performance can be improved only when training is viewed and managed as a process within a system that transcends typical organizational and administrative boundaries.” In what they call the “highly effective training (HET)” system, learning is everyone’s business, not just the job of the training department. The “alliance” in the book’s title occurs when training leaders (not necessarily training managers) and nontraining personnel work closely together to increase the value added by training.
Training leaders wishing to adopt the HET approach should follow four key principles:
- To produce valuable outcomes from training, leaders need to ensure that what employees are learning is, indeed, what they need to know to help the organization achieve its goals. If business needs change but training programs don’t, then training becomes a wasted effort.
- Design and deliver all training as a service, not a process. Instead of a “one-size-fits-all” approach, involve customers individually in the entire training process, from the initial concept to the transfer and maintenance of learning in the workplace.
- Apply systems thinking. For example, a training program that enables supervisors to use a new procedure has little value unless the procedure is supported by appraisal policies, and supervisors encourage and reward their people for using the new procedure. Even one missing component means falling short of learning and performance goals.
- Measure the training process for continuous improvement. The type of measurement tools needed depends on the nature of the data required to answer questions posed by the various stakeholders: trainees, their managers, top management, etc.
The tool for accomplishing all this is an “impact map” that graphically depicts the complex linkage of training activities with trainee learning, trainee performance, and the organization’s strategic goals.
Why a map? Without one, stakeholders can become lost in the complexities of people and activities. The map highlights critical roles, interactions, and results needed to achieve performance improvement. Using the map creates a shared vision.
Here’s a bold statement that will cause some trainers to drop the book, aghast at the heresy: “The training process is rarely intelligible to people outside the training department. The process is almost never graphically depicted and communicated to supervisors and managers throughout the organization. It is as if training specialists want to maintain a mystique about their function.” Hear! Hear! -- L.S.