Learning is much messier than training. Most managers aren’t eager for mess. Alistair’s approach — working collaboratively with business units to help them make the best use of their resources (including time) — is an essential part of changing that mindset.

Depending on the relationship, you can try cooperative candor. “Look, we can create a one-day session on ‘good customer service.’ What do you see as the difference in what people do afterward?”

When the reply starts with, “Well, they understand…,” you know how to follow up. Not with training jargon about behavioral objectives, but something like “What do they do differently? What do they say? How do they act?”

Which could lead to exploring whether the people do know how to act — or whether the group as a whole does. Maybe there’s an opportunity to find out how the workers see good customer service, even get front-line ideas of what good service looks like, even pull in comments from actual (or, alas, former) customers…

Messy, but if you can adopt the viewpoint of the stakeholders, it’s a lot easier to convince them you want to work on real problems that matter to them.

Learning is much messier than training. Most managers aren’t eager for mess. Alistair’s approach — working collaboratively with business units to help them make the best use of their resources (including time) — is an essential part of changing that mindset.

Depending on the relationship, you can try cooperative candor. “Look, we can create a one-day session on ‘good customer service.’ What do you see as the difference in what people do afterward?”

When the reply starts with, “Well, they understand…,” you know how to follow up. Not with training jargon about behavioral objectives, but something like “What do they do differently? What do they say? How do they act?”

Which could lead to exploring whether the people do know how to act — or whether the group as a whole does. Maybe there’s an opportunity to find out how the workers see good customer service, even get front-line ideas of what good service looks like, even pull in comments from actual (or, alas, former) customers…

Messy, but if you can adopt the viewpoint of the stakeholders, it’s a lot easier to convince them you want to work on real problems that matter to them.

It’s tough (and exhausting) to ask the questions up front. And, I think people aren’t used to it and sometimes get defensive. It’s really about retraining a “training” culture to become a “learning” culture; elevating yourself to a collaborative problem-solver vs. an order-taker. I think that’s how we’ll get repeat business in training.

It’s tough (and exhausting) to ask the questions up front. And, I think people aren’t used to it and sometimes get defensive. It’s really about retraining a “training” culture to become a “learning” culture; elevating yourself to a collaborative problem-solver vs. an order-taker. I think that’s how we’ll get repeat business in training.