AchieveGlobal's blog

How Can You Prepare Managers to Support Training?

By Craig Perrin This is the fourth of my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development. This week we ask, “How can you prepare managers to support training?” CRAIG: If we want managers to support training, we have to stop shaming them. Instead, we should reduce their coaching responsibilities by changing the way we train. Rather than big training events followed by inconsistent or short-lived coaching, we need shorter increments of training over longer periods. Instead of a two-day employee workshop every six months, what if we had a one-hour session with an immediate application assignment and ongoing collaboration with peers, every week for two months? What if we leveraged all the technology now available – Internet, intranet, YouTube-type video, online social networking? What if trainers helped peers to coach each other? What if we developed dedicated coaches – people who like to coach, with the time to observe, provide feedback, and recognize employees? This kind of training isn’t idle fantasy. It’s already here in many organizations, functioning very well, and taking this pressure off managers to be everything to every employee. KIM: That’s one approach, yet it’s not always realistic. For better or worse – and I think it’s better – most organizations will continue to deliver traditional classroom training. As a long-time former trainer and director of training, I’ve seen the power of classroom learning. The classroom remains the number one place where skill development takes place. Larry Bossidy, author of Execution, says “Every leader and supervisor needs to be a teacher; classroom learning should be about giving [both managers and employees] the tools that they need.” People are worth the effort it takes to develop them through formal classroom training and skilled coaching. Dofasco Steel’s tag line is: “Our product is steel. Our strength is people.” In my view, the best way to improve human performance is to prepare managers to coach and then to measure how well they coach. That’s also the best way to reduce turnover and move toward key business goals. I’ll leave you with this thought: The main way employees – whether managers or individual contributors – learn new skills is through training, and the main way they grow and develop is through coaching.

Why Do Managers Struggle to Coach?

By Craig Perrin This is the third in my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development, on problems associated with coaching by managers. This week we ask, “Why do managers struggle to coach?” KIM: I think we agree on why managers struggle to coach. Companies hire and promote people for technical skills, not coaching skills. Learning to coach takes time and effort. You’ve mentioned other reasons: Most managers don’t see an immediate payoff in coaching. And some think if they coach too much, they won’t reach their measured goals. But let me rephrase the question: Do managers even know what makes an effective coach? Do they know the difference, say, between giving feedback and correcting performance? At the core of effective coaching is an understanding of what coaching fundamentally is. For example, many managers think coaching is a big thing that takes a huge chunk of time. That just isn’t so. The point is, if you have to learn how to read and write, you also have to learn how to coach. As organizations flatten out and become more virtual in nature, people don’t often observe good coaching. So even experienced managers have to learn what, when, and where to coach, along with how to coach. CRAIG: You’re right. Many managers lack coaching skills. And that fact implies even more of the manager’s time to learn how to coach – on top of learning what their teams learn, observing performance, and actually coaching. You’re talking ideal world, and in the business world there are always other priorities. For coaching to take hold, most organizations need a profound cultural change – from a bottom-line culture, an immediate-results culture, to a coaching culture. And most organizations are either unwilling or unable to make that change. At the heart of this problem that we describe as “no time to coach employees in what they learn in training” is something else: the training itself. Training is usually a big classroom event. It may be wonderful. People may learn a lot. But we agree that if they get no support after training, no coaching, employees are unlikely to use what they learn in their jobs. What we need is a form of training that doesn’t rely on consistent coaching by managers, yet still encourages immediate and long-term use of skills. Good coaching is an enormous help, but training that depends heavily on coaching often fails. To meet the need often unmet by coaching, we need continuous learning, not event-based training followed by coaching. Short increments of training over extended time – and not all of it face-to-face - greatly reduces the need for managers to coach.

Will Managers Ever Make Time to Coach?

By Craig Perrin This is the second in my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development, on problems associated with coaching by managers. This week we ask, “Will managers ever make time to coach?” CRAIG: Kim, let’s face it: Managers will always find more important things to do than coach. Who defines “important”? Their own managers. Like every other successful employee, managers and supervisors do what their own managers want them to. So, for most managers, high-priority activities are directly connected to the bottom line – generating revenue, increasing productivity, reducing waist, maximizing resources, keeping costs down, and so on. You can certainly make a case that coaching direct reports has an impact on the bottom line; better skills improve performance. But to most managers, and their bosses, both training and coaching have at best an indirect and long-term impact. The issue isn’t just finding time to coach. To be effective, managers need time learn about what to coach. Coaching involves observing performance on the job and comparing that to desired performance. If a manager hasn’t had time to find out precisely what direct reports learned in their training, it’s impossible to coach effectively. Feedback and recognition have to address the skills that employees are trying to use. So, in my opinion, the challenge for managers is much bigger that just making time to do the coaching itself. KIM: OK, agreed, but with the right support, coaching doesn’t have to be Mt Everest. Senior leaders need to communicate the expectation that managers coach their people. Managers by definition get the job done through their people, not for their people. So developing people has to be a core competency, measured and rewarded by the organization. Managers also have to learn how to coach. You raise a good point – that coaching is lip service in most organizations, which reward managers mainly for hitting hard business targets. Until that changes, managers will never make coaching a priority.  But Indra Nooyi, the PepsiCo CEO, made some excellent points recently in Fortune about the five C’s of her management philosophy: competence, courage, communication, compass, and – here’s my point – coaching. She said mentors have always played an important role in her life. If coaching is a priority at the top, why shouldn’t it be a priority throughout the organization? When a senior leader recognizes the business value of coaching and insists that all leaders learn and use their coaching skills, then managers will certainly make the time to coach.

Does Training Rely Too Much on Coaching by Managers?

By Craig Perrin This week begins my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development, on an eternal training issue – getting managers to coach their direct reports in new skills. We begin by asking, “Does the training rely too much on coaching by managers?” CRAIG: I don’t deny the value of coaching but I think that most training relies way too much on coaching by managers. For my 30 years in training and 40 years in management, it’s been the same story: Managers don’t coach enough, so training isn’t as effective as it could be. Think back on all the bosses you’ve had: You can probably count on two fingers the managers who really knew what you learned in training, modeled those skills, analyzed your performance, gave you specific feedback, or recognized you for using what you learned. Managers like that are by far the exception. The fact is, most managers are either too preoccupied or, if they have no idea what employees learn in training, unprepared to coach. At the same time, our advice to managers is always the same: You should coach, you have to coach, or the value of training is lost. Saying “should, should, should” clearly hasn’t motivated managers to coach to the training their direct reports receive. The problem is not so much managers themselves, most of whom understand the value of training. The problem is traditional training itself, which rarely succeeds without regular and extended coaching from managers. KIM: You’ve got a point, Craig, but traditional methods account for the bulk of training, and coaching is the main way to protect your investment. It’s also a way to ensure that managers stay involved. Obviously, managers have priorities and coaching may be lower on that list. But an organization has to ask, “How can we make sure that managers get involved and stay involved past the delivery of the training?” The easiest way to do that is with training that relies on coaching. Does it rely too much? No, unless we completely revamp what we now call training. Coaching needs to be seamless, integrated into the business, a natural part of the manager’s role. Sharon [Sharon Daniels, AchieveGlobal CEO] was interviewed recently by Selling Power. She spoke about the three roles of a sales manager – strategist, communicator, and coach. All three are critical to business results, not just training results. A manager needs to coach by developing employees in real time with recognition and constructive feedback – if necessary corrective feedback. Given what we call training, the manager has to take an active role to see real results. What we need now, I think, are better ways to measure the behavioral and bottom-line value of coaching. That data will motivate executives to make coaching a priority, a part of the culture. The bottom line is training and coaching needs to be long-term companions in developing employees.

Does classroom or elearning generate better results?

By Todd Beck A couple of years ago I attended a conference where an elearning vendor presented a client case study. After taking elearning, 100% of the client’s employees passed their industry certification exam. Sounds impressive, right? So I raised my hand (couldn't resist) and asked, “What was the consequence if they didn’t pass the certification exam?” The answer: “They lost their jobs.” I didn’t push the issue, but I hope everybody was thinking about the relationship between motivation and outcome. Even if the elearning had been poorly designed with huge data gaps, those employees were highly motivated to find workarounds fast. If the classic complaint about elearning is that “nobody” completes it, then this question becomes moot. It’s like medicine: It really doesn’t matter how effective a medication is if the patient doesn’t take it. So, intuitively, putting me in a training room and forcing me to participate and demonstrate some level of competence will generate better behavior change. As a natural skeptic, I’d discount any research that claimed elearning alone achieves better Kirkpatrick Level 2 and 3 results. I’ll end with another story. The other day a company told me that they don’t want training that requires their employees to come back and do any work after class. “The training should be completely contained in the classroom.” I was shocked. Another company told me that their managers don’t have time to coach employees on using the skills because those managers are too busy running the company. My guess is that those companies would have terrible completion rates. Whether it’s elearning or any other job assignment, people finish what matters to the boss. WIIFM. What gets measured gets done. Put your favorite management slogan or motivational poster here.