Yesterday, I spent time talking with Phil about his training program and what was missing.

We spend so much time fretting about our training programs, the curriculum, the workbooks, what to include, do we include too much, do we use powerpoint, who should the instructor be, should it last for one hour or two hours?

We sit on committees discussing this stuff, deciding, writing, re-writing, ordering the coffee, arranging for flipcharts and markers.

And we sit and wonder why our training programs are so ineffective.

Training is only the beginning. Training only gets you so far (and not very far at that).

The acquisition of any skill starts with training, but requires practiced performance. Without practiced performance (and coaching), the impact of most training is lost and all the resources are wasted.

So, the next time you create any training program, put as much thought into the aftermath, the practice and coaching that comes after the training.

What's your experience? -TF

"Look at this," Phil exclaimed. "We just had the training on this last week. And I just pulled samples from the prototypes. Thank goodness this isn't a production run. I ought to fire the whole lot of them."

I winced. "Yes, I guess you could fire them, all eight of them. But then you would have to run the line yourself. I don't know if you could keep up."

"You know what I mean. I'm not going to fire anybody. I'm just frustrated. Maybe it's our training department. Maybe we need to look at the training program."

"Perhaps," I said. "You know, when people acquire a skill, I mean really acquire a skill, it takes more than a training program." Phil looked at me, like I was from Mars.

"When you were a kid, did you ever learn how to throw a ball?" I continued. Phil nodded. "So, someone showed you how to throw, and you threw one ball and then you were an expert?"

Phil laughed. He suddenly knew where I was going with this. "Of course not. I had to throw a hundred balls. I had to practice. My mom was my coach."

"So, what do you think is missing from your training program?"

Phil's eyes narrowed. His head began to nod. "Practice and coaching." And with that, he scooped up the samples, turned on a dime and headed for the production floor. -TF

"And that concludes my report. A well-thought out plan, perfectly executed." Martin smiled. I knew he was lying. His plan may have been well-thought out, but life is never that perfect.

Carla was next up. She was nervous. Her plan was solid, but her team had hit some rocky patches. "I guess things didn't go the way we thought," she reported. "We had to make several adjustments as we went along. Our project required three additional meetings. In the end, we made the deadline and came in under budget, but it was tough. I will try to do better next time."

Carla got a quiet golf clap from the room for her efforts. I moved up to confront the class.

"Carla thinks her project didn't go so well. Carla thinks she should have had a better report for class tonight, but here is why her report is so important.

"You read these management magazines out there, about CEOs with well-thought out plans, perfectly executed. Some reporter shows up to write about every target flawlessly achieved. No pimples, no bumps, no bruises. Whenever I hear that, I know I have to get the guy drunk to get the truth.

"But, look at Carla's report. Her team started out toward their first objective, they got off course." I drew a line across the page with an abrupt turn. "It took an extra meeting to figure out where they went wrong, to get back on track.

"They met their first target, but immediately things went south again. Another meeting, another adjustment." My line on the flipchart meandered across the page with another hard turn back to target number two.

"And it happened again, before the project was finished." The flipchart now showed huge jagged lines criss-crossing the page. "And this is where the real story is. Not the neatly wrapped perfect execution. The real story is out here, where the team cobbled together a solution to an unanticipated event to get back on track. And over here where the client threw them a curve ball.

"And that's why Carla's story is so important. And that is where the real learning is." -TF

"You tell me," I said. "You see the new behavior extinguished after one week with no reinforcement. You only have two choices left. Positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement?"

Ryan was concerned that his training program wasn't sticking. "Well, as long as they are doing it right, I shouldn't have to say anything. So, I should probably watch them and correct the wrong behaviors."

Ryan wasn't lazy, but he really didn't want to spend any more time than was necessary to make sure the training stuck.

"So, how are you going to monitor the behavior?" I continued.

Ryan was a touch frustrated as he was thinking this through. "I don't know. I really don't have the time to spend watching them all day, and by the way, we have 20 workstations in that unit. I would probably have to put three supervisors on just to do the watching. And if it's the first week, they will mostly be doing it right, so catching them doing it wrong will be happen chance. But if I wait until after the first week to watch, it will be too late. I don't know."

"What if you considered positive reinforcement? Make positive comments when they do it right. Then, you could begin the reinforcement right away," I suggested.

This had never occurred to Ryan in a million years. You could see a wave of relief come over his face. "You mean, I could hit each workstation, make a positive comment and leave?"

"Yep, make a positive comment, leave, go do some other stuff. Come back, make a positive comment, leave, go do some other stuff. You can bring some of the workstations together to watch one guy do it right. That's one positive comment to five people at the same time. You could take a picture of someone doing it right, print it out, write good job across it with a marker and post it in his workstation. You can do lots of things quickly. Get the new behavior established and move on." -TF

"The difference," I spoke quietly, "the difference is the big three. Frequency, duration and proximity of the manager." We had been talking about getting process changes to stick with the workforce.

"You have noticed that your training on these process changes seems to last for about a week before the new behavior is extinguished."

"Extinguished?" Ryan asked.

"Extinguished, like a fire, put out. The behavior goes away. Let's look at your management reinforcement to the new behavior. There are three possibilities. Positive reinforcement of the correct new behavior. Negative reinforcement of the old wrong behavior. No reinforcement regardless of the behavior.

"You described that your managers gave no reinforcement regardless of the behavior?"

Ryan nodded his head. "Well, yeah, we figured we had done our job in the training. Why should we have to go back to make sure they are doing it the new way?"

"Because, with no reinforcement, the new behavior is extinguished after one week. Not only does it happen, it is predictable. I will bet you a dollar that if you go back and re-train the new behavior, on the floor, that new behavior will be extinguished after one week."

Ryan's eyes were looking at me, but you could tell he was looking inward. "You would win your bet. It is predictable. So what do we do?"