“Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.” – Peter Drucker
Recently, I trained a group in the LA area that wanted to reassess the way they train their employees, particularly their management team. I asked about the types of training they give their employees and the response was “we train them on what they are supposed to do.” I asked to see any materials that they use, any slides, modules or an outline but none was present. I also asked the company if they believe their trainings were effective and they responded with mixed results. I finally asked why they felt they needed additional training from me. Their response was simple. They believed that if I trained them properly, it would lead to more sales.
Depending on where you work, there might be a negative or positive feeling when you hear the word “training” or “company training.” For some companies the word “training” is non-existent. As managers, we are always asked to train other people either because we’ve done a good job at work or others think we know it all. Training is not easy though (Read Still Re-Training Your Employees? Is It A People Problem Or A Training Problem?). There are different learning styles and different methods of facilitating a training. There is one element though that most companies or managers forget to consider when they train their employees.
What are your objectives?
Many managers are not trained to train. If you are asked to train people but have absolutely no training experience (or even if you have very limited experience) focus on one thing: the objectives of your training. Brainstorming the objectives will force you to think about what you’re trying to get out of the training you were asked to conduct. Here are are some questions you should ask yourself:
What should the participant be able to do, say, make, create, develop, use or see after the participant completed my training?
Have you ever wondered why most trainings begin with the objectives and the objectives typically begin with “by the end of this training you will…?” Put some thought into the things you want to accomplish after participants walk away from your training once it's complete.
Is your training content aligned to your objectives?
Telling someone what to do is not a training. Showing someone what to do is not a training either. Everything you do in a training must be aligned to your objectives. Your goal as a trainer is to meet those objectives and have the participants accomplish those objectives as well.
How many objectives do you have?
If you develop a training program for your staff and have 15 objectives, do you think the training will be a long training or a short training? Most likely it will be a long training and with long trainings people forget most of the content. Stick to 3-5 objectives but heavily focus on mastering those objectives. If you need to cover more objectives then you should consider splitting the training module so that it is not one long training.
If you want to put your brain to work and implement some of these ideas, think about training a group of people to make a sandwich. If your goal is to have every participant make the same type of sandwich every single time, what objectives would you develop? How can you make your content align to these objectives? Will your objectives include the understanding of ingredients, speed, and quality control? Focus on your objectives and you will have more consistent results when training your staff.
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