Is it time for a better you and a better way to train executives and high potentials?
According to Huthwaite, a leading training company, 30 days after a one or two-day training event, participants lose, on average, 87% of the skills they were meant to acquire.
Why? Training is an attempt to expand your range of thoughts and behaviors–essentially to make a better you. Without repetition, reinforcement, and ongoing correction, people simply cannot unlearn old skills and acquire new ones.
This is true of all behavioral training, sales training, presentation training, or customer service training.
So what’s the answer? Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel winning psychologist, provides a simple formula.
“Acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.”
“A regular environment” implies a calm, ordered approach to coaching.
“An adequate opportunity to practice” implies taking the time to prepare, rehearse, and role play the new behavior until the skill sinks in.
“Rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions” means real time coaching on both theory and practice–nipping mistakes in the bud.
Yet despite ancient common sense and the science of Nobel laureates, businesses continue to insist on offering one-or-two-day training programs to their employees.
Get it right the first time. When you invest in your people, make sure you get real change. Give them an environment conducive to growth, adequate practice time, and a coach who is capable of giving unequivocal feedback.