Want to create stickiness that changes employee behaviors and actions? Then it’s time to ditch training as a modality for a new model that actually gives you the ROI you’ve been looking for.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: training masked with a sexy name is still just training. You can dress it up, call it what you want, but the truth is that training isn’t as effective as you might think – don’t just listen to me, the truth is in the studies conducted by McKinsey, Gartner, Harvard and several other credible sources.
To see why, let’s take a look at Tre.
Tre is an Account Executive who is in a training session along with 20 other people from his department. Today they are supposed to learn how to improve their sales pitches. However, they are all packed in a conference room like a can of sardines, and Tre struggles to stay focused as the hours pass. Although they review multiple pitch strategies, Tre unintentionally doesn’t make much progress. To add salt to the wound, he’s now also stressed because while he’s been bombarded with information during the 2 day training, his emails have piled up. Feeling overwhelmed, he tries to re-think what his new sales pitch could be, but the more he tries to sift through his piled emails and customer follow ups, the more he falls back into his old habits of using the same old sales pitch strategies he’s always used.
Sound familiar? That’s because this is all too common. Training simply doesn’t create an environment that facilitates changes in behavior. A large part of this is attributable to the fact that we are complex humans who behave and trigger in accordance with how we were raised, what we have been through, and how we see the world. These are not ideals and paradigms that can be shifted in a training classroom.
So how then, can we create behaviors that stick?
Creating Stickiness
The answer is ongoing Group Coaching. Let’s break this down a bit.
First, the word ongoing has a huge role to play. Concepts have to be repeated for them to stick. They can’t just be rush-delivered in one-time training sessions in stuffy rooms. Topics and skills begin to cement in someone’s mind as they begin to recognize how they show up in their day-to-day after repeat exposure. Like a cake, information must be carefully layered to be digestible.
In addition to ongoing, the other key word here is group. Research tells us that 50% of information is retained in group discussions [1], compared to the 10% that is retained from classroom training [2].
An Approach That Sticks
And the last part is the actual coaching — the most effective form of development. When you move away from full-day training events to ongoing Group Coaching, powerful changes can happen.
At Experiential Insight, we design our Group Coaching Tracks so that topics build upon each other. That way, individuals can connect the dots in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them. Employees can walk away from 1-hour sessions with digestible chunks of information and insights. They can then go back into the workplace to take action, return the next week to build on it, and repeat the process.
They can also practice what they learn in intimate groups with their peers. Research has shown that 75% of information is retained when individuals practice what they learned [3], and our Group Coaching provides individuals with a safe and supportive space to do this.
Do you want to create change that sticks? Then it’s time to change your approach.
Nishika de Rosairo | CEO and Founder | HumanQ
Contact Nishika: nishika@humanq.com
Contact HumanQ: info@humanq.com
Website: humanq.com
[1],[3] https://thetrainingassociates.com/blog/post-training-reinforcement/#_edn4
[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/why-leadership-development-programs-fail
