Month: May 2012

now that i know the answer, what was the question?

This week I turned 42, which, as two different people reminded me, is the answer to life the universe, and everything. In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series a supercomputer determined that the answer to life, etc. was “42” and then suggested that if people didn’t understand what the answer meant perhaps they needed to figure out what the question was.

How often do we come to conclusions based on false assumptions, brought about by poor questions? Closed-ended questions, leading questions, questions that are very open to interpretation, and just garden variety misunderstood questions all provide answers. They just don’t give us information.

Better questions lead to better answers which leads to better decisions, better actions, and better results. Any guesses where poor questions lead?

keepin’ it relevant

Recently my daughter and some friends were doing a scavenger hunt where they followed a series of clues to discover the prize at the end. One of the clues was, “The place where we get bills.” Immediately, my daughter rushed to the computer because that’s where we pay bills. Uh oh. The last thing a business wants is to be irrelevant to the customer.

Your business, your department, and even you become irrelevant to your customers the second they no longer think of you as a resource and solution to their problems. Few think about it that way, but it’s true. Customers are trying to solve a problem they have and need you to do it. Put another way, from the customer’s point of view, your business (department, team, etc.) is useful and relevant only if you can solve their problem.

Banks exist to solve the problems of safely storing and accessing money. Lawnmowers exist to solve the problem of an unkempt lawn. Car dealers exist to solve personal transportation problems. Human Resources departments exist to solve the problems of finding, hiring, managing, and developing people. And so on. Internal or external, it doesn’t matter – your job is to help your customers solve their problems.

When salespeople don’t listen to the customer, they don’t (can’t!) provide solutions. When employees judge their worth to the company by their tenure rather than the problems they are solving, they are missing the point. When HR departments focus on administration they are solving only the lowest level of problems (which are easily outsourced). When your potential customers avoid you or work around you or tolerate you because you are the only option (for now), you become a problem to them.

You become a problem that they will look to someone else to solve.

training is (still) stupid

“Training is a complete waste of time!” Not true, but that’s what I got out of an article in ASTD’s Buzznews published yesterday. A report by ILX Group “revealed that 63% of HR professionals and business managers conduct training to boost business capability.”

Pardon me while I go hyperventilate and scream in rage against my profession! So they are reporting that 37% conduct training for reasons unrelated to boosting business capability?! Anyone else see a potential problem? How about a real, right now, in your face problem? And some wonder why training is the first thing cut when money gets tight!

It gets worse: “30% said training had a positive impact on achieving profit.” SEVENTY PERCENT of those surveyed believe that training doesn’t have a positive impact on profit!!! Why are we bothering?

The actual focus of the article was that 40% of companies want tablet computers for training. Well, sure, if your training doesn’t do any good you might as well spend money on toys and at least entertain the participants. New technology doesn’t improve bad training. EVER.

For a more in-depth and less exclamation point filled response, I’m reposting a piece I originally published on June 04, 2011.

 

Training is Stupid

There is one and only one purpose for training: to increase performance. That’s it. Training provides new knowledge and skills that allow a person to perform better than they could without the information or practice provided by the training. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about training for leadership development, college classes, or even physical fitness. Any training that doesn’t increase performance is stupid.

I once observed a safety training where the trainer was showing the participants how to fill out a government form. Not the most exciting topic to begin with, the training was so slow, dull, and unengaging that the trainer made Mr. Rogers look like Tony Robbins. The more experienced participants were getting caught up on reading spy novels. The others looked like they were wishing for sweet, sweet death – his or theirs, it didn’t matter. It was total waste of time and money, but the company was able to check the box and say that their employees had attended the required training.

I’ve also known trainers so charismatic and entertaining that everyone has a great time and universally gives the trainer high marks on their evaluation. Yet, said and done, the participants can’t remember what the program was about or don’t understand how to apply it to their own lives. A good time was had by all, but it was still a horrific waste of time and resources.

Sometimes the training is a hodgepodge of great ideas and techniques, but there is no plan to bring it all together so that the person can consistently apply it and improve. Every been at the gym and seen someone “training” their friend by almost randomly showing them different exercises? Information is dumped on them, but they have no understanding of how to truly apply it. There’s no plan, no tracking of progress, and minimal (if any) improvement.

The biggest challenge is that increasing performance means change. Scary word. Our performance gets better only when our behavior changes (we’ll never get better if we keep doing the same things). Changing others – even simply helping them change themselves – is incredibly difficult. That’s why most training fails us. It’s much, much easier to provide information and call it “training.” It’s much, much easier to be entertaining, have fun, tell some great stories that kind of relate to the topic and call it “training.” It’s much, much easier to string together a bunch of ideas than organize them into a plan that will create ongoing improvement. It’s much, much easier to think of training as a one-time, check the box event than to approach it as an ongoing process. How different would training be if every aspect was scrutinized to determine if each bit of information was truly important and if it would create the changed behavior that leads to increased performance?

And here’s why we care. Company performance improves ONLY when individual performance improves. It’s painfully funny how many leaders insist on improving company performance without ever trying to create higher performance from each and every individual. Training is crucial to any company that wants sustained performance.

Except when it’s stupid…