Learning Transfer – Let it go

by | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog | 1 comment

Of course I couldn’t stay off my favourite topic for too long and my enthusiasm for Learning Transfer has never been higher. I’ve spent the last 2 days working with my 6 new European / US team members in Paris. We have had the best time. Some great learning, great insights and great fun. Now their Learning Transfer journey begins.

So why do I say let it go?

What I’m referring too is letting it go in certain circumstances.

We discussed in our methodology training the problems that occur when participants aren’t engaged in the Learning Transfer process. What happens when they didn’t want to be at the training in the first place? When they saw no value in the time they had invested or when they just committed to an action because they had too? Don’t for one moment imagine this happened to my new team 🙂 however they did want to make sure they were ready to handle this with participants and of course in the broader perspective of training it does come up.

What do I recommend? Letting it go.

Don’t bash on with an action plan that the participant isn’t bought into BUT create a new perspective. Everyone in my view, once they get out of their own way, wants to do a better job, enjoy their work more, be more productive, get better results. No-one intentionally wants to be a poor or even mediocre performer. Putting the action plan they are disengaged with to one side and give them a fresh sheet of paper and create a new view.

We do this with the management consultant exercise…..

And 9 out of 10 times what comes up in the brainstorm is either something that was learnt in the training or the biggest barrier and real reason they can’t move forward.

Try the exercise out on yourself just for fun.

PROCESS – MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

  1. Repeat back to the individual what you have heard so far.  Summarise the conversation. You might say, “I’m hearing that you really feel that you’ve got everything covered or that your action plan isn’t something that resonates with you or is useful any more. Is that right?”
  2. Get their permission to work through a process that could help unearth something that might be useful to work on.  It can be helpful in this situation to play to the person’s ego a little by suggesting you deviate from a Turning Learning into Action ¼ (TLA) conversation into an Executive Coaching conversation.  If appropriate, remind the individual that highly paid executives use coaching or that athletes who have won two or three Olympic Gold medals still work with a coach.  You might say, “If it’s OK with you I’d really like to shift away from TLA for a moment to executive coaching and use a little technique to see how we can add value and perhaps help us to get a different perspective on the situation. Is that OK with you?”
  3. Assuming you get their permission you might say, “Imagine you no longer work for your current employer because you’ve gone out on your own as a management consultant.  In a twist of fate your old company hires you back, for a large fee, to review your old role and work shadow the person who is now doing your old job (the job you actually do now).  For a week you watch how that person works.  From the perspective of an accomplished and insightful management consultant can you see any areas for improvement in the role?”
  4. Sometimes the individual will start to provide ideas and you can use them to move forward.  If they don’t then you might say, “What three things would you identify as strong efficiencies in the role?  Once they have created the list I play it back to them.
  5. Once you have repeated the strengths and the individual has acknowledged them you might say, “Now obviously you need to create a detailed analysis and feedback in your management consultant role and it’s important for you to get the best possible results so what three things might you mention that could possibly be done differently to get an even better result. I stress here it could be things that are already done well but could be done even better or it could be the smallest tweak that if changed a fraction would help the business get an even better result. What are the three things you as a management consultant would suggest?”
  6. Buoyed by the previous strengths the individual is much more likely to find a few things and move past, “I don’t know”.  So once you have the three things provided by the individual you play them back to the person and then get them to pick one item from the list of things that could be done different and add the most value and progress that point in the conversation.
  7. If they are undecided simply get them to rank the three items they identified in terms of easiest to hardest or what will add the most value and least value.  Always encourage the individual to work on the hardest issue or the one that will deliver most value. That way they are supported through those issues during the TLA process, gain the win and are then much more confident about handling the other less difficult issues themselves.