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In the course of my travels, I meet interesting business people from around theworld who want to build great companies. They say that people are their most important asset. They say they will stop at nothing to improve the performance of their people. They say they are ‘committed.’ Then they ask if we can help them create ‘real change’ in a two-day leadership training program. And I tell them to go fly a kite … well, not exactly. (I guess we wouldn’t have much of a business if I did that too many times!)
The point is that two days are simply not enough. Athletes get this—they understand that to change a golf swing, a volleyball serve, or a quarterback’s throwing mechanics, it requires more than a few days of focus. Pilots also get this—flight simulators were created for a specific reason; to put these skilled technicians in challenging situations so many times that their reflex reactions become skilled and second nature.
What athletes and pilots understand is that training without an ‘after-action review’ or ‘back brief’ is useless. At IHHP we call it ruthless accountability - something that holds you accountable to the change you are attempting to make.
This concept is the same when managing a team or leading an organization: no follow-up after training equals no sustained learning. Three critical steps are required to achieve any significant change in behavior and performance in sport or business:
- focus over time
- repetition, and
- ruthless accountability.
It won’t work with two steps . . . and certainly not with just one (e.g. “Budgets are tight and we have only two days”). If you miss any of these steps, you might as well throw your training budget out the window because it will be about as effective. Change that . . . it will be more effective. Tossing your money out the window at least ensures that the following scenario (which occurs thousands of times a week in hundreds of companies all over the world) doesn’t actually happen: a group of people step into a room for a few days to improve their leadership. Most arrive truly dedicated to learning. They receive feedback from their direct reports and peers and manage themselves extraordinarily well to get the gift that this feedback represents. They are inspired to improve. Then they leave.
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Take John for example. The next day back this well intentioned manager is hit with three times his normal amount of emails. His manager calls him in and tells him that they need to move faster on a key project because of a change in budgets. A direct report walks by and seems distant for some unknown reason. Maybe he was the person who said I don’t spend enough time with him in my feedback, he thinks. And, of course there’s his daughter’s little league game tonight. He absolutely will not miss one again - although it’s not looking too good after meeting with his manager.
By the following week, the intention to change is long forgotten. What remains is residue from the feedback received from his closest colleagues and a deep, aching feeling of, Who’s kidding who? I can’t really change. This of course affects a person’s sense of ‘self-efficacy’- the idea that they can set a goal and meet it.
Then, next year, after another training session, the same scenario is played out.
The message to organizations interested in real change is this: if you’re not going to spend your training dollars wisely, save them. Wait until next year, double your budget and do it right. The band-aid approach is giving learning a bad name and making people feel worse in the process; perhaps even affecting performance in the opposite direction intended. Let me be clear—it’s not just a question of just adding more dollars; it’s also a question of design. You need to ensure the design of the program you are investing in builds follow-up into the learning.
A recent study of 86,000 people published in Strategy and Business (Fall 2004) demonstrates how important follow-up is to any learning program. Eight major corporations from a wide range of industries (pharmaceutical/health care, financial services, aerospace/defense and media to name a few) assessed the ‘change in leadership effectiveness’ based on the amount of follow-up that a co-worker received from the training program. The results were astounding. When the co-worker did no follow-up post program, the perceived change of that leader’s effectiveness was as follows:
In the graph above, the bottom, ‘x’ axis, ‘perceived change’ refers to the respondents’ perception of their co-workers change in leadership effectiveness. For example a rating of “+3” would indicate that the co-worker was seen as becoming a much more effective leader; a rating “0” would indicate no change in leadership effectiveness. The ‘y’ axis, ’percent’, refers to the percentage of survey respondents grouped around a given rating. For example, in Exhibit 1, between 30 and 42 percent of respondents gave a “0” rating - that is, they saw no change - to leaders who ‘did no follow-up.’ Follow-up here refers to efforts that leaders make to solicit continuing and updated ideas for improvement from co-workers.
When the co-worker did ‘a little follow-up,’ the change in leadership effectiveness improved as follows.
When the co-worker did “some follow-up,” the change in leadership effectiveness grew.
When the co-worker did ‘frequent follow-up,’ the change in leadership effectiveness became even more significant.
And, finally, when the co-worker did a “consistent or periodic follow-up,” the change in leadership effectiveness was the most significant of all groups.
The results don’t lie. Following up after a program is absolutely critical if you want to see real change. Training that begins and ends with only an event (the ‘spray and pray technique’) breeds cynicism and sabotages future attempts at learning. Quite simply, not very many people are self directed enough to be able to stay focused and make good on change after a training program. I write from experience, having worked with Olympic champions and top leaders. Even this lofty group gets ‘tranquilized by the trivial,’ finding it hard to stay focused on what matters most in the midst of the many small details that bombard them on a daily basis. With no follow-up built into a program, it is exceedingly difficult to make the initial investment of learning—the two days—work for you.
So how do you build follow-up into training programs? You start by getting out of the ‘event mentality’ that pervades most organizations. Don’t spend all of your money on just one big event for the year. If you can’t increase your budget, work with a smaller number of individuals for at least six months beyond the event using coaching, follow-up training or advanced technologies such as e-learning.
If you really want to see learning beyond the event, perhaps the most significant thing you can do to improve leadership effectiveness is to get and keep your co-workers involved. (After all, no one likes to be asked for feedback and then be ignored.) Make it clear to participants that they will be asked to initiate a discussion with their colleagues, post-program, for the one thing they are trying to improve. Having participants use the power of colleagues in the ruthless accountability process is a strong argument for involving a coach. The study we mentioned earlier found that having an external or internal coach made a significant difference in helping participants drive follow-up by colleagues.
The bottom line is this: don’t be too hard on yourself if you feel like you haven’t been able to make real change following a training program. Maybe you’ve been set up for failure. Maybe your organization just isn’t committed to real change; maybe it’s merely lip service. Or maybe they just don’t know. There is a science to change. Consider it for your next training program. This will leave your windows free to function as conduits of scenic views and fresh air—a much better purpose, don’t you think?
Dr. J.P. Pawliw-Fry
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