"This week I had to imagine I had just 2 minutes or so to give someone an "elevator speech" regarding the "truth" about training. Below is a transcript of my speech as well as the audio file."
Thank you for meeting with me today. It is my understanding you do not want to continue investing in training within the organization. I do understand your concern considering studies show that 10% or less of training investments results in transfer on the job (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2004, p. 13). However, this is usually because training is not always the solution or the only solution.
Let me help you have a better understanding why training needs to continue. As you know, healthcare has and continues to change. No longer are we just a stand-a-lone small community hospital, we are now part of a larger multi-hospital healthcare system and we will continue to grow. We are not only going to change in size, but we are changing where and how we do business. All business, including healthcare are in a constant state of flux. This is all partly due to the increase in globalization, workforce diversity, as well as the advances in technology. In recent years our physicians and nurses have been responding to disasters abroad such as the earthquake in Haiti; our workforce has become more diverse both in employee population as well as patient population; and technological advances has changed the way we do business, in particular the way in which we care for our patients.
Our staff must be prepared to deal with these forces to promote an environment that supports these changes so we may achieve our mission to become a leader in the healthcare industry. According to Noe, training that is centered around helping the organization reach business goals and objectives will help a company gain a competitive advantage (p.92). Thank you for your time and I ask that you reconsider the importance of training and how important it is to this organization’s success.
References:
Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee Training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Stolovitch, H. D., and; Keeps, E. J. (2004). Training ain't performance. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Thetruthabouttraining by lfalanga
Lisa--
ReplyDeleteIn your speech you touched on both advancement in technologies and factors such as globolization. If I were the target of this speech those particular points would have resonated with me strongly. I would know that issues such as these will effect my bottom line. Which is something that I would work tirelessly to protect.
Gene
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that I want to acknowledge is how personable, yet professional your presentation was. Your frank and thoughtful tone does an absolutely wonderful job of selling yourself as a credible source. You acknowledge immediately the concerns of your audience have merit before going on to present an effective counter-argument.
The other thing that I think you did that was very effective was to audience-specific examples. You pull in details like, “No longer are we just a stand-a-lone small community hospital” and “our physicians and nurses have been responding to disasters abroad such as the earthquake in Haiti”, which show that you are addressing your audiences’ specific needs, and you are not just making a generic case for training. Contrasting your pitch with mine, I notice that I didn’t do anything like this and I think that my pitch suffers as a result.
You start out your pitch with a great statistic – “studies show that 10% or less of training investments results in transfer on the job”. The only way I think your pitch could be improved is if you included more hard numbers in your pitch, especially in your conclusion. Stolovitch and Keeps (2006) point out that there are three criteria for determining whether to invest in a project: magnitude, value and urgency (p. 31). You do a great job of establishing magnitude and urgency, but I think describing value and worth (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2004, p. 9) as numbers to counter the depressing statistic you open with would be very effective. Perhaps conclude with the ROI from a specific training program the organization has implemented. If ROI isn’t available, then describing the ‘industry standard’ value and worth for training efforts similar to those your organization has undertaken would probably work just as well.
References:
Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2004). Training ain’t performance. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2006). Beyond training ain’t performance fieldbook: Strategies, tools, and guidance for effective workplace performance. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI think you got the attention of leadership with your elevator speech. In my experience, your speech would be a good beginning, but stakeholders in my organization want to hear more about how I can change their perception or in what way they can start to see a return on their training investments or ROI.
Well, ROI on training is not easy to illustrate unless the development begins by clearly identifying what the return should look like or what should the learner be able to accomplish after the training is over (Stolovitch, Keeps, 2004). You have highlighted specifics of what you believe is important to the organization to accomplish, it may help to illustrate how learner-centered training promotes these accomplishments.
References:
Stolovtich, H., Keeps, E. (2004). Training ain't performance.
Hi Lisa
ReplyDeleteI think that you had a great speech to sell training to administrator who does not believe that training transfer to the job. Letting him/her know that this is due to the fact that training is not always sufficient was a good step. Maybe you also should have presented that fact that most learning takes place informally, on the job and that many bad habits and misunderstanding occur in this learning. Let your administrator know that you know that you need to capture that informal learning and provide structure and organization to it, so the bad aspects are removed (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.). Let him/her know that training will be aligned with business strategies and provide examples of when this has happened in the past and the value the company gained from these examples (Noe, 2010, p. 89).
Sue
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). The truth about training. [Video].
Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Patrick; your presentation was very personable, yet professional. I really liked how you personalized the presentation to the healthcare CEO by providing specific examples of how the healthcare industry is changing. You did a nice job rationalizing the need for training as a result of changes in the industry due to globalization, a diverse workforce and increased use of technology. I liked your closing statement regarding the development of a learning environment that supports the achievement of their mission to become a leader in the healthcare industry.
Dr. Burke