Transitioning from Traditional training to Performance Consulting

“Remember, training is not what is ultimately important …….performance is”

– Marc Rosenberg

One of my friends working as a trainer with an MNC financial services firm gets a call from his operations manager telling her that the training she conducted for his team has done nothing to the falling customer satisfaction scores. The statement clearly said “whatever you did certainly didn’t work”. This leaves my friend very perplexed.

Scenarios like this are a common feature in many organizations. What these scenarios have in common is today training is being looked at as a tool to enhance performance.

Most of the expenditure on training & development is wasted as skills and knowledge gained during training sessions are not appropriately applied by employee on the shop floor. Only about 10% of these expenditures are transferred to the job. This makes it imperative for training to move from traditional approach to the performance approach.

Bob Mager and Peter Pipe have advocated that trainers differentiate between skill and knowledge deficiencies and other work environment factors that affect performance. For over three decades , Tom Gilbert has advocated performance analysis based upon rigorous examination of exemplary performers. He has argued that this is not enough to ask exemplary performers what they do; instead analyst must observe their performance.

There is no doubt that our economy is changing in fundamental and many far reaching ways. The performance demands placed on employees are demanding and their work is changing every day. The competitive advantage and survival of any organization demands that its employees perform at high level.

This brings in a tremendous opportunity for professionals in “training & development” space, as in their quest to achieve high employee performance & productivity, Management and others will seek out these people who can partner them to install the performance required by the organization.

Thus trainers today must be able to do:
1. Develop collaborative working relationships with key managers and other stake holders
2. Clearly understand the Vision and mission of the management
3. Identify the performance levels required by employees to survive
4. Work with people in and outside the management to determine all interventions required to be a “High Performance Organization”

These activities are clearly outside the preview of traditional training processes. Hence trainers today have to transition themselves from being trainers to Performance Consultants who can help employee to identify and achieve performance excellence linked to business goals. The theme that comes out of this discussion is “think performance, not training”

Training and Development - Conjured Learning

Simulations as more than learning tools

Key learnings:

1. Gaming simulations have carved a niche in training
2. But they also have the potential to move a little beyond that
   

Gaming will enable learning professionals to reinforce key learning ideas, deliver more attractive, engaging sessions and ensure higher retention levels is an irrefutable fact. Organisations are so satisfied with just this much that only few have exploited the true potential of gaming.

“Simulation games have more potential than what is currently being harnessed,” says an expert in gaming technology. The biggest discovery is using games to bolster business performance. In fact, once organisations understand the correlation between gaming and business performance, the final word in the learning world will be games!

Simulation games allow learning professionals to reproduce complex market, organisational and customer-service systems and conditions. As a result, learning interventions are better poised to support business performances. Read on to understand the link between simulation games as a learning tool and improved business performance.

Reasoning

The question, “Why simulations?” though answered a hundred times before, todayt in answering the same question, the objectives are to highlight:

1. Using simulation games is relevant in present times
2. How simulations boost business performance

The joys of simulation

Besides their high entertainment value, using simulation games can create knowledge. By modelling work-life conditions, they enable learners to understand:

1. Complex market functioning
2. Tactics that support improved business performance
3. Competencies and skills needed to achieve high performance
   

In short, simulation games, when well leveraged, give organisations a unique business advantage. Detailing reasons why simulation games should become a hot favourite, especially when increasing business performance is the key learning objective.

Generational preference:

With gamers representing an increasing chunk of the employees, short, intermittent online learning exposures will leave learners dissatisfied and disillusioned Simulation games offer modern learners what they expect - a wholesome online learning experience.

Equally important is for organisations to understand the importance that modern generations place on technology. To them, technologically non-savvy organisations have no future. As the head of a telecommunications company reiterates, “With the younger generation in particular, it is important to attract such employees with the kinds of technology they have come to expect, including simulation games and Web 2.0 capabilities” .

As well as to helping organisations cater to the learning needs of newer work generations, simulation games help attract and keep the young crowd! But these benefits are just the beginning.

Built-in learning:

Simulation games place learners in practical performance management situations. Here, learners play a central role in managing and controlling and gain practice in making the right moves. Learners also enjoy the luxury of making errors without suffering its outcomes. With rapidly changing trends, having learners return to classrooms or online sessions often is not possible. With this limitation, simulations provide a great learning platform and what is best is that learners are not getting short-changed in the bargain. On the contrary, they benefit more from the experience of being-in-the- moment. “Compared with traditional classroom learning, simulations help learners master content and new behaviours forty – seventy percent faster,” says an expert. Speeding learners to new learning competencies translates into quicker business results.

The differentiator

There are market simulations that allow learners to perform ‘what if’ analyses. By modelling cause and effect associations that exist in a particular market environment, these simulations allow learners to get a first-hand feel of complex market functions and human interactions. Simulations also make learners better assessors of real-life situations. Known as the ‘déjà vu factor’, a learner who has experienced something in a simulated meeting will immediately link it to what he is going through in real-time.

Simulations can also help business plans and organisational structures to enable employees to understand the complex web of their operations and functioning. Organisations have used such simulations to identify actions and interactions that act as obstacles or hamper functioning. Simulations have also helped them test the solutions. In fact, an emerging practice is using simulations for corrective and preventive measures. Customising all these simulations to the‘t’ will have the desirable impact.

As mentioned above, simulations can help gain critical skills and competencies even when individuals have had no prior experience in it. A railway company employed a cost-centre simulation solution to help their employees, who were engineers with no exposure to finance, gain financial management skills. By engaging those in complex role-playing and allowing them to plan and perform operational activities, the engineers felt as comfortable as their finance counterparts by the end of their training.

The benefits of simulation continue to charm organisations. But thinking of them as learning tools alone will prevent organisations from using them as part of performance management. Given the increasing complexities of the business world, speeding employees’ knowledge and competency gaming is a definite way to ensure better and quicker business results.

Ref: TheManageMentor.