Blog / Leadership
Annette Ferrari, Ensuring Training Makes An Impact
One of the most costly and time consuming aspects of workplace learning is that, despite quality training and learning resources, employees keep falling back into old ways. Sound all too familiar? Force of habit as a controlling influence in human performance is too often underestimated, and we all need to understand why we don’t modify our behaviour beneficially when back at work from a training seminar. Why do employees go back to their “old ways”? Why does it seem to be so difficult implementing what has been learned? Importantly, understand that there are many factors involved in trying to drive or facilitate change (or continuous improvement) in any workplace.
Old habits die hard, and the problem becomes not learning the new, but forgetting (unlearning) the old. You have to concentrate hard on every step. The new practice, feels strange, having done it the other way for so long. And performance may slow which is reflected in your sales targets.
When results don’t come quickly, we soon succumb to self-doubt – “the biggest battle from within” according to Lee Woodward - and unless you practice to the point where you start to see a difference, self-doubt will prevent you from moving to where you need to be.
Learning is about making things automatic, instinctive and efficient. Learning is the formation of habit patterns, and the key to habits or familiarity of practice is repetition. Successful learning is about visibility, seeing a shift in employees where they actually apply the new knowledge and skills, and that shift adds value back to the individual employee and the agency. However, with any behavioural change, this takes time, conscious effort and application and in the workplace, an employee must have patience, a willingness to practice, and organisational support.
In order to ensure that learning in your agency earns its keep and that everyone gets the results desired, there is a dual responsibility, that is, the effectiveness of training rests with both the employee and management. So whether it’s about learning something new or changing something old the following steps should ensure that material is learned, practised and applied, turning the new behaviours into wanted business results.
Employee Steps
- Have a plan and work that plan. Plans must be followed by action. Act now. In series 9, disc 8 of Hot Topics, Lee Woodward stresses that “agents must develop the discipline to activate their career, know the actions required to move forward – that’s action”.
- Talking is not doing. Most people like to talk and talking gives them a sense that they are acting out their plans. They can call this brainstorming, discussing or even planning, but these activities are not to be confused with doing.
- Getting things done takes a lot of effort. Develop a desire to succeed, leave your comfort zone and take a risk. Live up to the challenge of the learning and commit to the activities to move forward. Be effective in activation.
- Whatever you practice or repeat is what you will learn. In other words, whatever we repeat, i.e. practice, is soon stored (registered and hardwired) in the brain, simply because we have repeated it over and over, and soon the learned material will become effortless and automatic. So practice, practice, practice.
- Fear of failure. New material may require skill and abilities that may be beyond our capabililties – initially! Understand that this resistance often accompanies us when we are being stretched and developed. Again, practice. Ask questions, observe, role-play (for an innovative, novel approach to role-playing, listen to series 9, disc 8 of Hot Topics to hear the approach used by Greg Earney [The Professionals, Mt Evelyn] and his sales team as a way of practicing and refining the handling of objections).
- Take on a coach. Ensure that you have opportunity to test your new skills with a learned professional who will evaluate progress to date and is well placed to make suggestions and improvements to your practice.
When training is successful in making a difference it is usually because there are multiple organisational factors within the workplace which support and strengthen the learning. Agency principals should ensure the following occurs:
- People are given the opportunity to apply what they have learned and practice the skills they develop.
- There is support for some ‘risk taking’ (in learning and development) and ‘mistakes’ are recognised as opportunities for improvement.
- The culture of the workplace values, recognises and rewards learning. A team’s mindset and attitude often come from managers and from other influential people in the team, so it’s essential that as a manager, you model the values you wish your staff to embrace.
- Give your staff the skills and know-how to better manage themselves – automony fosters not only pride and confidence but also accountability and responsibility fortasks undertaken.
- Ensure that a coach is accessible to them. A coach will help them get past the initial difficulties they encounter, to understand why they may be experiencing resistance and perhaps fear, and also to ensure that they are getting it right because if we spend time and effort practicing the “wrong” thing, then that is what we will end up knowing and doing. Also, as many agency principals are the key listers/major income producers in their offices, as the boss, you simply don’t always have the time to be effective as a coach.
- Give ample feedback concerning their progress and performance. Let people know how they’re doing. Measure the resulting improvements in performance and communicate this.
- Make sure that staff have the necessary learning resources at their fingertips to extend existing skills and to add polish and finesse to what they already know.
- And don’t forget - catch people doing things well.
Experience shows that encouraging and assisting a person to adjust to new practices and/or skills through patient and supportive training is an enormously important competence of a manager that will increase motivation, loyalty and goodwill in a workplace. Conversely, without these things happening, even excellent training programs and learning resources may fail to have real and lasting impact as ‘things go back to normal’ after the initial enthusiasm of the new material wanes.
Annette Ferrari provides coaching services to agency staff to assist in the implementation of new material into daily practice. Annette has worked in the real estate industry for over twenty years and combines this hands-on experience with a Master of Behavioural Science, a Bachelor of Adult Education and a Bachelor of Communication Studies. Annette can be contacted on 0418 862 276.
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