Change versus Improvement

In the media, I often read or hear about tax 'reform', education 'reform' or health care 'reform' etc. And whenever I see this I think that whoever is pushing this latest reform is confusing their intention or desired outcome with the process. Whatever they are doing isn't a reform unless it results in an improvement by some measure. Until then it is simply a change, no more, no less. And change in itself is not intrinsically valuable. Change always involves costs, so unless there is a counter-balancing benefit, it is actually bad.

This is equally true in business and in the public sector. Managers often think that  there is something praiseworthy just in doing 'something'. A new manager commences and thinks they have to prove themselves so they make a lot of changes and then congratulate themselves on how 'proactive' and 'innovative' they are, regardless of the costs to the business or the paucity of benefits.

Somehow organisations always manage to fill their strategic plans with dozens if not hundreds of different actions (i.e. changes) regardless of the need for them. Activity replaces improvement as a measure of value-added.

However, I contend that the best manager is the one who achieves the best results with the minimum of change and whose major changes are the elimination of unnecessary activity. But such a manager would be unlikely to be rewarded by the organisation for which they work. No-one is likely to be impressed if there is no actual activity they can point to which as led to the results they are  getting.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is often no measurement of the baseline costs and benefits, so if a manager makes a change there is nothing to compare it with to determine whether the change was beneficial or damaging. This means that managers with a propensity for changing things can often point to lots and lots of changes they have made, but would be hard put to demonstrate any actual benefits from those changes. But at least their own bosses are impressed by the flurry of activity.

I have said elsewhere that a prerequisite for excellence in any activity is stability.It is difficult to become a master of anything that is constantly changing, where part of the effort that you could be putting into doing is diverted into learning the latest changes. This doesn't rule out change completely. However what it does highlight is that change needs to be judicious, it needs to be well thought out, it needs to be properly implemented and finally if it doesn't yield the expected results it needs to be scrapped.

It is only when changes are made in this way that they are likely to result in improvements rather than just pointless activity.

How much of training is really worthwhile? (and how can you tell?)

Training is an important component in ensuring that workers know how to do their jobs properly.

However:

• the timing has to be right
• the process in which the person is being trained needs to be stable
• the systems that the person uses after training need to be free of bugs.

The ideal timing for training is when the person is motivated to learn and as close as possible to when the training will be used. If the person doesn't see the point of the training then it will be an uphill battle for them to learn anything. If the gap in time is too great between the training and its use then the person may forget critical information in the meantime because they have not had the opportunity to use it and reinforce it. Training also needs to be targeted to the person's needs. A person is more likely to absorb information that they need than to absorb information peripheral to their needs.

The process needs to be stable, otherwise the training may be out-of-date as soon as the trainee walks out the door. And the computer systems need to be bug-free since otherwise the trainees will be unable to distinguish between system issues and their own mistakes. Buggy systems make for noisy feedback which undercuts learning.

Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model can be an invaluable tool for determining whether training has been worthwhile.

It has four levels:  

1. Reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the training
2. Learning - the resulting increase in knowledge or capability
3. Behavior - extent of behavior and capability improvement and implementation/application
4. Results - the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee's performance

The problem is that many training evaluations stop at the first level. I recall going to a training course on change management and there is no doubt that the trainer knew their subject, that it was interesting and informative and that most of those present enjoyed it and gave it good evaluations. Then they went back to their jobs and kept doing things the same way they had previously. The lesson is that the fact that trainees found the training enjoyable and interesting doesn't necessarily mean that it was worthwhile.

It used to be that when a person did training they were given pre-tests and post-tests, the theory being that the difference between their results on the two tests indicated an increase in knowledge. This seems to be out of fashion now, even though it at least had the advantage of showing that some learning had taken place. Without something comparable to this, it isn't clear that any of what was taught has stuck. Some options for measurement could include needing to complete some assessment tasks on the job and the plus in this is that it at least provides an indication of whether anything was remembered once the trainee left the training room. Plus it gets them integrating their learning into performance.

Which brings us to performance: is the person applying what they have learned? This is another area that seldom seems to be followed up except tangentially. In fact, the whole purpose of training in some instances is so that management can claim that the person was trained so that any subsequent deficit in performance is down to the employee not doing their job rather than them not having received the required training (however ill-timed or inadequate it might have been.)

Finally, if the worker did learn and apply what was covered in the training, what difference has this made to the organisation's performance: is work being done faster, more accurately, more effectively, with less waste or less downtime? If not, then the reason could be that the training wasn't properly matched to the organisation's needs and this is important feedback because it points to the need for better analysis before developing and rolling out training.

The bottom line is that training isn't about the trainees feeling good.

It is about the delivery of results and if it fails to deliver then it really wasn't worthwhile. Worse, it was a cost to the organisation without any commensurate benefit.

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Resources

Official Site of the Kirkpatrick Model