Time to knuckle down L&D

Over my time in learning and development, the one burning question has always been thus: How can you make training as true to life as is possible? It's the one thing anyone attending a training session wants to know. How does this training relate to my daily life, be it work or personal? How can I use this information to help me develop? What real life examples show that what I am learning is transferable and been experienced by others?

It's a difficult initial question to answer through a training session. Brain friendly techniques, learning styles, good facilitation, clear learning objectives, smart exercises, these all help. But I don't think they're the answer to the problem. Some topics lend themselves better to 'real learning' such as: Presentation training, negotiation training, time management, I.T. training are all good examples of when practise and hands on experience makes a difference. But what about topics like assertiveness? Or coaching? Or feedback? These are difficult to get right in the short space of time a training event offers.

Yet there are very practical solutions available to us, if we just take the time to consider how we can make them happen. In my last post I spoke about creating our own internal 'products' of learning and development. Well we can offer other solutions too.

Have you considered dedicating time for people to learn on the job? On the job learning remains the single best way we learn about new skills, make mistakes, grow knowledge, go through trial and error, and help us to progress our careers. But outside of objective setting and appraisals, how often does this happen? Well, start by creating knowledge sharing sessions. Dedicated time where team members can bring and share knowledge about things they're interested in which will help the team. They read a blog post which was interesting, they attended a webinar that got them thinking, they saw an infographic that explained something easily - all things which happen day to day, and all easy to share with others.

I consider business simulations to be a brilliant way to present real life issues and derive learning from. Consultants have been producing them for a long time, and they're very good. But internal teams just don't seem to do this, and I don't see why not. A negotiation skills course is far more effective when you develop a scenario that staff are very likely to face and a full discussion can be facilitated about what should happen, how process can be followed, what outcome should be achieved, and so on. Equally, a facilitation skills course needs to allow people to actually facilitate and not be restricted to a deck - in fact on a course like this a deck shouldn't even exist.

But more so than business simulations, we can co-ordinate forums and open spaces for all to take part and share learning. They don't need to be hours of time away from the desk or work. Events like a monthly open invite to deliver presentations on any topic relevant to the company, industry, projects or life. Something like this only need be an hour long. Forums like management discussion times where a management team come together, discuss and vent about issues they face and what they can do to resolve them. Again, only about two hours of time every quarter. There is coordination that needs to happen, and logistics to organise, but this is no more cumbersome than arranging delegates to attend an interview skills course. So come on L&D, knuckle down. We can do this.

Sukhvinder Pabial is learning and development business partner at LBi. He can be contacted at sukhvinder.pabial@lbi.com