The Value of Getting it Right

Whether it’s the technical skills a new team member needs just to become competent in our respective industry, the leadership skills that are so very needed for anyone with responsibility for getting results through a team of people, or even the skills that are critical for our best do’ers to pass their expertise on to the folks following in their footsteps, we cannot afford to hit it with a stick and hope for the best. We also can’t afford to assume anyone on our teams will magically develop the skills they need for any of these incredibly important tasks on their own. It’s up to us as leaders to make sure each individual in each of those roles at least has a chance to receive the right message from the right person. And I’ll say once more for emphasis, not just any training will do!

In a LinkedIn article called How Insufficient Training Leads to Failures at Work, Rahul Sharma shares how he’s seen these key areas of a business impacted; job performance, safety, customer satisfaction, and turnover. In detailing the importance of the right training, he says this:

“Many people fail at their jobs because they do not have the proper training. Training helps employees learn the necessary skills to perform their job duties correctly and efficiently. Additionally, training can help employees stay up-to-date on new procedures and processes. Without training, employees may make mistakes that could cost the company time and money.”

For the sake of time, I’ll just one more way insufficient training can impact our overall performance… Not only will our team members not be equipped to perform as well as we need them to, I’ll go as far as to say they won’t be nearly as motivated to go the extra mile as they would when we’re willing to invest the extra energy (not necessarily any more money - especially when we’re capturing a measurable return on the investment) to make sure any and all training we provide is indeed what they need for where they are AND something they can apply.

The simple act of corralling as many employees as we can fit into a room, clicking through a deck of slides, and passing around a sign-in sheet won’t cut it! I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked what we do to change a leadership culture in 30 minutes once every three to six months, because everyone is too busy for anything more than that… Our response is always “Not much!” because I’ve never seen anyone get results in any field of endeavor when they’re only willing to give 0.05% of their time and attention to it. The companies asking that question are clearly looking to check a box and have no real interest in supporting real change. Just in case you’re wondering where that 0.05% came from, I took 1040 hours - half a year at 40 hours per week - and divided it by the 30 minutes. And yes, that’s really something we’ve been asked to provide more than a few times - usually at almost no cost! Kinda speaks to how much those organizations value their people, doesn’t it…

When we do invest the time and energy to get it right by providing what our team members need regardless of what stage they’re at in their career, we should be able to measure increased profitability almost immediately. But just like making sure we’re providing the appropriate training needs to be intentional, we’ll need to have a very focused approach when that training is delivered and in how we measure results so that’s where we’ll pick up soon…