From Training to Learning New Actions and Performance

There are relentless pursuits in corporations on how to make training as one of the key learning activities in an organisation. Many companies expect to realise the benefits of training as new actions and improvements in performance. Adopting new knowledge to be new actions require few critical steps in the process of individual learning. There are at least four critical steps to ensure the success of turning training into new actions and performance. The first step is the readiness of a learner to have a learning mindset. This means that he needs to believe that the knowledge he acquires will be applicable in his working place. Missing this will likely make training merely as one of a company social event. Secondly, the training process should address how a participant can develop new way of doing things through his speech of actions. Ability to request, reject, asses, assert, declare and promise will be critical. New actions can only be created when the learners have different conversations that generate mood of new understanding and acceptance. Thirdly, learning process should be accommodated to make participants fully understand how to respond actual challenges in the daily circumstances from the learners' point of view. Training design in the early stage is critical to identify what are the knowing and doing gaps in their workplace (Ram Charan). We should capitalise this information into the training approach and design. Fourth, the training facilitator should use more coaching than teaching approach. The process of embedding new insights and seeding new beliefs cannot be done more effectively through teaching or preaching. A trainer with long exposure background in operational tend to teach formulas of his past glorious day. A trainer without contextual understanding might lose the sight of what are critical in the mindset of the learners. Out of these critical steps, we should not forget that the atmosphere of applying new skills should be created in the learners' work environment. Less supportive superiors often overlook this crucial part of creating a space for applying new knowledge into action. To transform a learning into new actions, a company should involve subordinates and superiors of the learners. They need to participate in creating a space of learning for the learners. This space is vital to generate a mood of ambition in applying the new knowledge and then willingness to share it to others as it become new way of taking actions. Training can not be an isolated component of learning but part of a system that if carefully managed, will integrate few dynamic components to reinforce each others producing great impacts in performance.