Comments on: Training as a last resort

By: Ken Allan

Ken Allan — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:39:12 +0000

“How much of ‘training’ is a kind of corporate Clearasil applied to the zits of a counterproductive computer system . . .”

I love it!

I’ve had a lot of corporate Clearasil wasted on me. But there are also sinister attitudes that limit the use of knowledge that could and should be accessible by asking, rather than the use of knowledge when it’s recalled. The prevalence of ‘change’ also puts paid to the latter technique, thereby rendering the knowledge almost universally inaccessible.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:11:52 +0000

Sabine, no worries. Anyone who recognizes Gilbert and Brache would recognize Rummler, too — it was just an excuse to put a link in.

By: Sabine

Sabine — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:41:16 +0000

Oops. I didn’t mean to leave out Rummler; I’ve gone to a few of his presentations and workshops — he’s great! I was just so hung up on trying to spell Brache that I forgot. ;-)

I wish everyone read both the “Oughta Wanna” book and the Manager book. Sometimes it’s the training departments pushing performance support, but management that doesn’t get it. They ordered training, they want training delivered. And what about metrics? Nothing beats “butts in seats!”

I’ll stop riding my hobby-horse now.

Sabine

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:03:22 +0000

Sabine: hey, you left out Geary Rummler (co-author with Alan Brache of Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart). But I agree. I've said many times -- heck, I've said here many times -- that anyone who takes the time to read Mager's What Every Manager Should Know about Training will know more about performance improvement than 80% of the people in the training/development field.

By: Sabine

Sabine — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:43:08 +0000

What I don’t understand about the idea of Performance Support/Improvement is why so many people don’t “get” it. It seems obvious, and yet trying to wrench people away from the “train and blame” model is almost impossible. And I’m a bit discouraged that many years after the Mager & Pipe, Gilbert, and Brache books, it’s still a little-used concept.

I’m glad to see there’s other people out there, fighting the good fight.

And I love the “Clearasil” line!