What are all of those courses, job aids, and apps training you to do? Follow procedure? Perform your daily tasks? Perhaps we need to start asking better questions.
One thing training seems to do a really good job at doing is filling time (and costing money): the time we spend taking it and the time the Learning and Development department spends creating it. What’s the outcome of all this? Well, when you do it right, the outcome is learning… but training and learning are not the same thing.
Training vs Learning, Connected but Different
Sure, there are plenty of semantics at play here, but how often do you train someone to actually do something? Before you dive in to those learning objectives, do you consider what you actually want your learners to do in their day-to-day work?
How often do we have an actionable goal for our training efforts, not something fluffy and immeasurable? Training is something you receive as the learner, but learning is what you actually do as the learner.
Learning implies “I” am doing something. I am taking part and doing the work. Good training inspires people to learn how to do something, but it does not do the work for them.
Ask yourself this: How often am I actually creating training experiences that are teaching someone to do anything?
When clients come to us asking for training, it often really feels like they are looking for a fancy way to communicate something. “I need to make you aware of XYZ.” Are there procedures that you really want someone to be able to execute, or do you just want them to know about it? There’s a big difference.
Working Around the Status Quo
Sure, it’s easy to talk about the value of “learning” over “training” and how training for training’s sake is not going to work… but what do you do when your corporate culture expects and demands it?
All too often the L&D department has no say in whether or not training is produced. They are simply expected to execute. Never fear: there are still plenty of opportunities to optimize the impact of that training and create opportunities for learning.
The first step is simply not to shut your learners down with tired methods and designs that do nothing to allow room for learning:
- You should avoid being overly politically correct when writing scenarios in order to make sure you truly recreate the point of need. Spark the raw emotion that would motivate your learner to take action in real life. Yes, that means getting creative and breaking from tradition a bit when you write scenarios.
- In general, you should engage the learner’s emotions as much as possible throughout the training. All too often, we default to hokey examples, cliches, and stupid characters. We take an “easy way out” by using designs that have been used and overused too many times to count. Bring up something that is a true pain point for people and don’t be afraid to stir the pot.
- Avoid shutting your learners down before they even get started. Even if you have a powerful scenario nestled in the final frames of your training, learners will gain no benefit from it if the opening material was too dry. We tend to tune out experiences we don’t consider important, so you only have a short window to grab attention.
Sometimes your organization will decide that training is the answer before they have even figured out the question. There’s not much you can do about that. But there are still ways to separate the training from the learning and help your learners find real value.
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Want to know more about your learners? Our worksheet helps you check what questions you are currently asking, see a sample learner persona and create a persona of your own.
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