Training...

Today was the last day of week 2 of my Six Sigma green belt training... the first week, nearly a month ago, was pretty good, as was this week. Although I didn't agree with everything that was covered, I was really honored to have been invited to attend. I've got some new friends and new knowledge - it has been time very well spent.

Several recurring thoughts from the class:

1.) How does an organization determine who gets training? There were several people in the class that slowed us down. It happens. I kept thinking that I shouldn't care.... but, as an organization, wouldn't it be better if everyone in the class started from the same basic level of knowledge? Wouldn't class go better if everyone knew roughly the same stuff?

2.) That thought led me to another. I didn't have to know anything to attend. The participants were picked by their managers - people who are most likely able to make an impact. Great. However, most managers didn't get training in this stuff before they were asked to pick people who shold attend. Shouldn't the class be a privelage and something that you have to prove yourself worthy of? I mean, what about some requirement on the part of the students that would qualify each of us to attend? Perhaps a test or something - make each one of us put some skin in the game prior to the company shelling out the money for the course. Perhaps the company knows that some people will use the tools and make a difference (80/20 rule?) and that those who do will more than make up for the cost of sending the number of people (27) who were there.

3.) I would have liked to have been able to "test out" of the class. I certainly didn't know everything that was covered, but I knew some of the stuff, enough so that it seemed like I had been in the class before. Please don't take that as an egotistical statement, it isn't meant to be that way. The main thing that I know in this world is that there is PLENTY that I don't know - and I never will. Every new day brings an opportunity to learn something. But the company could have saved some money by having me work instead of sitting in that class for 10 days. Give me a book and a test. That having been said, the class was good from a people standoint, I got to interact with folks that I would never have had the privelage of meeting - and to me, that was the most valuable part of the class.

4.) The instructors were great. Truly. They both have the art of training down to a science...

Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them

Do you know how boring that becomes over 10 days?? I mean really. "I'm going to tell you about this class I took. I'm going to tell you what I liked and what I disliked. I'm going to tell you about organizational training and I'm going to talk about the instructors...."  ;-)

Seriously, they were both great teachers and I did learn a bunch of stuff from each of them. Probably the biggest thing was the intro to statistics, which I wasn't looking forward to but they made it fun and easy. The other thing was that both instructors did seem to really care about the outcome of the training and the impact it would have on the business.

5.) There were several "same stuff, new name" discussions among the students. Since I'm still somewhat new to the organization, I kept quiet. But I assumed that this wasn't the first "improvement" training that has occured. But think about how much more impact this would have if ALL the participants were anxious to attend? What if all the students had to pass a test to attend, as I mentioned? I think the number of negative discussions would have gone down. I think the impact of the training would improve...

6.) The instructors talked about why the training and the tools covered in training were important to the company... but not why they were important to me, the student, the person responsible for bringing change to the organization. Sigh. It's okay for me, I'm able to connect those dots, but I'm not sure everyone in the class is/was able to. 

7.) The final thing is that I thought some of the stuff that instructors taught us was wrong. The image that kept going through my head was that of a dog chasing it's tail. If organization believes that doing A results in B, and that consequent isn't correct, and then the organizaiton incorporates that into training, it gets perpetuated into the organization even further. I began speaking with one of the training executives a couple of days ago about this and I'm hoping that the conversation continues. 

I think that Aristotle is really the great, great, great-grand-father of Six Sigma, he really pioneered critical and empirical studies. He began by collecting, analyzing, and grouping all relevant facts in order to determine their meaning and relations with each other. Alas, they didn't mention his name once... ;-)

Again, I think the course was pretty darn good. I learned a bunch, have some new tools to use, met some really smart people and made some new friends. Now the hard work and certification process begins!

So, what do you think about corporate training? What are some of the suggestions you have to improve it?

Comments

[Andreas]

Great post - I was just thinking of writing to you checking if you are sick or so - no posts for a long time.

This is the normal issue with training lessons that you outlined, plus, thanks - I learnt a lot of additional points.

I believe that one major issue is as well to keep going - coming back to work on Monday, you will encounter a lot of piled up work. It is easy to say that you just postpone for a while what you have learnt - that you will apply the new learning after cleaning the in-box. To counter this, I think it is important to form a "support group". Why not doing this via a forum in Yahoo? Exchange ideas and challenges that you face - and develop ways to overcome those

[Jon Strande]

Andreas, thank you! Actually, I was sick as well. I brought home a terrible cold from Switzerland and a bad case of jet lag, but I'm finally starting to get back to normal.

Yeah, great idea!! I have a project to work on to use the tools from class, plus they assign a Black Belt to help you, so with any kind of luck I should be able to remember, and more importantly use, most of what I learned. The other thing I'm trying is getting involved with one of the other students projects, so we can share ideas. Finally, during the class, we had teams for the various exercies, and my team has already started an email list, which seems to be pretty nice.

Thank you again!

Jon

[Bren]

Wow, six sigma, huh? I've always been interested in that stuff, but never had a chance to do the formal training. It was briefly covered in some MBA classes back in the day, but nothing substantial enough to really work with. I'll be interested to hear more from you on this.

How many levels are there? You're finishing up green belt, but what came prior and what's coming up?

I take a generally dismal view of corporate training. And I've done time in HR/OD. Some is great, no doubt, but so much of it seems like time filler. I love it when I attend training that really makes an impact, as this one seems to have done for you, but that hasn't been the norm for me.

How to make it better? Spending the money on professional trainers, like you had, is a good start. Many of the corporate trainers I know are just nice folks who've been given a script. There's no depth of knowledge, and training suffers for it. If the organization spends the money on professional trainers, though, they *really* need to commit to the program and no allow it to be fly-by-night.

Ok, I'll stop. Good brain food, though. :-)

[Jon Strande]

Brendon,

Thank you for the comment! I'm sure I'll post more on the subject since it will be part of my life going forward.

There are three levels: Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt. So I'm just starting, as you can tell.

I'm with you, I generally take a pretty dismal view of training as well. I'm much more of a book person and will eagerly read something that I think will add value to my life or my work.

Yeah, professional trainers do make such a difference.

Thank you again!

Jon

[aleah sato]

Six Sigma aside (huh?), I have always felt corporate training sessions missed the mark in that they don't take the time to do some preliminary research before randomly assigning training sessions. I believe if they took the time to get staff feedback and perhaps conduct an annual testing of where people are in their skill sets, they could better match those persons who are ready for a faster paced program versus those who need to polish their skills. Overall the initial time it would take to monitor knowledge and skills, would save the company from wasted sessions, and increase long-term productivity and job satisfaction.

[Jon Strande]

Aleah, great idea - a regular skills assesment would go a long way in helping. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or something like that? :-)

Jon

[mls]

I think perhaps you should reword point number 5 about the teachers. I recognize you probably have conflicting thoughts, but it just seems odd the way you stated it. I don't think you intended it that way, but my first read was that you were seriously mocking the teachers.

[Jon Strande]

mls, thank you. I guess one could make that inference from the way I wrote it. I wasn't mocking them so much as trying to illustrate that the standard way of training might be a little boring. As I ended that point, I stated that I really liked the instructors, and I did. But that doesn't mean that I liked their method of instruction every single minute.

Have you ever heard the saying "people love to buy but hate to be sold?", well, people love to learn but hate to be taught and that is really what one of the problems with corporate training is, focus on the lowest common denominator. Taken with the rest of my points, I was hoping that readers would question training in general.

Think about it. They have to move the class slowly and explain everything three times because the students didn't have a common starting point when it came to what was being taught. So, how would you fix that?

Thank you for the comment! I really appreciate it!

jon