TRAINING FOR CHANGE

January 7, 2015

What force separates the winners from the losers in today’s marketplace?

The same force that has shaped survivors throughout history — change!

Since the beginning of time, it has been those who have learned to control change who have prospered.

“ Any business in today’s fast-moving environment that is looking for the pace of change to slow is likely to be sorely disappointed. In fact, businesses should embrace change. Change is important for any organization because, without change, businesses would likely lose their competitive edge and fail to meet the needs of what most hope to be a growing base of loyal customers.

Without change, business leaders still would be dictating correspondence to secretaries, editing their words and sending them back to the drawing board, wasting time for all involved. Change that results from the adoption of new technology is common in most organizations and while it can be disruptive at first, ultimately the change tends to increase productivity and service.

Technology also has affected how we communicate. No longer do business people dial a rotary phone, get a busy signal, and try again and again and again until they get through. No longer do business people have to laboriously contact people, in person, to find out about other people who might be useful resources – they can search for experts online through search engines as well as through social media sites. Today’s burgeoning communication technology represents changes that allow organizations to learn more, more quickly, than ever before. . . . “ (from the Houston Chronicle’s CHRON, “Why Is Change Important in an Organization?” by Leigh Richards)

A successful company needs managers and planners who can recognize the potential of the changes taking place around the organization — and, then, utilize that potential to help meet company goals.

And, a successful company needs skilled employees at many levels to implement changes, operate new technologies, and keep systems operating.

It, therefore, obviously follows that there is no longer a question of whether to train. Today, the question is how to provide training that is both effective and efficient. And, all the answers point toward the use of multi-sensory learning (grounded in full-motion video, simulations, and/or animations) as the centerpiece in effective instruction.

Training should be results-oriented. It starts with a company’s goals and works through the organization to define and construct a system that delivers the desired results.

Selecting a quality training program requires both a knowledge of content and an understanding of how to communicate that content to a workforce that has grown up in a media-based learning culture.

If your training initiatives are not multi-sensory based, you’re missing the window of opportunity.

Technology training has evolved and the result has been a renewed focus on learning rather than on an insistence to remain wedded to the old lecture/reading classroom instruction. What works now is dramatically different than what most of us encountered when we began our own education many years ago.

Ignore the changes occurring in our new learning culture at your peril.

More on Monday – – – – –

— Bill Walton: co-Founder, ITC Learning
www.itclearning.com/blog/
(Mondays & Wednesdays)

“THE WORLD RELIES ON THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”