Principle 7: Enthusiastic People (Item 10)
Potential of an organization is realized through its people's
enthusiasm, resourcefulness and participation.
You should measure the effectiveness of your training and education
(eg, that it changes what employees do).
Many companies devote a significant amount of time and money to education
and training. 10% of revenue spent on education, training and development
is not unusual. Most companies provide training and education without
giving any thought to whether it was worth the effort.
How do you know that the education and training you are providing is
a good use of the time and money? How do you measure the effectiveness
of training and education?
The only reason to have someone undertake training and education is
to change behavior— to do things differently, or be able to do
things differently. This definition applies to all training and education.
For issues as diverse as keyboard skills, product knowledge, selling
skills, customer contact skills, skills, with equipment, inter-personal
relations, strategic planning or working to within budget.
- If you want people to do things differently, you have them do some
training, education or development.
- If you want to know if the training and education was, measure the
behavior change.
It should be in that order – know what change you want, and then
measure to see that you get it.
Effective companies actually stipulate the behavior they want to see
and the benefits to the company of that behaviorbefore they agree
to the education or training program. Effectiveness is measured by the
extent the desired behavior is achieved.
Many companies do a cost benefit analysis before approving any education
or training program. We want this benefit to the company and it will
cost this much. Your evaluation should determine if you actually did
receive the benefit – in behavior change or increased company performance.
This does not imply that you should have education and training programs
so that everyone "behaves" themselves. Your education and
training program should be aimed valuing individual differences. Not
eliminating them. Nor should you read into this anything about stimulus-response
training to achieve a specific behavioral outcome.
What you need not measure is if everyone had a good time at training,
if the educator smiled or told good jokes. Those are usually the only
measurements you get from most training programs, and they are all useless.
You must put your education and training effort into the context of
process capability and `the system'. If the constraints are in the system,
all the education and training in the world will not help.
Consider this example. A 100 meter foot race. Why does it take 10 seconds?
Why can't those people run it in 8 seconds? I bet if we put them through
a truly effective education and training program they could do it in
8 seconds. Should we measure the effectiveness of our education and
training program by the ability of the athletes to run 100 meters in
8 seconds?
Of course not! The system (in this case the human body) is not capable
of doing it. But, we often see companies do that. In this case, the
approach is faulty. It does not have a chance of success.
Training and working harder will never resolve a problem caused by
a systems constraint.
What is the potential of your employees? People generally behave in
accordance with others' expectation of them. The way you regard and
treat others greatly influences how they shape their lives. People act
like your image of them. (Psychologists call this the Pygmalion Concept
after the Greek legend of Pygmalion who fell in love with a statue he
had made.)
If you believe you are surrounded with people full of potential, you
will find that you are. If you think they are idiots with no potential,
they will behave as such. Even if they did not, you would not be able
to recognize it. If you want them to be great, act as though they are
great. Treat them as though they are the best in the world with infinite
potential to do anything, and they will respond by being just that.
We know that children treated as smart act smart. The same applies for
adults.
Companies repeatedly find that ordinary people do extraordinary things
when they are properly enabled, trusted and believed in. You
do not have to go to the ends of the earth to find extraordinary people.
They are already in your company. Too often bosses are dismissive of
their staff and cannot see their capability.
When you constantly seek outside for `better' people, you imply that
you are surrounded by incompetent dummies.
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