How do we get managers and senior executives more involved in management training and leadership development initiatives? With tightened budgets and increased pressure to perform, we are getting asked this question more than ever before.
The Answer:
- Relevance: Ensure that the training and development initiative is relevant to the participant, their boss, and the company.
- Make the Value Visible: Show the value in terms of behavior change and business impact.
While we have believed in Training RAI™: Relevance. Adoption. Impact for years, our recent study of 121 professionals and their managers at a major North American financial services firm, amplifies the impact of new manager involvement on the transfer of training.
Notice the extreme differences associated with manager involvement.
Insight #1: Coaching is linked to skill application. Are you providing reinforcement coaching for your critical initiatives? It could make a 20% difference.
Specifics:Notice the extreme differences associated with manager involvement.
Insight #1: Coaching is linked to skill application. Are you providing reinforcement coaching for your critical initiatives? It could make a 20% difference.
- Comparison Groups:people who received individual coaching conversations versus those who did not
- Control Group: 47 participants who did NOT get individual coaching
- Coached Group: 61 participants who received individual and executive coaching – Note that the Coached Group scores were nearly 20% higher.
- Skill Scores: Each person’s average score for 38 individual skills, placed on a scale from 0-100%.
Specifics:
- Measurement: Each participant was asked for one example of how “coaching conversations with your manager have made a significant difference in a sales situation.” These were verified to include the situation, specific coaching, and results over the last three months.
- Significant Results: The Coached Group created 2x more new revenue over the same time period as the Control Group
Specifics:
We asked, “What difference did the coaching conversations with your manager make in your success?
Significant Results: Participants in the coached group said their manager “made a significant difference” (72%) compared to “a little difference” (33%) for the noncoached group.
In Conclusion
So what?
With the majority of training programs failing to “move the needle” in terms of increased revenue, decreased costs, or increased productivity, it is imperative that companies focus on Relevant Skills and invest in Adoption to get results. Targeted coaching is certainly one of the keys to successful adoption.
These results clearly show that coaching conversations are linked to changes in leading indicators (skills) and lagging indicators (new revenue). Every change effort, training initiative, or development program must include more than the “training” of new knowledge and skills. Manager involvement is a key link to getting measurable results.
