1. FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE - NOT LEARNING
“My main role as a CEO was
developing talent. The team that
fields the best talent wins. That’s in
baseball, football, life and business.
Business is a game. If you don’t suit
up the best team, you don’t have a
prayer. In the end, it ‘s what it’s all
about.”
Jack Welch
World Business Forum
October, 2010
Executive Summary
The intent of learning is to improve
the performance of managers and
line employees. So why do we
focus on learning techniques,
instructional design, learning
systems and technologies?
To improve an employee’s
performance, our focus must be
changed to four elements:
o Management expectations
o Preparation for learning
o Learning Outcomes
o Post learning enhancements
INTRODUCTION
Learning conversations seem to focus on the “course”, the
instructional value of the content, the form that the
assessment will follow, SCORM guidelines, the learning
management system, etc. Important topics but probably not
the points that a corporation wants to know about from an
investment decision view. Investment always assumes that
there will be a positive return and that improved performance
will result from the learning investment.
There are different “buckets” that learning falls into:
 Harassment, Ethics, Safety, Compliance and similar
courses are “check the box” training. Every employee
needs to go through these courses to conform to
corporation policies or regulatory standards and once
completed, the learner or their manager can “check
the box” as completed. Little or no expectations on
performance improvement are assumed.
 Onboarding, Communications, Team Building,
Diversity, Performance Management, etc. are part of
the core curriculum in most organizations and
expectations begin to appear but not necessarily
measured e.g., has turnover been reduced as a result
of the onboarding investment.

2.  Specialized training similar to sales, product
knowledge, process control, IT skills and software
application start to have both expectations and
measurements being applied in some cases, e.g., sales
achievement pre and post training.
 Leadership, Business Acumen, Global Management,
Complexity Management, Financial Management and
other training that contains the word “management”
should have the greatest level of expectation and
measurement applied but that is not always the case
for a consistent, enterprise measurement.
Lastly, we come to the training that has the greatest form of
applied expectation and the highest measured results – the
factory floor or operations employees. The production line
output, the workers’ timing per task, the number of calls per
hour, “Help Desk” tickets entered, etc. receive the greatest
scrutiny from management yet these people usually receive
the least amount of formal training. This training is primarily
on the job experience or the least expensive investment
possible.
CHANGING THE DYNAMICS OF LEARNING
If corporations want to see an improvement in their learning
investment, the simplest change to make is to broaden the
focus of attention onto three components: what happens
before the training occurs; the training intervention itself; and,
the actions taken after the training has been completed. Most
of our attention is focused on the training intervention – the
course.
ASTD (The American Society for Training and Development)
completed a recent study in which they surveyed learners on
the value proposition of their learning experience. The results
were quite surprising.

3. ASTD study- “What part of the
learning experience provided the
highest value to you”?
23% - pre-training effort
30% - the training itself
57% - post training effort
Approximately 23% of the learners stated that what occurred
prior to the training had the greatest value for them; 30% of
the respondents said the training itself had the highest value
and the most significant response, 57%, stated that the post-
training experience provided the greatest value. The one
component, the training event or course, where all of the
focus appears to be, scored less than 30%.
PRE-TRAINING PREPARATION
One of the easiest ways to improve the performance of an
employee following training is to establish “expectations”
before the training occurs. This normally follows 5 actions:
1. The manager talks with the employee prior to training
and explains what will be expected from the employee
and what the organization will do to support the
training event. (measurements are established)
2. The manager and the employee determines what
training is most appropriate for the specific
circumstance, e.g., improve a skill, overcome a deficit,
learn a new application, etc. (what will be measured is
determined)
3. The employee discusses the intrinsic value of the
training, attends the training and fully participates in
the training. (acceptance of the learner’s responsibility
is established)
4. After the training, the employee and the manager
regroup to discuss what was learned, how it helped the
employee, what are the outcomes of the training and
how the training will be immediately applied to the job
(measurements are started)

4. 5. The manager must provide immediate opportunity for
the learner to apply the new skills, then provide
feedback to the learner and finally measure the results
of the training with the employee. (measurements
against the expectations are discussed)
Other pre-training actions that should occur include: provide
all of the necessary information and resources to the learner in
an easy and effective manner; make the access to the training
easy whether in the classroom or online (registration, email
notices and updates, Help Desk for trouble shooting, etc.).
PUTTING SOME MAGIC IN TRAINING
The middle component for improved performance is the
actual training itself. Training that fully engages the learner
and lends itself to the highest levels of performance follow the
STING recipe.
S – Ensure that the training design maximizes the use of the
learner’s senses.
T – Don’t be afraid to have the training touch the learner
emotionally.
I – Provide reasons for the learner’s intrinsic values to learn.
N – Insist that the training design increase the number of
neuron pathways in the learner’s brain through interactions,
critical thinking, decision making, recall and job related
application.
G – Demonstrate the value of the employee to the company
by investing in great courses not just good courses.
The last item, the “G” of STING relates to the issue of learning
investment. How much investment will a company provide to
various training initiatives? For many, the answer is as little as
possible. As a result, training reflects the attitude that it is a
required cost of doing business rather than an investment in
performance.

5. Illustration from “Learning and the Brain” Conference, June, 2010,
Washington, D.C.
The above illustration mirrors the level of investment in
training and the resulting level of retention of the content.
Low investment courses that depend upon a lecture or reading
environment, whether in the classroom or in a web seminar,
provides 10% or less learner retention rates of the training.
Low performance on the job tracks with the design approach
of the training that is dictated by the low investment in the
training. A higher investment in training allows for improved
designs that include case scenarios, discussion and decision
making, demonstration, and teaching others what you yourself
have learned. These better designed training courses provide
for upwards of 90% retention rates of the content when back
on the job, thereby increasing performance.
WHAT NEXT: AFTER THE TRAINING
What surprised many people in the ASTD study previously
mentioned was the high rate of value (57%) that the survey
respondents placed upon the follow-up to the training. This
aspect of the training is often overlooked by many corporate
training departments.

6. For further information on this topic and other relevant
learning topics, please contact the author, Dave Goodman at:
SoftAssist, Inc.
700 American Avenue
Suite 205
King of Prussia, PA 19406
www.softassist.com
610.265.8484 Ext. 14