Self Development Toolkit

Train to Ingrain - A Reinforcement-Based Solution
Traditionally, an HRD event or intervention is designed to fix a performance problem - so the approach is:
1. Performance Problem Identified
2. Developmental Program Created & Delivered
3. Improved Performance Results
In the best case, the selection of the developmental program is based on one of the many instructional design models, which attempt to diagnose the performance problem before prescribing a solution. In the worst case, a program is selected based on marketing, politics, consensus or somebody's opinion. In any case, these events or interventions rarely include a follow-up program of any kind.
So if assessment or training—conducted as a singular program, event or intervention—can’t be counted on to change behavior, then what can? What must you do differently? How much time and expense will be involved?
Train-to-Ingrain isn’t a single program, event or intervention. It’s a new contextual framework for conducting such programs. It’s an ongoing process in which efforts to ingrain new skills and improve an individual’s performance become a routine aspect of work. At the heart of Train-to-Ingrain is the imperative to provide enough follow-up reinforcement to achieve permanent, measurable changes in behavior, improved workplace performance and positive impacts on the bottom line.
What Should Happen...
PERFORMANCE PROBLEM IDENTIFIED - Assessment     - Development Program       - Coaching         - Ongoing development           - Follow-up feedback and assessment             - Accountability     IMPROVED PERFORMANCE RESULTS
Follow-up reinforcement is the “missing link” of most training and development programs. Quite a bit of supervised application, feedback, encouragement and coaching is needed to ingrain a new pattern of behavior, so this can only take place during day-to-day work. And if new behavior patterns aren’t reinforced on the job, participants will eventually fall back on their old, comfortable ways of doing things.
Effective follow-up reinforcement has four elements: 1. Coaching 2. Ongoing Development 3. Follow-up Feedback & Assessment 4. Accountability
1. Coaching. During the several months that it will take to make a new behavior pattern feel familiar, comfortable and automatic, along the way a typical learner will experience moments of uncertainty, awkwardness, failure or embarrassment. It makes a big difference to have someone who can advise and encourage—a performance coach. But who will best fill that essential role?
Executive coaches are experts in people skills. They can be a very high-quality one-on-one resource during the period in which skills are ingrained.
Although they’re rarely able to observe learners in action, they can be an invaluable sounding board. However, because of the expense involved, professional coaches are usually hired only for executives.
For the rest of the organization, coaching must come from internal resources. Trainers may have good coaching skills; but they’re usually busy preparing and delivering programs, and there aren’t enough of them to go around. Mentors are a possible coaching resource, but they lack oversight and authority. What they say and do may not be in synch with the priorities of bosses.
The bottom line is that no one can take the place of the learner’s direct manager, who is responsible for directing, motivating, observing, evaluating and improving the employee’s performance. The direct manager has the authority to tell employees what to do and what not to do. By default, the manager creates the work environment in which skill application occurs. He or she alone decides whether an employee will even have the opportunity to use newly learned skills.
The involvement of the direct manager is crucial. Whether an employee changes a work habit depends on whether the direct manager accepts the role to coach and develop the employee on the job. If some managers feel inadequate to this task, coaching courses are available to augment their skills.
2. Ongoing Development. Since it takes months to establish a new behavior pattern, the key is to think of performance improvement as an ongoing process, a routine aspect of work itself. Ideally, people learn from experience on the job, improving their skills continuously.
Books, articles, audiotapes and videotapes are helpful resources. Beyond that, trainers can give participants structured challenges that require them to analyze their workplace experiences.
“Brown bag” lunch meetings with trainers, co-participants and others are good venues for reviewing videos and discussing the difficulties of applying new skills. When distance or time make these discussions impractical, virtual meetings are possible.
Online forums give mentors, co-participants and team members a convenient venue to share experiences, information, advice, feedback and encouragement.
Ideally, the resources used in training continue to be helpful references during reinforcement. Using leadership development as an example, the Vital Learning Supervision Series curriculum materials contain numerous follow-up exercises, worksheets, guides and references specifically designed for continued learning and reinforcement. The online instructional units and videos that present positive behavior models are available to participants for up to a year for reinforcement purposes. Related books, tapes, videos and websites are recommended in the workbooks and online.
3. Follow-up Feedback and Assessment. You have to practice a new skill a long time before becoming comfortable with it. Along the way, you need to know how you're doing.
If you’re like most people, you aren't the best judge of your own behavior. You don’t see yourself the way others see you, so it’s hard for you to know how your actions are affecting others.
For the most objective viewpoint possible, you need a mirror held up to your behavior. You need feedback from the people who work around you.
Because of a boss’s frequent contact and authority, the direct manager is usually in the best position to give verbal feedback in the workplace. Other valuable feedback may come from team members or mentors.
Since most people are either unskilled or uncomfortable giving feedback, the most effective way of gathering and presenting this input is 360-degree (multi-source) assessment. Administered before and after training, scores can be compared to show how much improvement has taken place. Post-training surveys can be repeated periodically for a year or more after training. This keeps participants informed of progress and motivates them to persist.
4. Accountability. Training programs are a big investment, and executives want to know if they’re getting a payoff. They want evidence that participants are applying their new skills on the job—that the value of their improved performance exceeds the cost of their training. This is the impetus behind what’s commonly known as “Level 3” and “Level 4” evaluations of training.
But trainers aren’t the only role players who affect the outcome. If learners don’t make a good-faith effort to change their behavior, the skills will never be ingrained. And because of their responsibility and authority, direct managers are in a unique position to influence what happens as learners try to apply skills on the job. Even executives have an impact, because they’re the decision-makers who foster support and commit resources for learning and reinforcement. Realistically, all these roles have a significant impact, and everyone involved shares accountability.
The most powerful way to establish accountability uses the same technology mentioned above: pre-course and post-course assessment. 360-degree performance feedback identifies not what people know, but what how well they’re doing their jobs.
The behaviors that are the focus of the assessment are the same behaviors that are the focus of the training. The averages of scaled ratings create an objective pre-course measurement of skill levels, and the identical post-course assessment provides data about skills several months after training.
Any improvements in performance are indicated by improvements in scores. The consolidated feedback is presented to participants, and a summary of skill scores is given to supervisors and HR staff. As will be explained later, these measurements can also be used to calculate return on investment (ROI).
Accountability is solidified when the skills and techniques taught in training are integrated into the daily business practices of the organization. Too often we’ve seen well-intentioned development programs fail because the ideas presented in the classroom are not part of the organization’s standards and practices. When operating standards mirror what participants are expected to follow once they are back on the job, you have maximum accountability.
This brief summary of the essentials of reinforcement clarifies why the direct manager has to get involved. No one else has the leadership responsibility, frequent contact and authority to guide the behavior of the developing employee in the workplace.
And yet, a common mindset among managers is to view employee development as the responsibility of the HR/training/learning department. This misunderstanding of a boss’s leadership role will derail any attempt to ingrain skills. We believe that the impact of direct managers on performance improvement is equal to or greater than that of trainers. In fact, if the participant’s boss doesn’t get involved in setting expectations, giving feedback, encouraging and coaching, it will be nearly impossible to change an employee’s behavior.
In most organizations today, nothing like this partnership exists. According to trainers, many managers are less than cooperative. Will bosses support the training? Indeed, will they even release the individuals for training? Will they contact participants during the course, disrupting their learning—or even worse, call them away from classroom activities? When the course is over, will the participants get a chance to apply the new skills, or will they return to an environment of business as usual? Will managers support all-important follow-up reinforcement programs? All too often, trainers’ concerns turn out to be justified.
For this reason, Train-to-Ingrain defines a key role for direct managers, drawing them into a three-way partnership with trainers and learners that we call the Learning Triangle.
Involving the direct managers is absolutely essential to transferring classroom learning into permanent improvements in workplace performance.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Changing behavior patterns and improving individual performance require physical changes in the brain. It’s virtually impossible to achieve this without an ongoing program of follow-up reinforcement that involves the learner’s direct manager.
An organization can get started in Train-to-Ingrain in a matter of days. After that, it can go to work on achieving dramatic results over the long term by building on this foundation—optimizing eight critical areas of training and development. Train-to-Ingrain isn’t a rigid concept; your organization can customize an approach that’s compatible with its learning culture. Learn more...
		For more information, contact ALD, Inc. at 208-762-1322 or email us at info@ald-inc.com