Training

Let me hear it. The sigh. The groan. The UGH when the topic of training comes up. That’s not to say we don’t value training. Conceptually anyway. The issue is time and money. Am I right?

We already spend time and money annually on compliance training that is received like a freeze-burned bowl of ice cream. Just not quite there. We have work to do, and data to generate, analyze, and report out. People to see. Things to flippin’ do!

And if your organization is performing at an optimal level, all lights are green, and full sails away then good on ya. Close the app and move on. You’ve already installed a strong cultural integration of performance training.

Operational performance, a true performance that lasts the test of time, requires consistent training and practice. By now we’ve all heard the adage of 10,000 hours are needed to reach greatness. If not, see Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. While there are current arguments for this rule, we all know the greatest athletes and musicians practice relentlessly. The greatest always bring in an expert trainer to help them get……well, greater.

I believe the performance of an organization’s teams, especially the sales team, is the single strongest contributing factor to any organization’s success. Technology and systems are awesome. Without people they are useless. To achieve the optimal performance we must develop the greatest asset of any organization, the undeveloped potential of the people.

Developing people through performance training requires that the training and the identification of any deficiency occur at the same time. During the 1:1 meeting between supervisor and employee, or as an old mentor of mine (love ya BB!) like to say, “when their kneecap-to-kneecap”, is the exact time that training should be occurring. If the supervisor cannot help develop the employee then you likely have the wrong supervisor, need a strong internal mentor network among the team, and likely need an outside expert to help you define a training game plan.

Like any good game plan, performance training is not a single-play-and-done type of approach. A strong game plan will include multiple plays that are to be run in succession, one after the other. The key is that each play is done correctly. This requires practice. For the employee, this means repeated follow-up, oftentimes with an expert or mentor, until that skill is mastered. Yes, this means role-play. One skill at a time until the entire performance plan becomes part of the operational efficacy of the employee and the team.

Every meeting. Every time. I like to call this the 50/50 meeting. Half of the meeting, every meeting, needs to cover “the numbers”, the metrics, the KPIs, whatever data you measure your organization’s success. If you don’t have a critical set of quantifiable goals, see an expert. Like right away. To build a performance culture the data must be known by all employees (see Communication). They must understand the numbers if there is any hope for them to own the numbers.

If the team does not understand the numbers, guess what? Well, that’s a great opportunity to use the other half of the meeting to explain the numbers. Assuming the team already understands the numbers, then train on any performance topic necessary. In the 1:1 meeting, the numbers will be about the individual’s performance. In group meetings, the numbers will be the team, and the training might be something the entire team can benefit from, a new policy or process, a shifting dynamic in the industry, the list is really endless. What matters is that having training as part of every meeting becomes an expectation, an operational and cultural norm. A performance culture requires it.