Posted by: Esther Groves, Performance Improvement Consultant
Mid-level and front-line leaders are the critical links between the customer-facing front line and high-level strategy. That all-important corporate alignment rests squarely in their hands. Not only that but strong leaders have a direct impact on employee retention and performance which in turn improves business.
So, let’s say that you decide to send your front-line managers to a course to improve their leadership/ coaching/supervisory skills. Perhaps you’re hoping that they will be able to absorb the content and apply the skills the minute they return to the job. But, let’s be realistic. Once the class is over, the forgetting begins. Then there are the 300 emails that have accumulated back at the office and the urgent meetings and the fire drills…
Next thing you know, all of that interference erodes away at the manager’s best intentions to immediately apply the new skills. The more time that slips away, the less information the manager will be able to retrieve from the mental archives and use on the job.
Some of the best leadership programs address this issue by providing weekly reinforcement and activities via the classroom to keep knowledge fresh and allow for practice and feedback. Great! But, what if you can’t afford to have managers gone for an hour or two each week? What if your leaders are scattered among various locations?
Here’s an effective alternative:
1. Prepare the soil
Before you start down the path to a leadership learning event, have a plan which includes the following three critical components:
© A pre-class introduction to the concepts and terminology
© A learning event that allows for practice, interaction and “ah ha” moments
© Regular follow-up QAs, tips and coaching
2. Plant the seeds
Alert managers ahead of time of the concepts they will encounter in class. Use virtual tools to feed them pre-work, pre-tests, articles, terminology and concepts. What this will do: Introducing participants to the most important topics ahead of time will prepare them for learning. When they meet the concepts again, they are already familiar with what they should pay attention to. Their brains have created a mental “cubby hole” to store additional information. Also, the results of pre-tests will give you a clue to their level of awareness prior to class.
3. Fill in the holes
During class, participants will be fully exposed to the concepts and will have an opportunity to try their new skills. What this will do: Participants will have a chance to ask questions, gain valuable insights and interact with fellow participants. Any basic gaps in knowledge will be filled in at this point.
4. Water the seedlings and watch them grow
Provide small snippets of information in the form of QAs, tips, scenarios and coaching over the course of 30, 60 or even 90 days following training. What this will do: Continuing reinforcement builds on learning and gives you a clue about just how much they are retaining and are able to use. Instead of heading down the steep ‘forgetting curve,” participants will be continuously growing their knowledge.
Case in point…
The TBD leadership team tried this 3-step method with great results when we attended a 2-day Situational Leadership workshop. We are a virtual team. So, immediately following the class, we began receiving QAs, designed to cement the information in our brains, via our desktops. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we answered increasingly challenging questions and worked through scenarios.
The process sparked friendly competition about who completed the assignments first with the most correct answers. There was also some good natured debate as we grappled over the “right” answers to the more “gray” scenarios via email.
The result? The small bites of information challenged us to use the concepts and kept them fresh in our minds. Over time, rather than forget all that we learned, we strengthened our skills and began using them more and more in our daily interactions. Now the skills are an integral part of our management culture and the concepts have a firm hold in our vocabulary.
Next time, we will add pre-work to our repertoire to prepare ourselves for the learning. We anticipate an even richer harvest!
If you would like more information on Coaching, Leadership, Performance Management, Employee Engagement & Empowerment, and Process Effectiveness, please call the TBD Consulting office at 602-263-1961.
