Through the looking glass

By Paul Ulasien, President & Senior Partner, Business Training Consultants

In the sequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice climbs through a looking glass where she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Although Alice’s adventures in Through the Looking Glass are only a dream, in the environment of a live or virtual classroom, the student’s or instructor’s perspective of training is anything but a dream.

So, let’s step through the looking glass of training and take a seat in the classroom to gain some perspective of training through the eyes of the class participants. First, it is important to understand what the intent is of a class participant from the perspective of why are they in the classroom.

During my time as an adjunct faculty member for a local university, part of the obligatory introductions during the first night of class included a question to each student: “Why are you here?” Most of the answers would be “to better myself,” “to make myself more desirable in the job market,” “to move up the corporate ladder” or “to set an example of achievement for my children or grandchildren.”

Then there were the not-so-often answers, such as “I need a degree to keep my job” or “I need a business course to fulfill a math requirement.”

Want to versus Have to      

Why am I presenting this dichotomy concerning the motivating factors of why students attend a class? It is because there are students who want to be there and, conversely, there are students who have to be there.

From an instructor’s perspective, this is a powerful paradigm into the expectations and potential outcomes of a class through the student’s eyes. From an organizational perspective, it is also a glimpse through the student looking glass as to how efficiently financial and human resources are being used to support organizational and continual learning.

The “want to be there” versus the “have to be there” leaves a very distinct line in the sand to the return on the investment (ROI) of resources spent on training.

ROI

In the interest of a higher ROI from their training programs, can an organization cull the “have to be there” from the “want to be there?” Probably not, because doing so could open up a whole new Pandora’s Box of organizational issues, causing more harm than good.

Rather, it is best for the organization to understand that the intents and outcomes of each class participant are not equal. Some participants will use what they learn from training to the betterment of themselves and the organization. Others may use their training time as merely an escape from the mundane.

While the latter does not sound like an acceptable outcome, in reality, it is a fact of life in organizational training programs.

Training Outcomes

Secondly, when taking a glimpse through the looking glass of a class perspective, it is also important to understand how the outcomes of a training class will ultimately be applied. Using example from my book, The Corporate Rat Race: The Rats are Winning, in a chapter that I wrote entitled, Playing to your Strengths, I discussed the importance of a person’s ability to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, then playing to their strengths as a path to achievement.

Each person has specific strengths and weaknesses. Some people are skilled with their hands as a craftsman, some are skilled with computers, and others are skilled in numbers. On the other hand, some people who can fix anything with their hands cannot distinguish the difference between an income statement and a balance sheet.

It’s not due to a deficiency in a person. That’s just the way they are. Yet in the blind quest for achievement, people will go against the grain of their natural talents and abilities for ulterior motives.

Whether from a professional or personal perspective, recognizing strengths comes from equal portions of desire and ability. A passionate desire to do something added to an equal amount of ability is the optimum formula for a true strength.

Additionally, playing to ones strengths is through recognition and cultivation. Some strengths and talents are immediately evident. Others are discovered as persons mature and grow in their careers.

Recognition and Cultivation

Once more, this circles back to the “want to be there” versus “have to be there” view through the looking glass from the class participant’s perspective.

In the catalog of many organizational training programs are the inclusion of compulsory and elective courses that are designed to enlighten and inform but miss the objectives of recognition and cultivation of a participant’s desires and abilities. It is not in the best ROI interests for organizations to create opportunities for a “have to be there” slate of courses by not targeting the recognition and cultivation of a participant’s desires and abilities.

Through the looking glass of the class participant, a class in cloud computing may sound interesting to many people, but if it is not applicable to a person’s desires and abilities, will an initial “want to be there” turn into a “have to be there?”

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice was dreaming about what it would be like on the other side. In the real world, however, we are not accorded that luxury.

Through the looking glass of understanding the recognition and cultivation of a participant’s desires and abilities is not only beneficial to the success a class, but also to the bottom line of an organization’s training ROI.

Paul Ulasien is president and senior partner of Business Training Consultants (www.biztrainingconsult.com). The company provides innovative and effective training strategies based on Social Learning Theory that strives to stimulate individual learning retention and then share what has been learned to individuals throughout the social fabric of the organization. Ulasien has more than 30 years of experience in training consulting and education. He serves on the Advisory Panel of Faulkner Information Services, a provider of IT and communications information services; has been an Adjunct Professor of Graduate Business Studies and holds dual Masters Degrees in Business Administration and Industrial-Organizational Psychology.