My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Is training the answer? Get the most out of your training dollars.

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It may seem laughably simple, but the first step to successful training is doing your research to figure out if training is even needed.  However, companies spend thousands or even millions of dollars for ineffective training, instead of spending much less money and a lot more time on figuring out the need and the best methods to reach that need.

Sometimes, the reason that training does not fix the problem is that training was not the best solution for the problem in the first place.  Don’t skip the fact-finding process.

One company I dealt with was receiving more customer dissatisfaction feedback in regards to customers dealing with the sales help desk. At first, management thought they needed better customer service training.  After research, it was determined that the sales help desk was sending phone calls directly to the sales people and not to the account managers, which was the appropriate next level of support.   They decided that instead of training, it would be more effective to re-iterate the correct process in the morning meetings as well as send out frequent reminders.

Another company had very many harassment and discrimination cases.  The company policy stated what constituted harassment and discrimination as well as consequences for not complying, but there was no training around it.  People were just expected to read the handbook.  The research determined that communication and policy were not enough and that training was needed to fix the problem.

You should be spending the time upfront to ask the right questions, which I’ve included below, and determine the best ways to solve the problem.  If you’re the person in charge of fixing the issue or creating the training, having the answers to these questions will strengthen your case when communicating with management and asking for money and resources.

If you’re the business owner or key decision maker, then these are questions that the proposer of the training should be able to answer.

Questions:

  • What is the problem?
  • What is the cause of the problem?
  • What are alternatives to training that can be used to solve the problem?
  • Is training the best solution?
  • What is the goal that you’re trying to reach?
  • What should the employee be able to do after completing the training and how it will affect the organization?
  • What measurement will be used to determine if the problem has been solved?
  • How will it save the company money? and/ or  How will it make the company money?

 

Manager Development

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Managers have a huge impact on the organization since they are managing teams of people who are interacting with your customers each and every day.  However, many times managers are thrown into the role without sufficient training to succeed.  M&L Solutions helps you give managers the tools and resources to be successful and turn into great leaders.

Top Ten Reasons Managers Fail

1.  A person was promoted for the wrong reasons.  An expert employee doesn’t necessarily make a great manager.

2.  They don’t understand how to develop people or give effective performance feedback.

3.  Insufficient training.

4.  Unclear role expectations.

5.  They took the role for the wrong reasons such as more money, sense of authority, didn’t want to say no, etc.

6.  They can’t or don’t know how to delegate.

7. They are managing their former co-workers and feel uncomfortable being in the new role.

8. They want to be involved in the work and projects in the same way they were as an individual contributor, which can lead to micro-managing their team. 

9.  Lack of communication with their team.

10. They don’t appropriately give recognition for employee accomplishments.