Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Sales Training Supplement - May 2008 - (Page 6) SALES TRAINING There are a lot of different types of training, running from “read that book” to getting a university degree. Usually, initiatives will employ a mix of methodologies. For example, if you do decide to go get a university degree, you’ll be doing a lot of reading, listening to lectures, engaging in multimedia venues, doing case studies… the list goes on. For continuing education, the key is to look at the impact you’re expecting, your budget, and the time you have available. From the point of view of capabilities impact, a good measure of the effectiveness of the different methodologies available is the degree of retention: how much does the participant remember afterwards? The educational theorist Edgar Dale developed his famous ‘Cone of Learning’ in 1969 (Figure 1), in which he studies retention rates for different types of learning methodologies. What he found was striking — retention levels can range from 50% in traditional ‘academic’ methods (lectures, reading, etc) to 70% once methods like case studies are used. However, the ultimate in learning experiences consists in simulation, where retention can reach 90% not much lower than retention levels found with actual experience. training initiative in which people are participating with their peers, then they will observe each other’s reactions to the material. Once again, we’re drawn to the level of simulation — because at that level we’re not only participating, we’re practicing. Therefore, participants can not only gauge the reactions of the colleagues, but they can observe them putting new behaviours into action in a simulated setting. Training methodologies and change management What about the other side of the equation, the motivation side? Once again, we see the importance of Dale’s cone of learning, but for quite different reasons. Any change management expert will tell you that change really occurs when individuals observe their peers demonstrating new behaviour. Management can talk all it wants, but I’ll change the way I work much more readily once I observe my colleague adopting the new approach. In some cases, such as with sales forces, this presents a major problem, since reps don’t actually observe each other work on a day-to-day basis. Even with individuals who do observe their peers at work, the best training will still accelerate the process. How? Let’s look back at the cone of learning. Dale calls the top part of the cone the ‘passive’ area. Someone, usually a trainer or facilitator, is presenting to me. The bottom half of the cone is the active part, where I’m participating. Now, if you create a Beyond methodology Methodology is crucial, and that’s what you’ll pay your trainers for, whether they’re internal or external. In the end, though, the biggest factor is going to be support from management for new behaviours. In the course of a company-wide quality improvement initiative, Motorola found that those plants where quality improvement training was strongly backed-up by senior management reported a 330% return on training investment, whereas those plants that carried out the same training but had no management follow-up reported negative ROI. This is not surprising. In the end, it means that you can’t outsource change management, you have to do it yourself. However, you can make it much, much easier by choosing the right training methodology. It is in the domain of marketing and sales that simulation-based training is generally the right choice. These are areas in which technique and capability must be married to the willingness to adopt new, ever changing approaches, and in which companies often want to change their strategies, requiring almost constant change management. These approaches, coupled with real management support and follow-up, can provide astonishing and measurable results. Figure 1: Dale’s ‘Cone of Learning’. Retention after 2 weeks 10% Reading Listening Watching Participating Presenting Simulating Doing Adapted from Edgar Dale, Audio-visual Methodss in Teaching, 1969 20% 30-50% 60-70% 90% Figure 2: Quality of targeting of the business line which implemented the simulation course – example from Polish market. 35 Date of the course 30 Dotors visited (average) 25 20 Making an Impact with training One of the biggest challenges to professionals in the training area — whether service providers or training managers — is to measure the impact of training. You can take satisfaction surveys after the training courses (you should always make sure to do this!) but in the end, the person who’s expended hard-won budget to finance initiatives that actually take his people 15 10 5 0 RX.2003 Q 4 RX.2004 Q 1 RX.2004 Q 2 RX.2004 Q 3 RX.2004 Q 4 RX.2005 Q 1 RX.2005 Q 2 RX.2005 Q 3 Conclusion: Quality of targeting (average number of patients per week in the group visited by business line of the client) is increasing in period 3-6 months after course implementation. 6 MAY 2008 PHARMACEUTICAL EXECUTIVE EUROPE
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 Contents Achieving Behavioural Change No Train, No Gain Improving Market Share Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Contents (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Contents (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Achieving Behavioural Change (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Achieving Behavioural Change (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Achieving Behavioural Change (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Achieving Behavioural Change (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Achieving Behavioural Change (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - No Train, No Gain (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - No Train, No Gain (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe IMS Supplement - May 2008 - Improving Market Share (Page 12)
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