Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019 - 53

training maximized participation and
understanding of complex topics. The
key learning objective - how to drive
customer needs by understanding social
and cultural makeups in their individual
regions - was successfully taught using
soft skill techniques.
CASE STUDY: THINK CRITICALLY.
WORK COLLABORATIVELY. APPLY
GLOBALLY.
Background: A pharma company
has recently expanded its workforce
worldwide. About 30 new sales and
marketing managers have joined the
company from different regions. While
many had a background in marketing,
they were still new to the organization
and its products. The workshop's goals
included training the reps to identify
social and behavioral patterns in their
markets by using soft skills such as
social dynamics, motivations, attitudes,
emotions and desires.
The training consisted of two workshops
for the company's international team.
The training intervention asked
the reps to create a customer profile,
build a customer persona, use insights
to understand customer's needs,
create value propositions and develop
journey mapping.
After consultation, design managers
developed a creative approach to the
training scenario, which taught and
utilized soft skills to show managers
how to think about and understand their
target markets. The workshops trained

the employees to use soft skills such as
critical and strategic thinking - with a
focus on collaboration - and engaged
them by utilizing their senses.

exercises were provided for the reps
to use when they were back home to
gain a deeper understanding of their
customer's preferences.

At the end of the workshops, the reps
were successfully trained to understand
the persona of the physicians in their
regions, differentiate between two
physicians' practice styles (patient
or science-centered) and determine
possible motivations to get them to try
their new product(s).

The training also helped participants
look at their physicians as real human
beings in order to understand their
individual motivations and needs. To
do this, the program included short
presentations followed by interactive
workshops. The activity was structured
to lead the sales reps through the
critical thinking process to come to
their own conclusions about who they
were targeting.

The training program taught the
following lessons for teaching and
understanding soft skills:

SOFT SKILLS ARE HARDER
TO COME BY WHEN PEOPLE
RELY ON TECHNOLOGY
FOR COMMUNICATION AT
SUCH AN EARLY AGE.

LESSON #1 - TEACH CRITICAL AND
STRATEGIC THINKING
Applying critical and strategic thinking
is, well, critical. Despite their marketing
background, this situation held some
challenges - the reps would need to
use their own judgment about how best
to connect with their target audience
based on cultural differences. Training

This transformative training approach
ensured that the reps understood
the thought process that would lead
them to apply their interpersonal
communications skills to best serve their
target markets.
LESSON #2 - CONSIDER GLOBAL
DIFFERENCES
When developing training for a global
group, it's important to consider
cultural nuances. Recognizing that
there were a variety of cultures present
at the training, the recommended plan
was to allow the reps to create their own
customer "picture." Called a "persona,"
the idea was to identify and personify
a typical type of doctor who they might
reach out to in their specific country
or region.
A customer persona is a research-based
representation of a customer segment

T RAIN IN G I N DU STR Y M AGAZ INE - UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEARNERS 20 1 9 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019

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