Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2020 - 39

trainee, their manager, their colleagues,
the facilitator, the program designer,
the executive sponsor and many
others - especially when you consider
the cultural context lever. Without input
from all these people, reliable learning
transfer will not occur. It is this breadth
of responsibility for pulling the levers
that is most likely the reason learning
transfer fails following most training
courses. Someone must be held
accountable for the results of the entire
program, and in turn, someone must
hold the varying parties accountable
for doing their part.
Think of a recent training program
you were involved in. Who was
responsible for the different aspects
of the program, particularly those
activities that were supposed to take
place outside the training room? Was
there anyone with the authority to
hold various stakeholders accountable
for their input in the program? If there
were any activities that trainees were
supposed to do after the event, what
were the consequences if they failed to
do so? What about the managers of the
trainees - were they held accountable?
It's a fact of busy organizational life that
- unless there are consequences for
inaction - people will find other things

LEARNING TRANSFER, AT ITS HEART, RELIES
ON LEARNERS CHOOSING TO TAKE ACTION
AFTER THE TRAINING EVENT.
to do that are more urgent, because
those do have real consequences.
Who receives the "blame" when a
training program does not transfer
well or does not solve the problem
it was intended to solve should
also be considered. Have you ever
heard this? "We sent the team for
training and they still aren't doing
their job right, so the training was
obviously not good enough." What
they mean is that the training event
itself was not good enough, because
they perceive training as a onetime event. If you use an expanded
definition of training, including the
whole program from beginning to

end, their statement is still true, but
it becomes obvious that there are
many places other than the classroom
where improvements can be made.
For example, use the 12 levers as a
framework to show all stakeholders
they have a role in contributing to
the success of the program, and
that it is unreasonable to place full
blame on how L&D delivered the
classroom event.
A good reputation and, by extension,
the brand of L&D is dependent upon
delivering successful development
programs. At a recent conference, Josh
Bersin said that their study regarding
the net promoter score for L&D resulted
in an average value of minus 31. Given
the range of possible values is from
minus 100 to plus 100, L&D is not doing
well in terms of customer satisfaction.
Why does L&D in organizations have
such a poor reputation? One of the
reasons is the lack of successful
results due to ignoring the learning
transfer elephant.
Ignore the learning transfer elephant
at your peril, because without learning
transfer, your training budget is
mostly wasted, and your reputation
becomes tattered.
Paul Matthews is a leading learning
and development expert with three
best-selling books to his name. He
provides consultancy services, training
workshops and webinars for bluechip clients in the U.K. and beyond.
Email Paul.

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Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2020

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