Training Industry Magazine - September/October 2021 - 35

WHEN YOU COULDN'T DO A TASK, WAS IT
YOU OR YOUR ENVIRONMENT THAT WAS
CAUSE OF THE POOR PERFORMANCE?
GETTING STARTED
Someone asks for training. It's what
they want, but is it what they need?
What someone wants and what
they really need can be two quite
different things.
If it is what they genuinely need
to solve their problem then this
need should be provable, and the
relevance established for all to
see. If it is what they want, but they
have not really thought it through
properly, there is work to be done
to establish the real need and
see if it aligns with what they say
they want.
It's critical that you establish the
real training needs before investing
training budget into programs that
somebody says they want. Only by
delivering what they truly need will
you have any chance of success, so
find out what they truly need. They
probably don't know, although they
think they do, so you must help them
discover what they need. Once they
get visibility of what they need, they
will align their wants to that newly
exposed need.
Let's assume the person asking for
the training is a manager. Let's call
her Mary. Unless it is for compliance
reasons, she is asking for training
because she wants the people on
her team to do things differently.
Ask her what people are doing or
not doing that needs to change - in
other words, focus on behaviors.
BEHAVIORAL NEEDS
ANALYSIS
Doing a training needs analysis (TNA)
or a learning needs analysis (LNA) is
a tacit admission that a training or
learning intervention is the optimal
solution. It probably isn't, certainly
not on its own, so start with a BNA.
Start with the end in mind, start with
the desired behaviors. Focus the
requesting manager's mind on what
their people need to do rather than
a knee-jerk idea of training as a
solution.
Given a task, how does Mary want
them to do the task instead of what
they are doing now? How will she
know they are doing it adequately
well? Brilliantly well? Poorly? A BNA
should result in a list of the required
behaviors and against each one,
some means to see or measure
whether that behavior is taking place
at the required level.
Thinking
about
the
required
behaviors will inevitably bring some
focus to the current behaviors and
the evidence Mary is using to prove
their existence. In other words, what
evidence did she use to arrive at the
conclusion that she needed to ask
for training? Thinking about current
behaviors establishes the behavioral
gap between the current and the
required behaviors.
Here's a useful question to ask
Mary at this stage of your BNA: " If
you don't make any changes, and
the existing behaviors continue for
another 6 months, what will this cost
the organization? "
Very few managers have thought
about this, but with some prompting,
most can come up with a very rough
estimate of the negative impact on
the organization for not crossing the
exposed behavioral gap. You need
to know what this estimate is so you
can prioritize requests from different
managers and understand where the
often-limited L&D budget will have
the most impact for the organization.
CROSSING THE
BEHAVIORAL GAP
The next step is to figure out how to
get employees to cross the behavioral
gap. In other words, how can you
deliver the required behaviors to the
employees who need to do them?
An obvious question at this point
is why the required behaviors are
not already happening. What is
inhibiting them? What is present or
absent that is stopping people from
doing the required behaviors and
thus rendering them incapable on
the job? To answer that question, it's
necessary to dig into what we mean
by " capable on the job. "
Capability on the job, at the time
and place an employee is asked
to perform a task, is dependent on
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| 35
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Training Industry Magazine - September/October 2021

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