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Effective Training

Scrum team

Customization. Gamification. Blended learning. Reinforcement. These have all been positive trends in training over the last decade, but training is still not effective. In fact, 85% to 90% of training fails by 120 days after it is delivered.¹

The world is full of opportunity to get better business results, yet almost one third of top executives report that the majority of their charges do not have the skills they need to perform in their jobs.²

Training is supposed to deliver these skills, but it often doesn’t.

When training does work, however, it makes a huge difference. At companies where training programs exceed expectations, sellers (when looking at the sales profession) are more likely to:

+ Make quota (69.4% vs. 60% for the “Needs Improvement” in sales training group)
+ Have a higher win rate for sales (54.3% vs. 44%)
+ Lose fewer sales to no decision (20.5% vs. 26%)
+ Stay at the company (15.7% turnover rate vs. 25.6%)3

Where sales training exceeds expectations, sellers are 56% more likely to be able to differentiate from the competition.

A preponderance of research supports the following points:

1. Employees need to improve their skills and knowledge;
2. Training programs often fail;
3. When training succeeds, it makes a direct and quantifiable impact on team effectiveness and revenue growth.

It’s time for an entirely new way of approaching corporate education; an approach that changes the way training is conceived, designed, and executed over the long-term. An approach that drives real behavior change and results.

The end result: a team of top performers who not only meet, but consistently exceed their goals. Keep reading and we’ll share how the few companies that make it happen are getting it done.

TRAINING DESIGNED FOR LEARNING AND CHANGE

Training is often approached with a car wash mentality. Pull in when needed and come out the other side shiny, new, and ready to be a top performer. This kind of training might be fine for learning simple, basic tasks.

Most managers do not perform simple, basic tasks.

Not only is there a large body of sophisticated skills and knowledge to master, but training is often about changing the behavior of adults who are set in their ways.

Discrete-event training doesn’t have nearly the effectiveness of a well-planned, concerted effort over time. Given that the car wash approach is the standard for most organizations, it’s no wonder that most training fails and billions of dollars are wasted each year.

Leading organizations don’t see training as an event, they view it as an ongoing process. They develop a corporate learning system where they not only build team capabilities, but also design the training so that it gets applied and enables managers to transform the way they perform.

1. Dave Stein, Sales Training: The 120-Day Curse (ES Research Group, 2011).
2. Dianne Ledingham et al., Mastering the New Reality of Sales (Bain & Company, 2014).
3. The Business Case for Sales Training (CSO Insights, 2013).
4. 36% of sales leaders cite “ramping up reps takes too long” as the reason for not reaching quota. Source: The State of Sales Execution: 2015 Trends Report (Qvidian, 2015).
5. Association for Talent Development.