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Writer's pictureErik Thorén

The goal is not to train your employees!

More often than not, three words are mixed up - education , training and learning . It is important to distinguish them, especially for managers and management, who want to increase business acumen and their bottom line.

Today, the word "training" is used casually by many - "We are going to sales training." But what does this really mean and what far-reaching impact does it have on how we develop the sales team and our employees' business acumen. Let us first distinguish the concepts.

Education is often a goal-oriented and formal process where someone through systematic teaching develops and acquires knowledge and education. Usually with a clear beginning and a clear end. It is also not unusual for you as a recipient to be relatively passive in an education.

Training is a type of purposeful activity with planned, structured and repetitive performance that aims to strengthen or maintain your capacity and skill.

Learning is the process where you as an individual take in knowledge, skills, impressions, etc. to bring about a lasting change in capacity, i.e. a changed behaviour.

Change the behavior - change the result What we want to achieve is continuous learning where we see a change in behavior. An individual can be educated without effect. An individual can also be trained without effect. There is thus no automatic connection between education & training to bring about learning and changed behavior in an individual or organization.

How do you measure an educational effort? Companies spend millions of kroner every year on training - but with what return? Every year, companies carry out different types of education/training programs for their employees - but with what specific goals and how should these be measured and followed up?

Many companies are trying to move away from traditional sales training and instead want to focus on training their employees in sales. Everything to achieve learning and a lasting behavioral change. This is a good step in the right direction but a gap remains.

The gap remains However, there is a gap between training and learning and organizations are trying to bridge this gap with the help of e.g. role-playing and scenario games. But is it enough to create a lasting behavioral change for its employees? The challenge lies in the persistence to learn something new and different. Changing behavior requires, among other things, training over time.

A change in behavior takes a different amount of time to implement. Some behaviors are quicker to change, while others take longer. However, some studies show that it takes an average of 66 days to create or change a behavior. But the time depends on which behavior is intended to change.

What is required to achieve a learning? In order to bring about a behavioral change, it is required that the organization has an overall strategy - a conscious plan to build a culture of continuous learning.

Organizations build their success by using different tools to create employees who grow and become more capable every year. To achieve this, a number of components are required.

A management that genuinely supports a "human growth mentality" - the skills of employees can & must be trained. Managers at all levels are measured on their ability to coach and develop individuals - there are KPIs for this.


Training and learning are built into the organisation's DNA. All "workouts" are created and designed with behavior change as the goal.


The goal is not to train employees, but to create a behavioral change that subsequently affects the overall result for the organization.

What does your plan look like to continuously build employees with a sharper business acumen.

Good luck with your learning!

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