Engagement
As trainers, we must continually navigate factors beyond our control. Ever-changing market conditions, diversity of skill levels and a range of competitive and organizational pressures all make it difficult for any training team to chart a clear path forward.
Unfortunately, faced with these challenges, what’s often forgotten is the most crucial: The learner.
The solution is remarkedly simple, yet profoundly effective: Adopt a learner-centered approach.
By fully embracing a training culture that prioritizes the learner, you will help improve engagement, the learner experience, knowledge transfer and, most importantly, training outcomes. You’ll also foster a culture within your training team and across the organization that prioritizes constructive feedback.
Together, these benefits will create an engine of continuous improvement that drives success.
Of course, most (if not all) trainers would say they already agree with the importance of focusing on the learner. A learner-centric approach, then, is not a radical re-envisioning of our role. Rather, it is a reorientation, a way of being intentional about the choices we make.
Essentially, the approach can be boiled down to a single question: “Is this choice what’s best for my learner?” What could be simpler? And yet the impact of this focus, especially over time, can be dramatic.
Imagine, for example, you are leading a week-long training. It’s 4:30 on Thursday afternoon, and your learners are exhausted and unfocused. Still, the agenda states you have one more topic to review that day.
Asking yourself, “Is covering this topic now what’s best for my learners?” gives you permission to be nimble and adjust your plan — not as an act of surrender but to meet your goal of successfully training your learners.
You can see how this question — whether applied in small ways (like the example) or large — insists that you be present to the current moment and does not allow for one-size-fits-all solutions. In this way, learner-centricity becomes a North Star that enables you to navigate possibilities and chart a clearer course to achieving your goals.
It may be all well and good to ask, “Is this what’s best for my learner?” But the question remains: “How do I know what’s best?” The truth is, we can’t always know – but we must strive to base our decisions on experience, evaluation, measurement (where possible) and honest feedback.
While experience is gained over time, and you surely have methods of learner evaluation in place, gaining honest feedback — from learners, the training team and your organization — will likely pose a significant challenge.
The key word, of course, is “honest.” Just consider the times you’ve given honest (and less than honest) feedback, and you’ll quickly see what you’re up against. Honesty requires trust, which takes time and ongoing effort to cultivate.
Though you may choose to adopt a learner-centric approach by the end of this article, it will likely take months — even years — to grow the culture of honest feedback you’ll need if your training team is to truly understand what’s best for your learners.
That’s why it’s important to start fostering this culture as soon as possible. As you do, be sure to model honest feedback from the top.
Always emphasize that the purpose of feedback is to help everyone improve, not tear anyone down. Prioritize truth over harmony and create occasions where feedback can be given in public, where it can be celebrated and will have maximum impact.
Most of all, be sure that opportunities for feedback are made consistently and often. With persistence, you will begin to see your efforts positively affect your entire organization.
The entire learner-centric approach is grounded in a recognition that no two groups of learners are the same, and that training must be continually refined to meet evolving needs. As a result, there is no such thing as a prepackaged solution or, by extension, preordained benefits to this approach. The improvements your team will see will be shaped by your unique learners and your individualized approach.
That said, you can absolutely expect that your learners will gain more from your training because it will now be dialed in to their learning styles, their needs and their optimal ways of engagement. The more you’re able to give a resounding “Yes!” when asking yourself “Is this what’s best for my learner,” the more confident you can be that you will see improved engagement, greater knowledge transfer and improved training outcomes. These include learners being more effective in their roles and having a greater impact on the whole organization.
Learners won’t be the only ones who benefit. When your training team adopts a learner-centric approach, you will be empowered to better advocate for your learners.
Faced with competing requests from other teams in your organization, a common challenge for any trainer, you will have a methodology for determining what is most important — and a justifiable reason to push back on requests to best protect your learners’ time. This empowerment will reinforce the fundamentals of the learner-centric approach, bonding your team in this effort, while helping you each better succeed in your roles.
Ultimately, the learner-centric approach will positively influence your organization. In many ways, the question “What is best for my learner?” is synonymous with the question “What is best for the business?” By focusing on the learner, you improve their training, which, by extension, helps the organization live its mission and achieve its goals.
At the same time, the culture of honest feedback your team fosters will enable all members of your organization to communicate, focus on the needs of the business and work together to drive success.
It’s never “over.” While in time your training team may greatly improve how it leverages the learner-centric approach, you will never fully exhaust its possibilities. There will always be the next learner, with different needs from the last, who sparks new answers to the question, “Is this what’s best for my learner?”
And while this process may at first seem daunting, it is actually something to celebrate, because what the learner-centric approach offers us through its unending pursuit is a means for continual improvement, an incentive to keep working and a reason to believe that tomorrow we will be closer to our goals than we are today.
What could be better?
Charles Gise is the director of commercial sales training for Alkermes. Email Charles at Charles.gise@alkermes.com or connect with him through https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesgise/.
