I had a great day recently at the Training Zone Live event. The highlight of the day for me was Jim Kirkpatrick's session on his (and his Dad's) four levels for evaluating the effectiveness of training.
Jim was feeling a little jet-lagged, having just flown in from Australia the day before - but he ran an inspiring session, nevertheless.
At one point, he explained to us that his Australian audience had introduced him to 'red pants syndrome' (that's pants in the American sense, by the way, so 'red trousers syndrome' for us Brits).
So 'red trousers syndrome' is where you go on a training course and learn to do something in a particular way, then go back on the job and start implementing what you've learned. Only to discover that no one else much is bothering.
In other words, it's a bit like wearing a pair of red trousers to work everyday, when everyone else wears black ones. You come in on the first day, feeling pretty pleased with your new look. But you quickly realise people are staring at your new trousers. Maybe over time they start to comment negatively on your appearance. Perhaps they even start avoiding you.
In that situation, how long are you going to hold out? How long will it be before you start wearing black trousers, too?
A nice metaphor to highlight the big problem that exists in many organisations. The one where the training happens, everyone feels enthused, but within a relatively short time they all go back to doing things in the same old way.
Jim is pretty clear on what the consequences of not addressing this problem will be: training departments as we know them will eventually become obsolete.
But as Jim explained, if you start at the end and identify the results you want to achieve and work back to work out exactly what you need to achieve those results, you can greatly minimise an outbreak of 'red trousers syndrome'.
Next time, I'd like to share the results of some long-term research carried out by one of Jim's colleagues. This shows how avoiding 'sheep dip' training can have a massive impact on changing behaviours and embedding learning.
Jim was feeling a little jet-lagged, having just flown in from Australia the day before - but he ran an inspiring session, nevertheless.
At one point, he explained to us that his Australian audience had introduced him to 'red pants syndrome' (that's pants in the American sense, by the way, so 'red trousers syndrome' for us Brits).
So 'red trousers syndrome' is where you go on a training course and learn to do something in a particular way, then go back on the job and start implementing what you've learned. Only to discover that no one else much is bothering.
In other words, it's a bit like wearing a pair of red trousers to work everyday, when everyone else wears black ones. You come in on the first day, feeling pretty pleased with your new look. But you quickly realise people are staring at your new trousers. Maybe over time they start to comment negatively on your appearance. Perhaps they even start avoiding you.
In that situation, how long are you going to hold out? How long will it be before you start wearing black trousers, too?
A nice metaphor to highlight the big problem that exists in many organisations. The one where the training happens, everyone feels enthused, but within a relatively short time they all go back to doing things in the same old way.
Jim is pretty clear on what the consequences of not addressing this problem will be: training departments as we know them will eventually become obsolete.
But as Jim explained, if you start at the end and identify the results you want to achieve and work back to work out exactly what you need to achieve those results, you can greatly minimise an outbreak of 'red trousers syndrome'.
Next time, I'd like to share the results of some long-term research carried out by one of Jim's colleagues. This shows how avoiding 'sheep dip' training can have a massive impact on changing behaviours and embedding learning.
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