Chapter 2
How the Beyond Training Ain't Performance Fieldbook Works
This chapter
describes what is inside the rest of this Fieldbook
provides “getting started” self-assessments for you and your organization
sets the focus on you and your workplace learning and performance organization, underlining the importance of critical mass
gets you started on putting this Beyond Training Ain't Performance Fieldbook to work.
Tools in this chapter include
a Training Ain't Performance individual assessment that helps you determine the gap between your current and desired states along seven dimensions
a Training Ain't Performance organizational assessment that does the same as the individual assessment, but for your group or team.
Although this volume doesn't appear very thick, it is dense with useful items for you. These include
straightforward, friendly guidance and explanations for transitioning from training to performance. This Fieldbook is a coach and guide. To completely understand everything the Fieldbook recommends, you should have read Training Ain't Performance and have it close by as you proceed. If you haven't read it and don't have it at hand, halt, head over to your computer terminal and order a copy to be shipped immediately from www.astd.org. We often refer to Training Ain't Performance. While you're waiting, we can still advance. We do summarize key points from its chapters, usually with a few additional comments.
a large number of tools, templates, samples, and recommendations for application. Why reinvent the wheel?
models, examples, and step-by-step instructions for designing performance aids, environmental and emotional interventions, performance consulting tools, evaluation tools, and alternative methods for calculating return on investment beyond those presented in Training Ain't Performance.
a lexicon with almost 100 human performance improvement terms and definitions.
practical suggestions for forming a study and work group based on Training Ain't Performance and this Fieldbook.
a CD-ROM containing electronic versions of all of the tools in this Fieldbook, thus making it easy to print out for reuse, group sessions, and adaptation/customization for your environment.
a “getting started” self-assessment for you and your organization. There are two tools. Each contains a 10-point self-assessment that you and your colleagues complete at the start of this Beyond Training Ain't Performance Fieldbook adventure. They let you identify where you currently are and where you want to be along a series of dimensions. The same self-assessment tools are repeated at the end of the Fieldbook to track your progress, given all of the material you have encountered. These tools are reusable for ongoing personal and organizational monitoring.
We do have one important caution about this Fieldbook: Although there are 15 chapters, they are not linked in a process flow. Taken together, however, they create a mosaic that presents a comprehensive view of workplace learning and performance. Beginning with Chapter 3, we generally mirror the chapters in Training Ain't Performance. The final two chapters enter new territory as they prepare you for ongoing growth and development. They also help you link up with external communities aimed at attaining goals similar to yours.
Assessing Yourself and Your Training Organization
You and your organization may be entering the world of human performance improvement for the first time or you may be relatively well acquainted with the concepts, principles, and methods of this professional domain. If the former case is true, you are probably known as a training group. If the latter is true, you are becoming in fact, if not yet in name, a workplace learning and performance organization. No matter what your situation, as you are starting out with this Fieldbook it is only appropriate that you undergo some form of initial diagnosis. The two tools that follow, both very similar, help establish your current and desired performance states.
The first tool (Assessment 2-1: Training Ain't Performance Individual Evaluation) is about you. Focus only on yourself and rate where you honestly believe you are and where you would like to be on each of the seven dimensions.
The second tool (Assessment 2-2: Training Ain't Performance Organizational Evaluation) is about your team, group, or organization (meaning the entity in which you work and whose mandate is training, learning, development, performance, or any combination thereof). To complete this assessment, you rate the organization's current and desired states. We strongly urge you to complete Assessment 2-2 with the help of your workmates, clients, and/or manager(s). The more stakeholders you involve at the outset, the more readily they will be open to your influence.
When the assessments are done, carefully examine the gaps between your personal ratings of yourself and those of your organization. These gaps will raise red flags and trigger insights about yourself and your stakeholders (including colleagues). Are your patterns similar to those of your organization? If yes, then you all have a lot of work to do together. If, on the other hand, your own personal gaps are vastly different from those of the organization, you will have to proceed with dexterity and diplomacy.
If your responses are far from those of the organization, we assume that you are probably ahead of the pack or else you wouldn't be using this Fieldbook. Good for you, but don't let your enthusiasm create resistance reactions. Help your colleagues, clients, manager(s), and other relevant parties grow toward your position. If (rather unlikely) you are behind the organization, jump in; stick with both Training Ain't Performance and this Fieldbook. You'll soon catch up.
Each assessment measures seven dimensions. Follow the instructions below to complete each one.
When you've completed the assessments, follow the instructions for tracing the gaps. A difference of three or more points between your or the training organization's current and desired states on any dimension suggests that there is much to be done. It also indicates that this Fieldbook will be useful to you in creating alignments. Of course, you will also have to obtain strong commitment for change, exhibit political dexterity, and gather whatever usable support you can find.
A difference of three or more points between how you rate your desired state on any dimension and your group's desired-state rating for that dimension clearly indicates that you will have a lot of convincing to do. You will have to recruit allies, build success examples (or find credible ones to show to your stakeholders), and engage everyone in show-me practice and insightful cases that will help your organization and its clients evolve in their thinking.
As indicated earlier, both assessments are reusable. Every four to six months, use them again to monitor changes in thinking and progress. In Chapter 14 we ask you to revisit the two assessments to verify whether there have been any changes since you began this venture. That reassessment should trigger in you the motivation to do this again in the not-too-distant future.
Assessment 2-1: Training Ain't Performance Individual Evaluation
Assessment 2-2: Training Ain't Performance Organizational Evaluation
An Activity for You: Instructions for Using Assessment 2-1
To complete the Training Ain't Performance Individual Evaluation, follow these steps:
- For each of the seven dimensions, read the descriptions at both ends of the continuum.
- For each dimension, use two different colored pens or pencils to place an “X” on the continuum at those points you consider to be your own current state (one color) and your own desired state (second color). Be consistent. Always use the same color for current and the same second color for desired.
- When you have placed all of your Xs in both colors, use a ruler to join all Xs in the current color and then join all Xs in the desired color. You'll have two (probably zig-zag) vertical lines. Here is an example (current = solid line; desired = dashed line):
- Note the discrepancies between the two zig-zag lines. A distance of three or more points between desired and current states on any dimension suggests that you have a lot to do to move from where you are to where you want to be.
An Activity for Your Training Organization: Instructions for Using Assessment 2-2
The instructions for completing the Training Ain't Performance Organizational Evaluation are very similar to those for the individual assessment. However, it is best done by a group of interested parties. Pull together fellow training team members, your manager, and, if possible, a client or two whom you regularly serve. Allow for ample discussion while making up your minds on where to place the Xs.
- For each dimension, read the descriptions at both ends of the continuum.
- For each dimension, use two different colored pens or pencils to place an “X” on the continuum at the point the participants believe should be the training organization's desired state (one color) and at the point they consider to be the training organization's current state (second color). Ensure consistency in the use of the two colors.
- When all Xs have been placed in both colors, use a ruler to join the Xs in the current color and then join all the Xs in the desired color. Once more, you should end up with two irregular vertical lines. Here's an example (current = solid line; desired = dashed line):
- Note the gaps between the two zig-zag lines. A distance of three or more points between desired and current states suggests that your group (which henceforth we will refer to as the workplace learning and performance, or WLP organization) has a lot to do to move from where it is to where it would like to be.
Focusing on You and Your Workplace Learning and Performance Organization: The Importance of Critical Mass
The assessments you have just completed, although informal and based on impression and belief, are strong initial indicators of the way things probably are. They are starting points. Note the gaps—your own, those of your WLP organization, and those between you and your organization. Closing these gaps requires effort, thoughtful planning, resources, tools, and allies. Changing yourself into a human performance improvement professional while your organization remains fixated on churning out courses will only leave you frustrated. You must seek out your accomplices to make the transformation become a reality.
As you work through this Fieldbook, we will offer assistance and recommendations for mustering support. (You already have us as your invisible consultants.) For the moment, we have two major suggestions to make:
- Build your own capabilities and strengths. If you are going to help your team/group/department grow and develop, start with yourself. Set personal goals and objectives with respect to becoming a performance professional. Learn as much as you can. Apply whatever is feasible from Training Ain't Performance. Above all, do all the activities we suggest. Reflect on what you accomplish. Become professionally strong.
- Build critical mass. As we've said several times, seek out like-minded individuals and groups in your own and other internal departments. Show the benefits of the performance-based approach to leveraging the capabilities of people through a broad spectrum of performance interventions. Keep the focus on evolving from training order-takers to performance consultants.
As you've already seen in this chapter, we encourage you to engage others in activities, such as the organizational evaluation in Assessment 2-2. These participative activities will increase as we proceed. Get your colleagues and manager(s) involved. The more they do, the more they will learn and the more they will support you. Your critical mass will grow. Praise, reward, and reinforce all steps toward building a workplace learning and performance organization of which all can be proud.
Putting Beyond Training Ain't Performance to Work
The two first chapters of this Fieldbook have eased you into the spirit of transformation from training to performance. We've talked to you and offered you an assessment to start. Like its companion, the Beyond Telling Ain't Training Fieldbook, this is not a volume simply to be read. It's an activity book, a resource for you to exploit within your organization. The introduction and this chapter have led you to the beyond-training-territory borders. The next chapter puts you to work in performance country. It even teaches you the language.
Chapter Summary
This chapter did a number of things to engage you.
You examined a brief inventory of what this Fieldbook has in store for you.
You completed a personal assessment to identify what you'd like your workplace learning and performance organization to become and where it currently is. You then mapped the gaps.
You also completed, or, more valuably, got relevant stakeholders to identify desired and current states for your workplace learning and performance organization and then noted the gaps.
You examined the two visual portraits—yours and your organization's—of similarities and differences in perceptions. This provided you with a foundation for assessing what work needs to be done and where to start.
Finally, you examined two challenges you must deal with: building your own “performance” strengths and fostering sufficient critical mass to effect appropriate change.
Great start! Now to work.