Hands-on Talent Management – why training courses don’t exactly feel hands-on

Hi it’s Perry Timms again here.  This is my second blog in support of the CIPD’s HRD 2011 conference and in particular the focus day I will be running called “Hands-On Talent”.  For those of you who picked up the first blog, I hope you enjoyed it and it stimulated some thoughts and contained some useful information.  I mentioned quite provocatively at the end of the first blog that this second instalment would focus on my predicted demise of the training course as a key element in talent management programmes.

Now, I won’t be the first to say “hang up your flipcharts, the classroom love affair is over”.  And I won’t be the last and let me add that most of my best work has been in rooms, with people, developing and learning something new and useful.  My experience of being a participant / learner in classrooms is that it’s underscored my feelings that it’s not my favoured environment to learn in.  Yes it works, but there needs to be more sophisticated, stimulating ways to boost the imparting of knowledge, acquisition of new skills and ultimately developing to improve yourself and your work.

My transformational learning of late has taken shape in 5 ways: -

·         Seminars – with some of the thought leaders out there like Lencioni, Gladwell and Trompenaars;

·         Coaching – and in fact, I’m being coached by someone who’s more junior than me in the organization, has no formal coaching training but is a natural born coach – so thank you Ruth Davis;

·         Reading – books or e-books, the literary works of Goldsmith; Buckingham; Heath; Pink; Godin; Gratton etc are lapped up and adored by me but also utilized and put into practice;

·         Online -  I think I’ve learned more through Twitter this past 3 months following thought leaders and practitioners than I have trying to capture everything on the web or through e-learning lessons.  I believe in the learning obtained through blogs (oh the irony!) and wikis too.  TED, podcasts – I learn more from them than most classroom sessions I’ve been too;

·         Networking and practitioner round tables – who I know, is increasing what I know and what I can deploy.  People-2-People learning (but NOT in a formal coaching environment) has helped me learn huge amounts quickly.  Round tables are also fantastic ways to share views, draw conclusions and ultimately learn and develop.

So there’s not a course in site there.  Not an instructional imparting of knowledge, no mandated regulatory briefing, not even a workshop – although I am a big fan of workshops but they’re more about producing things than purely about learning. 

As a coach, I value supervision and feedback.  As a trainer I scan happy sheets and as a facilitator you just know when you’re getting the learning transferred through the buzz, the playbacks and the comments informally.

So where do courses fit into Talent Development programmes?  My answer is that they do, but I think ever diminishingly and certainly not the default or even worse sole option.  Take the talent programmes I’ve run.  There’s definitely merit in courses as I’ve built some around management models; the art and science of performance management; giving and receiving feedback; and having impact and influence.  But the key gains – testified by the participants themselves were in

a)      Coaching and mentoring – powerful and personalized;

b)      Bespoke, assessment-centre like (simulator) events.  Using real work, locked in rooms together, working as a team and taking the lead, given constraints and challenges and having their behaviours observed.  These have been more impactful than any course they’d been on – and certainly more memorable too about what they’d learned!

c)       Networking – with their peers, other managers, external experts; and

d)      Self-reflection – the power of time to review what you’ve learned on the job was highly regarded and effective.

So without conducting a huge research piece into classroom/courses -v- other options I’m confident on testimonies from others, my own experiences, and generally a “vibe” I get that, classroom-based courses are less the favoured talent development programme core.  It’s more about the personalized, ongoing, experiential and just-in-time solutions that seem to make the difference.

Of course I wouldn’t want all those fantastic trainers out there to be crying whilst they pack up their scented marker pens; merely that the balance is – IMHO – rightly shifting towards that oft-bandied term blended solutions.

So my blueprint for talent development programmes is that variety is the key and to be fixated on courses is too narrow a point.

Again, I hope to see a number of practitioners on 7 April, ironically in a day spent in a room!  We’re blended though – this blog, speaker inputs, discussions, exercises and a day networking with other skilled practitioners.  Let’s test my theory on the day and feel free to disagree.  We learn when we do that too.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about the online revolution in social media and how we can use that in talent programmes much more than is currently deployed.

So for the time being – enjoy being blended, Perry

Perry Timms is the Head of Talent & OD for the Big Lottery Fund and a regular speaker for, collaborator with and supporter of, the CIPD.  You can follow Perry on twitter at www.twitter.com/PerryTimms and connect with him on LinkedIn of course.