As trainers, of either our customers or other staff, we often deal with dueling priorities. Twice in the last month I’ve been confronted, as a trainer, with the tension between “Learn It Fast” and “Learn It Well.” It’s a very stressful tension, and one that is not easily resolved by those of us who train, those who manage staff, and those who coordinate staff development and learning.
The “Learn It Fast” faction wants staff training and learning to not take very much time away from duties that they deem to be more important. This faction wants learning to be instantaneous, efficient, and speedy. They want learners to spend as little time as possible on staff training, period. This faction tends to prefer webinars, online learning, and self-paced learning…which in and of itself is not a problem. But when it’s the only learning that’s allowed, no matter what the topic, then we have a problem. This faction tells instructors to cut a two hour class to 20 minutes, content be damned. This faction tells training agencies that their staff can only spend 1 hour per week on a self-paced 4-week online learning class…and they still want to get the continuing education credits for it so they can tell their Commission or Board that they’re contributing to staff development.
The “Learn It Well” faction values the stick-to-it-ivness of training above all else. They want learning to count, to stick. This group allows for diverse training methods and media, as well as diverse training approaches. They want to ensure that if they’re going to give staff time to go to training, that the time actually means something. I’ve heard folks on this side of the line say “I’d rather give my staff 5 hours to go to a class and know that they’ll remember the content, than have them attend a 1/2 hour webinar that they can put on their performance review but which won’t help them in their jobs.” This faction tends to like training evaluations, assessments before and after training series–all to make sure that the training is worthwhile and has the highest impact potential. Those continuing education credits are like gold trophies to this group. Occasionally, this group values training almost too much, so much so that they over-complicate the process of training and creating training materials…thereby setting the barrier to entry so high that sometimes no training happens at all as a result. Perhaps only face-to-face training is allowed, or online learning doesn’t “count” toward an employee’s development requirements. Making things too long, too hard, can be problematic too.
There is a happy middle road–a common sense approach to training, the flexible “just get it done” approach. Make what is useful to you, share it with others in a variety of ways depending on topic, don’t waste the learner’s time, and make sure you are always following best practices for learning and training. That’s it.
To me, libraries (and anyone, really) should never, ever sacrifice quality and impact for ridiculous expediency. Likewise, libraries shouldn’t over-complicate training to the point of never allowing the quick-and-dirty learning too. As trainers, our primary duty is to our learners. Just remember that, stick up for good training practices to those in charge, and you’ll at least know you’ve done your job. And if you find yourself in the center of a battlefield of the “Learn It Fast” and “learn It Well” armies, hold up your white flag and scream for compromise.
I need an instructional design that allows under-prepared learners to get it both fast and well.
There couldn’t be a more relevant topic for my frantic world. I know the perfect is the enemy of the good, but I just can’t seem to get comfortable with constantly having to sacrifice the excellent in the service of the “good enough.”
As always, I love the common-sense middle-ground approach you manage to find. Bottom line for me is your statement that we should “never, ever sacrifice quality and impact for ridiculous expediency.” And a good follow-up is the idea that we need to support their use of what they learned once they return to the worksite. If we offer that level of support and remain strong proponents of learning opportunties that produce results, we’re on the right track. Otherwise, as a colleague here in the San Francisco Bay Area said a couple of years ago, we might as well just send ‘em to the movies since they’ll have more fun and the results in terms of learning will probably be about the same.
Walt, I don’t think there is an instructional method that exists that allows any learners to learn fast and well, much less under-prepared learners. By the very nature of being under-prepared, it means they do not possess the skills necessary for building on, that they lack the basic building blocks you need to take them to the next level with a training. Students must possess the necessary skills before coming into class. Otherwise, you may as well start with the basics & not even attempt the more advanced topics.
Hey Sarah,
First, I love your blog.
Second, I’m stubborn enough to keep looking. A practitioner from days gone by, Marc Gold, came up with his “Try Another Way” approach that developed training designs that worked with folks that most in his neck of the woods thought were untrainable. True, the search for “fast” killed him…
Anyway, Arne Duncan says he’s looking to have 60% of adult Americans to have at least an Associate’s degree by sometime. Since I make a sinfully huge salary, I’ll keep on truckin’
I understand the desire to train quickly. But I Truly don’t believe that “fast and well” can be combined with training people unprepared for the training. I honor your search and wish you well. Do update us if you find success, even just a little!