By Fred Spears
and Terry Herring

Jack Welch, the lionized former CEO of General Electric, once commented: "Any company trying to compete...must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee."

In previous articles, we have addressed three essentials for individual and organizational success: Selecting the right person, setting clear expectations, and creating a motivational climate.

Building on Mr. Welch's comment, we add a fourth essential for success: Developing the person.

Effective leaders and managers know they are successful only when the values of the product or service delivered is greater than the cost of delivering it. This is the essence of productivity...and productivity gains come from people. Organizational success depends on getting high levels of performance from other people - and frequently the lowest paid people in the organization.

Within a company, not all people may initially be matched to the right position. Additionally all people are unique and if treated as a group, individual talents will be wasted. Consequently, leaders and managers need to identify the strengths of their people and capitalize on those strengths - not spend time on trying to "improve" their weaknesses to be more successful.

In their seminal book, First Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman made the following points:

· People don't change that much
· Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out
· Try to draw out what was left in
· That's hard enough

Therefore, the primary focus within the organization must be training, rather than education. The difference between the two is a matter of purpose: Education focuses on a level of knowledge for a subject, not directly related to any specific task or for a subject common to several tasks. Training on the other hand, focuses directly on behavior change - specific skills application, action and defined results.

Adopting the following five principles assures effective employee training:

· Employees must be ready to learn. They must be alert, in the right place and have met any prerequisites for the particular training process.
· The employees must benefit - and understand they benefit - from the training process. If employees see no personal benefit from the training process, their motivation to participate in the process will be marginal, as will the results.
· Feedback enhances learning. Contrary to what the advertisements say, Wheaties is not the "Breakfast of Champions" - feedback is. Employees want to know how they're doing. Whether it's in the classroom, or in the workplace, providing feedback - and coaching on performance will generate positive results for both the individual and the organization.
· Spaced repetition makes learning permanent. This is critical. Practice doesn't make perfect - it only makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. Make sure the employees are practicing the right things.

Finally, no teaching takes place until learning occurs. Only when the first four principles are followed does the trainee actually learn what was communicated. The greatest impediment to effective communication is assuming that communication has taken place. The individual(s) responsible for conducting training must use appropriate measures to ascertain that those being trained have received - and understood - the training message that was sent.

While there are four essentials for organizational and individual success, there are twice that number of characteristics that effective leaders and managers possess. They

· are committed to a personal vision,
· are goals-directed (both personal and organizational),
· are action-oriented,
· achieve by helping others achieve,
· maintain a positive climate,
· are enthusiastic and internally motivated,
· work for constant improvement and, perhaps most critically, they
· know the power of personal development and encourage others to make the most of their developmental opportunities.

Today is an excellent time to use the foregoing to assess the effectiveness of your organization's training process to assure that it's on the right track and achieving the results you are expecting, and to evaluate your own characteristics and behaviors to evaluate your level of effectiveness.

Terry Herring and Fred Spears are the principals of Leadership Systems of Overland Park, Kan., a results-improvement company that focuses on staff development, hiring and skills development and improvement. Contact them at (913) 681-0142 or by e-mail at freds@leadershipsystems.biz.