Turning Learning into Action: A Proven Methodology for Effective Transfer of Learning

We’ve done amazing things with people who have got to the end of the programme and still thought the training was useless – we’ve turned them around and got them to transfer the learning. Of course it helps if the participants are enthusiastic but, certainly in my experience, it is not the predictor of successful learning transfer that Broad and Ne

The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to turn training and development into business results (2010) by Calhoun Wick, Roy Pollock and Andy Jefferson.

The real objective of training is to change what people do, not just impact on what they know.

There are, I believe, five reasons why the missing link has remained missing for so long: no ownership; wrong objective; obsession with content; obsession with evaluation; focus on learning not on change.

For training to be truly effective it must adhere to ADDIE, be owned by the L&D department and incorporate a proven transfer of learning strategy.

The goal of evaluation is not to make sure that training was effective, it is to measure whether it is being applied or not. I am still genuinely shocked by how many learning and development departments I’ve come across where the departmental key performance indicators (KPIs) are ‘bums on seats’ or ‘spend per capita’ or ‘training days delivered’ or

Having an opportunity to personalize the training and reflect on how the new information and skills could help an individual is key to transfer of learning and yet this process does not happen in groups.

People don’t change by being reminded to change. In fact reminding them to change could have the opposite effect.

How the training is delivered makes very little difference to whether or not people will use that training in their daily working lives. Training professionals could and do argue that this is incorrect.