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

www.leverlearning.com/resources

There are two distinct parts to effective training. The first is the transfer of learning to the participant. The second is the transfer of learning from the participant into the workplace, as evidenced by behaviour change.

Beyond Learning Objectives

That process is called Turning Learning into Action®

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

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.

People need to be supported to make behaviour change over the long term, they need to be held accountable for what they say they want to achieve and they need time to reflect upon what they have learned so that they can apply it to their own life and situation.

It is also very important to get instructional design right because it will affect the outcome of the training. If we wanted to bake a beautiful birthday cake we wouldn’t start with rotten eggs, out-of-date flour and a bashed-up baking tin. The same is true of instructional design, so getting the basic principles right is essential.

If the objective of training is to ensure that a certain number of people attend a particular learning solution over any given period then is it really any wonder that training is failing to deliver meaningful measureable results to business?