What is the key to effective training?  Technical skills? Teaching skills? Facilitation Skills? HR knowledge?  Modeling? Coaching? Presentation skills?  Knowledge transfer? Understanding the Blooms Taxonomy?

Of all the things talked about in training circles I have found there are two things not usually talked about that are the real keys to effective training.

They are:

1. See the connection between purpose, people, product and procedure
2. Make an emotional connection between purpose and procedure

See the connection between purpose, people, product (or service) and procedure.

Disconnected from purpose and the affect it has on people leaves us with cold, sterile products and procedures.  Employees in this kind of culture become cold and uncaring.  Machinelike.  “just do it and get it over with” would be a common sentiment.

But when they are connected to the purpose, when they see meaning in what they’re doing, enthusiasm follows.  Showing these connections is the mission of training.  It starts there.

More than anything however, when we make an emotional connection to our employees, when they feel in their heart and at their core that what they are doing has significance, that’s when they have real and total buy-in.  Open their heart and transform their lives. This is the real key to effective training.

We can talk all we want about Bloom’s Taxonomy and it is a good guide in education. But training is different than education.  Training involves enveloping a person into the culture of an organization.

So much of training misses this.  Technical skills are important but creating an emotional connection is more important. Unless, of course you want robots.

How do you open their heart and make that emotional connection all while training how to be a team member in your organization?

Tell stories that undergird the principles of the organization. Tell stories that give meaning to who people are within your organization.

People don’t just “see the light” they “feel” the light.

Week after week, month after month, and year after year; as I trained people on leadership, culture creation, and customer service I told stories that had feelings attached to them.  As I told those stories I could literally see the demeanor change in the posture of the team members being changed.  Something in those stories brought them in.  They could see themselves in the story.  They could feel the intention of the story.  They could adopt into their lives the principles which were being taught.     It’s then that they began to become transformed into a team member who could deliver the goods of our organization with the heart of our organization.

Training delivers fully gifted people and fully transformed human beings to organizational life.