With all of the training technologies, methods, models and methodologies out there, why is no one talking about the one factor that gives the biggest bang for a constantly limited and squeezed training buck?

When you take the subjectivity out of your training, your results are spectacular.

That subjectivity is anything that left open to interpretation. Where is it found in training? The list of where it is not found is much shorter. Let’s just deal with the most obvious area: the processes used to design, develop and deliver training.

When Southwest Airlines set out to assess the effectiveness of their flight attendant training, their program was five weeks long and cost the company close to $5 million per year. They were pleased with the flight attendants’ skills and professionalism but suspected they could do more with less. When they squeezed every ounce of subjectivity they could find out of the program, the result was better-performing flight attendants after only three weeks of training.

Five decades ago, the pioneers in the field that became performance-based training brought human performance science to a field that had been dominated by educational theory. Training in the workplace has a different application than education, because its goal is for learners to apply specific skills immediately after the training.

In other words, the science that was introduced in the ’70s and ’80s has been compromised by the well-intended noise of training technologies, methods, models and theories. There is nothing wrong with those technologies, methods, models and theories, as long as they don’t detach the training from the governing principles of human performance.

Fortunately, the path to guaranteed training doesn’t require that we all become scientists, if the entire training system is objective.

Here are the three biggest ways to do that:

1. The performance objective governs – everything!

The single most important place to be objective – to not leave open to interpretation – is in the criteria or measures by which you evaluate whether the objective has been achieved.

Objectives are, by nature, not subjective. They should not be written for the classroom but derived from what a competent performer does in “real life.” The objective governs everything in training:

• It governs how a person will demonstrate his or her new skill. (A knowledge test should never replace a skill demonstration or skill check.)
• It governs what the practice and activities will be.
• It governs how the training should be delivered.
• Most importantly, it governs what the content should and should not include.

2. Content is demoted to limited duty.

Content is not king in an objective training system. The content is not subjectively decided at the beginning of the design/development process. It is determined by a very deliberate and objective process. Follow this objectified sequence:

• The training participant is there to learn a new skill – or lots of skills, one at a time.
• The “test” is a skill check in which the participant demonstrates the objective. (The objective and skill check are aligned.)
• The participant must have adequate time in the training to prepare for the skill check by practicing the skill.
• The only content necessary is the minimum amount needed to allow the participant to start practicing.
• Determine the content by asking, “Why can’t the performer start practicing now?” If the performer can start now, no content is needed. If not, the reasons fall into three categories:
  • The participant doesn’t know something that’s essential.
  • The participant doesn’t know how to do something.
  • The participant makes a common mistake.

When those three reasons are addressed, you have the minimum content you need for the training. Don’t add anything else – it will be fluff!

3. SMEs are objectified.

While the word “objectified” sometimes has a bad connotation, specifying the limits of what the training participant needs from the SME is a good thing.

Often, SMEs feel that learners need to hear everything they know about the subject and all of their interesting stories. When SMEs are objectified, it helps clarify for them what learners actually need to know.

How is an SME objectified? Follow the same sequence used to limit the amount of content.

Southwest Airlines used several other tools and processes to squeeze the subjectivity out of flight attendant training. However, the trifecta of deriving performance objectives from the job to govern everything, demoting content from king to limited duty and objectifying SMEs will bring the biggest bang for your training buck.