How to Use Change Management Principles to Improve Training Project Success
Is training a change project? My vote is almost always YES. Training is often either being used to drive a change or it's being offered as the result of a change.
Why does that matter?
70% of organizational changes fail and L&D has a role to play in this. That’s why in this episode I’m exploring how we, as L&D, can use change management principles to improve the chances of success in training and organizational change.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
00:58 Training as a change project
02:52 Change management principles
03:58 Translating change management principles to L&D
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How to Use Change Management Principles to Improve Training Project Success
Is training a change project?
My vote is almost always YES.
Let's say a subject matter expert comes to you and says they need a training. You ask them questions to uncover what's driving that request.
What is it that you typically find?
What do they typically share?
The most common reasons I hear subject matter experts coming to L&D and saying they need a training are:
There's a performance problem. People aren't doing what they need to be doing, so they need to change their behavior.
There's a new program, service, or process, and people need to know how to implement it. ‘New’ meaning it's a change from what they were doing before.
Both of these situations mean that training is either being used to drive a change or it's being offered as the result of a change.
Why does that matter?
70% of organizational changes fail.
L&D has a role to play. How can we, as L&D, use change management principles to improve the chances of success in training and in that larger change initiative?
In this blog post, we’re covering the following:
1) Change Management Principles
The first step is to talk about what those change management principles are.
You might not be familiar with change management - some L&D folks are and some aren't.
The ADKAR Model is a commonly used change management model.
A - Awareness
Are people aware a change needs to occur?
D - Desire
Do they want to make that change?
K - Knowledge
Do they know what the change is?
A - Ability
Do they know how to make that change? Do they have the skills?
R - Reinforcement
Will they be supported in making and sustaining that change over time?
That's what we think about when we think about the ADKARModel. Now, let's translate that to Learning and Development.
2) Translating Change Management Principles to Learning and Development
When I'm working with a client, I have to do my best to uncover the answers to those questions, but I'm doing it with a learning lens.
So here are some of the questions that I ask:
1. What do people need to DO related to this topic (this performance issue/program/service/etc)?
This is one of the first questions I ask because this is the sweet spot for training. If we're providing training, it's because we need them to do something differently.
However, our subject matter experts are often most comfortable in knowledge. So they might start to answer with they need to know X, Y, Z. As the L&D pro, we have to gently direct them back to the actions people need to take.
What do people need to do?
This is getting to the ability part. And it can help us understand what the change is and if people know that they even need to do it.
Now, that said, what people need to KNOW is also important, but it's important in the context of doing.
So if your subject matter expert starts to answer with the things that people need to know, that's okay. It's just that we want to contextualize it in the thing that we want them to do.
And so that's why I start with a do question and then move them into the know - what do they need to know to do those things effectively?
2. Why do they need to do those things? And what happens if they don't do those things?
These questions help me uncover intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that might exist.
At this point, we know what the change is and we know why they might be motivated to make that change so this leads me to my next question.
3. What would prevent them from making this change? Why aren't they doing it or why wouldn't they do it?
Sometimes this question uncovers other motivations or lack thereof, but sometimes it also uncovers the supports they need in place to make and sustain the change.
This might be a documented process, a job aid of some sort, or a supportive supervisor. And the list goes on.
Once I’ve asked these questions and I have a better understanding of what's really happening, I can design better, more effective solutions that meet the needs of the organizational change and the individuals being asked to change.
I can then create a training and apply behavior change techniques to see real results - results that have a higher likelihood of organizational change and improved impact through training.
3) More Change Management Resources
I talk a lot about individual and organizational change because I think it's often a weak link in training. And so if this is a new concept for you, I'm going to encourage you to check out some of my other episodes on these topics.
Episode 104: 5 Ways to Use Social Influence to Facilitate Behavior Change
Episode 84: Learning and Development’s Role in Organizational Change
Episode 31: Staff Not Ready to Change? This One Practice Creates Buy-In for Staff Development
I would love nothing more than for you to go binge a few episodes and let me know what you think. Send me a DM on LinkedIn and let's strike up a conversation about L&D's role in change.
This is so important. It's good for the organization and it's good for the people.
To hear the full conversation I had on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 107.
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