“Where the hell have you men been,” asks the colonel in a 1981 Bill Murray comedy film, Stripes. (video)
“Training, Sir,” he answers, drawing out the word “training” until it sounds ridiculous. And funny, of course. The troops, feeling responsible for their sergeant’s hospitalization and under the “emergent” leadership of Murray, had worked all night preparing for the training competition. The Colonel allows a demonstration of this undisciplined training. The comic result is that it “ain’t half bad.” In fact, the Colonel wants these men on a special mission because they have shown such initiative in training themselves.
All that was needed were the three keys steps of organizational development training strategies to move them along and, of course, leadership, attitude, and desire.
It’s easier than you think. Most employers and employees consider training itself bothersome, even unnecessary, while the opposite is true. Yes, it seems the awesome, yet tedious task to planning out organizational development training strategies, while there is real work to be done. This returns to a necessary foundation–a re-start–a re-group–a rethink of how an organization reaches its goals and achieves its mission, often a long time after it was conceived.
That being said, since planning organizational development strategies consist of only three simple things, let’s get started. Knowing that it has to be done, leaders have to use all the charisma with which they are endowed to ease pain.
We all know how important learning and training is for the organization, and if that organization is growing and evolving, even more so. So, how do you deal with organizational growing pains? Expansion isn’t always the answer in order to keep the company functioning at optimum level; in fact, there is a point where the company gets too big. We talk about “red-tape” in government. Same here.
We go back to the company vision and goals to kick-start organizational development strategies. Our simple keys are tactical in nature. Smaller bites to create the Strategic system.
- Remember that company vision and those goals to make it a reality? What are the company goals? Now that there are more people involved, what steps must be taken to optimize learning, the current amount of knowledge held now and the rate of usage? How much time will you have to accomplish what has to be done and how many people are needed per unit to accomplish a single goal.
- What is the company division of labor or how does it divide the work? You aren’t really starting over–although sometimes it might be easier. I suggest have someone do just that. Working alone or with a partner, draw up an organizational plan based on what they know so far. Everyone else work with the current division of labor, departments and divisions achieving the goals now. Naturally, you have to look at relevancy and experience to the work being done, but also at rates of success. Ask questions like would training help or is a re-organization needed. Which would be best over time. Finally, remember the two-person team working on organizational plan on their own? Compare the two plans. Any insight? With key staff members looking at protecting turf sometimes the information is skewed and a fresh look brings a reality into play. Now, the units should be assigned the work that is most relevant, making the total operation more efficient. Over time backups and redundancies will happen as people are transferred and promoted.
- What is the company flexibility factor? Can you tell the difference between someone who is having trouble learning or is learning at a different rate with someone who needs an attitude adjustment? That’s a tough call if it gets that bad, but with the degree of flexibility allowed in a large company, bad attitudes should not be a problem if they weren’t already. A certain amount of flexibility by management over this period and stated as such will show the employees that management cares about them, and that is always a plus. Convinced it will be good for the company overall and good for them because they will be doing work that is best suited to the job they do, you can’t go wrong.
Whenever people are involved, it’s always best to involve them in the decision-making process, or at least gain buy-in. The employees will be forced to take time out of their work schedule and managers who write their evaluations will have to let them, hopefully, with positive reflection. And, everyone is closer to success. The next steps of implementing the training should come easier.
*Just a short note to let you know I have shut down my website and re-named my Acting Smarts blog to Shaw’s Reality, which reflects my more eclectic writing these days and I use in place of my website. Still doing some acting, directing and performance criticism; however, I am more involved in writing these days and want to focus there. I promise straight talk and not to encrypt or decrypt, or be cryptic about anything on my site, which is meant to enlighten those who read between the lines. Harry’s Reality is still on sale at Amazon will be available through all other ebook distributors and directly through Smashwords after September 30th.
Happy training.
For more resources about training, see the Training library.
Jack Shaw is a communicator who does training and has been in the trenches as well as in management and development areas. His priority is how to communicate credibily in the workplace.