Is Training Entertainment?

There is a whole crowd out there who definitely think training is fun and prolonged entertainment. Fasten your seat belts and fly to a whole new world with the trainer as your host. They have almost the same temperament that one has while going to a movie hall - anticipation and a little excitement. You do not go to a movie to learn something and come back home and apply it. Do you?

That is exactly the point. After training, there is responsibility (shared) and accountability (individual).  The training hours are not your escape route, your break from mundane and routine. It is cost, loss of revenue and you have to translate that learning to achieve outcomes and impact revenue. 

Passenger state of mind

Would you blame the passenger for being so casual about training? If the learning strategy of an organization has no measurement model around training effectiveness, why do they need to know the difference? Let your mind wander till the Learning lead learns to work out something to measure what you really learnt.

Prisoner state of mind

Many attend training out of compulsion. It could be to build their credibility, to be able to negotiate better ratings during appraisal or to add a feather as initiative and use that as a missile during promotion assessment or engaging top talent in any assignment overseas. This prisoner is locked in "What Is In For Me" syndrome

Participatory state of mind

A small percentage is definitely there who genuinely want to learn and will gladly participate, however they are not really concerned about the immediate changes they can do in the work place. How his resume will look after that certification and how can he market it better is his primary interest.

Personal state of mind

It is the participant's personal state of mind, his urge to learn and make a difference that counts most. Are your modules designed to even remotely stir that layer of his mind, to motivate him to change?

As I type "motivate" the trainer is probably searching for that canned module - How to stay motivated - to include it in her workshop calendar. It is not learning team's priority that works, it is the learner's and the surest way to have him captivated is to let him know what Business is expecting him to do after the training. He knows the outcomes he is supposed to deliver, he automatically knows what to focus on and  how much during the training.