Training: Sweat more in peace, bleed less in war
Part 3 of Building High Performing Teams
This is part three of a four part series on the basic building blocks of high performing teams. In the first section I introduced the concept that high performing teams must have a maniacal focus on three fundamental areas: Hiring, Training and Learning. In this section I dive a little more deeply into Training. Part two focuses on Hiring and Part four focuses on Learning Organizations.
“Sweat more in peace, bleed less in war”
I’m not sure where or when I heard that for the first time. Probably during Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy. Obviously it wasn’t coined there. No one knows who said it first. It may have been General George S Patton. It might actually be an ancient Chinese proverb. No matter who it was, the fact remains that it’s still a universal truth. To ensure you are as prepared and well equipped as possible to meet the challenges of your job, make sure you train as hard as possible. Pretty simple. If you want to perform at a high level, you have to train for it.
This simple rule applies to individuals and teams alike. High performing teams, train hard. In fact they train religiously. Think about it. Think of the best sports teams you’ve been on or been a fan of. Think about the best organizations you’ve been a part of or observed or read about. If you dig-in a bit, you’ll find they all train hard. One of the best examples of this? Navy Special Warfare Teams (SEALS — pictured above).
But how many teams really do this? Does yours? Does your team carve out the appropriate amount of training time on a regular a basis? Does your team take training seriously? Has your organization taken the time to develop the right training for all roles and levels?
I get it. It’s hard to prioritize the time. In fact, there’s never a good time to train. But if you want a high performing team, you have to make training part of your operational DNA. You have to recognize that hiring great people is just the first step in building high performing teams, training them properly is the super critical second step.
The low hanging fruit when it comes to training is your new-hire training program. Once you get people onboard, you MUST put them through a robust new-hire training program to ensure every single person (no matter how senior they are) is brought up to the requisite level of knowledge and skills to perform in their roles. That training should include everything from company orientation to company values to skills and knowledge for specific job functions.
Over the course of my career, I’ve observed that organizations tend to make two basic mistakes when it comes to new-hire training. The first is that the training is not comprehensive enough. It’s too superficial, doesn’t get deep enough and doesn’t prepare people for the jobs they’re going to be doing. The second mistake is that it’s skipped! Often times, externally hired managers and leaders end up skipping all or some of their new-hire training because they quickly get pulled into managing their new teams and leading the business. DON’T let this this happen! Technical competency and knowledge is one of the key ways that leaders earn the respect of their teams. If they are allowed to skip training, they’ll lack the technical competency needed to understand the business, the product, the processes, their team’s jobs, etc. Fiercely protect new-hire manager time. Don’t allow them to be pulled into their new jobs until they spend the requisite time being trained.
At this point, hopefully you understand and agree that new-hire training is important. It’s also important to understand that new-hire training is just the table stakes. It’s a must-have and a great start for any organization that hopes to be a high performing team. But you’re going to need more than new-hire training to consistently perform at a high level. You will also need to develop ongoing training that addresses knowledge and skill gaps that exist or develop throughout your operational cycle.
Creating and prioritizing ongoing training is tough. It’s incredibly difficult to carve out time to conduct training on a regular basis. Every part of your daily business needs will try and rob you of whatever time you try to set aside. The only way to be successful in developing and implementing training plans for your group is to be MANIACAL about protecting it as a priority. Fiercely protect the time you carve out and make sure that everyone understands and believes in the importance of making on-going training a priority.
A robust on-going training program has many different potential elements. Here are a few areas to think about:
- Basic and advanced skills training. Different roles will require different skills. Some skills and knowledge need to be addressed in new-hire training. Some can be saved for follow-on training later in the employee life cycle. Think about addressing and balancing both soft skills (examples: communication and presentation skills) with more direct hard skills like advanced engineering and sales techniques.
- Continuing Education. Training programs are resource intensive. Your company won’t likely be able to handle all of your training needs. But you might be able to carve out financial resources to send your high performers through outsourced training programs. In addition to up-leveling skills and filling training gaps for your team, outside training and educational opportunities are outstanding retention tools for your star performers.
- Leadership training. Every organization talks a big game about leadership. They want great leaders, they value leadership, they believe deeply in strong leadership, etc, etc. But how many organizations put their money where their mouths are and actually train leaders on how to lead? Some do, most don’t. While he was CEO at Twitter, Dick Costolo used to teach a course on leadership to every single new manager (external hire or internal promote). But sadly, that is more of an exception not the rule when it comes to teaching leadership within companies. Bottom line — if you want a high performing organization, you’re going to need to focus on leadership training for all managers.
- On a related note, even organizations who spend time and energy on leadership training for new managers forget that there are different needs at different levels. A comprehensive leadership training program should include training for new managers, as well as training for moving junior managers to senior managers and training for senior managers to executives.
Being a Student of your Craft
I just described what would be a relatively robust training program for any group or company. There’s a lot to consider and a lot of energy and time needed to develop the right training for any team that wants to perform at a high level. However, despite what I detailed above, it’s not quite enough. It’s not quite enough in the sense that you can never develop (or pay for) training to cover everything needed for your people to perform at their highest levels. Some of that training needs to come from within and be driven by each individual. To do that, they need to become students of their craft. What does that mean?
Jerry Rice was perhaps one of the greatest wide receivers to ever play football in the NFL. Why? Amazing natural athletic ability? Yes and no. He ran a 4.7 second 40 yard dash. That’s not exactly blazing speed. In fact it’s slower than some defensive lineman! But aside from his straight line sprint speed, he did have plenty of amazing athletic ability. That’s not what ultimately made him the greatest, though. What made Jerry Rice the GOAT was his dedication to his profession and to his craft. He studied the game, the positions, the plays, the routes, his opponents, everything! He watched more game film, practiced more in the offseason, and worked-out harder than anyone else on the field. He MADE HIMSELF the greatest by taking his training to the next level all together, by being a true student of his craft!
An extreme example? Yes. But that mindset is the secret sauce to being a high performer in any environment. Teaching your people this lesson can help them each fill the gaps in whatever training you provide organizationally. A laptop coupled with a high-speed wireless internet connection is the complete training tool for any knowledge worker. Sales skills, quantitative analysis skills, business strategy, market dynamics, competitive threats, product knowledge, it’s all out there and accessible online! The combination of a robust training program along with people taking the initiative to learn as much as they can about their roles and responsibilities on their own is a fantastic recipe for building a high performing organization.
Like Hiring, Training is another BIG subject. There’s a lot to consider. Once again, I did not cover everything in this short article. But hopefully there’s enough to get you started as you build out the training program for your organization. Next up is the fourth and final installment of this series on building high performing teams: Creating a Learning Organization.
