Who is responsible for developing competence?
So who exactly is responsible for developing competence?
The HR department?
The training academy?
The head of sales or customer service or production?
The line manager of the learner?
The learner themselves?
Some might say all of the above. But if they are all in some way responsible, the reality is that they all think someone else is responsible and nothing will be done.
The only answer is the learner.
The others may well have a role in helping them to develop their competence, through funding, encouragement, teaching or management, but ultimately the learner must be given responsibility, and then the tools and support to achieve their goals.
And that is a paradigm shift.
Currently we spoon feed learners with an irregular and unpredictable diet of whatever we have available or whatever we always have on Friday. And this approach flies in the face of ancient wisdom:
“Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.”
I can’t recall the number of occasions when I have asked course delegates what they wish to learn, what they wish to be different, what will they do differently back in the workplace and they have said:
“I have come with an open mind.”
When I hear this I think (but obviously do not say), “No you haven’t. You have come with an empty head you vacuous idiot.”
Or they say, “I don’t know.”
Then I think, “Well what they hell are you doing here then? Wasting your time, my time and the company’s money.”
And when I ask how many had a meaningful session with their manager to agree learning outcomes prior to attendance, guess how many have done so in the 25 years I have been in the people development business?
Seven. And I know where they live!
OK, maybe more than seven. But certainly not 700 or 7,000 or 70,000.
And on many occasions they are there because they were sent on the course, sent recklessly, unprepared to tick a box to say that they had achieved their training quota, and to get their annual performance bonus because it is a departmental KPI.
No wonder we have a skills shortage.
On a recent course, I asked delegates who is responsible for developing their competence to do the job they were hired to do. The sheepish, tentative, and pathetic answers that followed pointed to everyone but themselves. Everyone! Trainers, HR, management, the company, the career fairy who lives in a tree, but not me!
Come on, we have to stop this nonsense. Enough is enough. It is your job, your career, your life, your today never to be repeated, your opportunities to be seized and shaped into a better you.
Don’t want to take responsibility? Fine! Stand aside for those that do.
Don’t know how to? Others can help, but you have to want to.
I asked the same question of a very senior manager in charge of training and development recently. He said it was a shared responsibility between the manager, the learning academy, and the learner. When I asked what the manager’s responsibilities were, he said they were to support the learner, acting as mentor, coach and guide.
It all sounds wonderful, but when I asked what percentage of managers are trained mentors or coaches, he could not tell me (on average, it’s about 18% of the management population).
When I asked how many of these managers had held pre- or post-course meetings of real value and substance with their staff in the last year, again he could not tell me (their own learning academy figures suggest it’s less than 35%).
Even the most caring, imaginative, and skilled managers say that they do not have the time to support their people well enough.
Yet the expectation still remains that these managers will mentor, coach, train, monitor and support their staff–even in the face of solid and consistent evidence that they do not, cannot and don’t have the time.
When challenged with these facts, too many say (and repeat over and over again) that it is simply part of the manager’s job.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Now I don’t normally reveal the names of people who say dumb stuff, but on this occasion I will break a rule — his name is Arnold Ostrich. You may have met him or one of his many relatives.
So who is responsible?
First and foremost, it is the learner. But with help from others. These others have been helping since we first gathered together in communities dressed in animal hides. We know that the guy at the next desk will help, the woman on reception will help, my team members will help, even the miserable guy with B.O. on security will help, if I dare get close enough ask him.
And in a world of digital social and corporate networks, the help can be a thousand miles away and instantly available.
This massive resource should be acknowledged not ignored, managed not missed out on, and the manager’s role can then be one of ensuring that support is available and being taken, and monitoring the progress being made.
All this requires infrastructure, systems, processes, resources and — most importantly — a change of mindset.
So now we know who is responsible for the development of competence we can answer the question how…
