How To Get A Higher Return On Your Learning Or Training Investment

I find that most companies need to work on getting a return on their training investment. Earlier this year I did a two-day training session for about 30 companies to learn the Rockefeller Habits. I use these Habits with all my clients to help them improve their focus and results. One table was a forum group from the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). These nine people got lots of value from the session. But afterwards they realized they should’ve brought their executive teams with them, so the execs could learn and understand the training approach.

So the group asked me if I could train their executives. Now, a typical solution would be to give another a seminar for all those companies. But even though they could split that cost, it wouldn’t give a very good return on their investment.

I find people learn during a workshop, but typically there are specific questions for each company. A generic seminar would’ve been okay, but it wouldn’t provide those answers. I didn’t feel right about that extra workshop, because I knew they were serious about using the Rockefeller Habits. They mastered the learning, but didn’t have a process for follow-though.

They came up with a brilliant solution: A half-day with all the executives, then about 1.75 hours for each executive team over the next day or so. During that short time we solved 5-10 specific issues for each of the companies. We moved them from being 20 percent to 50 percent effective with the Habits in just that time. These companies had my direct experience of going through the process hundreds of times.

Problems that could take a day to solve got solved in 30 minutes. We took so many roadblocks out their way because we could troubleshoot them one by one. You could do this over an hour or so of a Webcast or conference call.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge:

Can you use this kind of model to achieve better returns from your training? Is there an expert you could bring in to work with you?