To paraphrase the immortal words of Sergeant Joe Friday (Google hisname), “The story you are about to read is true; the names have been removed toprotect the innocent.”
You can’t make this stuff up
A long, long time ago, at a largecorporate training center far, far away, they had what they thought was a greatidea. In order to generate additional revenue, they decided to sell personaldigital assistants (PDAs) to employees. (For you youngsters out there, PDAs,these now almost-ancient devices—like Palm Pilots, Sharp Wizards, Apple Newtons, and Pocket PCs—were the precursors to today’ssmartphones and tablets.) After all, there was a growing demand for thesedevices, and the training organization figured it would do the company aservice by buying in bulk and reselling them to the staff. At the same time,the revenue received would help fund other training projects. The problem wasthat the training organization had no charter to stock and sell these devices,and employees had no authority or permission to buy them. Even when they askedfor permission, it was usually denied. Besides, training organizations aresupposed to sell courses, not electronic gadgets, right?
Plan B
Undaunted, the training organization came upwith what seemed, at the time, a brilliant alternative. They created a new fee-basedcourse, “Time Management,” which included, as part of the course materials—youguessed it—a “free” PDA. It was far easier for employees to get permission toattend training than buy PDAs. Enrollment skyrocketed; hundreds of employeessigned up, and the waiting list was months long. Training managers high-fivedthemselves in the hallways. In the morning of this one-day course, you got yourPDA, along with some instruction and practice on how to use it. In theafternoon, after more practice, you could use your corporate charge card to buyaccessories.
Oops!
This program lasted more than a year, until businesscircumstances cut training budgets to the bone. With no money available for internaltuition payments, the demand dried up. Besides saddling themselves with a largeinventory of unsold PDAs, the training organization lost a primary source of revenue when permission to attendtraining plummeted. This training organization put itself in jeopardy andlearned the hard way that those who pay for the training, not the trainingorganization itself, define its worth.
Lessons learned
As silly as this story might be, the lessonis pretty clear: Training activity that doesn’t produce business value isprimarily wasted. The training organization believed it was creating value, butsaw it in terms of its own desires (generating tuition revenues), rather thanservicing and supporting the key needs of the business, as defined by the business. The training folks never asked whethertime management or the PDA was actually important to the business units. Thebusiness units and departments that paid for the course apparently sawno value. When the budget was cut, not a single business unit executive couldbe found to stand up and say, “don’t cut this, it’s too important.” From their perspective, the time managementcourse was just (ironically enough) a waste of time, and the trainingorganization earned a reputation as primarily interested selling “stuff,” orfilling seats, rather than supporting the business, a reputation that took along time to shed. (You might ask why, in the good times, so many of theleaders of these business units and departments so agreeably allowed theirpeople to take this class, and why they didn’t say no in the first place.Assuming for the moment that they knew what they were signing off on [debatable],the fact that no one was paying attention until a budget crisis forced them tocome to their senses is a management issue worth thinking about.)
The training organization, ofcourse, couldn’t believe what was happening, but they should have seen itcoming. Of course metrics like the volume of training delivered, the number ofstudents registered, and the amount of tuition revenue received matter,especially in terms of the effective and efficient management of the trainingfunction. But when training organizations believe these data are the primary evidence of their contributionto the business, they are creating a false sense of security for themselves. Usingincreased training activity to justify new investment in staff and facilitiesonly adds to the risk. Thus, focusing too much on inconsequential (at least forthe business) internal measures and failing to respond to real businesschallenges and opportunities that truly need training will, sooner rather thanlater, bring it all tumbling down like a house of cards (or Palm Pilots).
Do you have any stories to telllike this to tell? Let me know below. Just don’t name names.
