The Perils of Experience II: Spectators Don't Create Change

In an earlier post, I talked about how, if you have been in the business of creating training and employee communications for some time (decades in my case), you start to very quickly see the lay of the land and where things are going. Although the situation may be new to your client, you can come close to sketching out the path of the project almost before it begins.

That kind of experience is, of course, valuable -- to you and to your client. But it also has its hazards, and one of them is that your can undervalue the need for the client to learn from experience.

One hazard of relying too much on your experience is that you will spoil the client, the way parents sometimes do. We've all encountered kids (or adults!) who never learned to do something important because their parents always did that for them. As youngsters, they never made the effort to go through the important steps to reach some goal, they simply delegated all that to someone else (mom and dad).

In the corporate training situation, an experienced instructional designer and training developer can often see exactly where the problem lies, and what it takes to improve employee performance. And that's the danger point -- when the consultant or freelancer fails to recognize that the client doesn't have the same experience, and doesn't have the same immediate perception of the situation and the solution.

When the outsourced training help says, "Oh, I've been there before, here's what has to happen," what really happens is often one of the following two things:

1. The training consultant fails to help the client see the problem, and why and how the proffered solution will work. It's much like the experiences we sometimes have talking to our doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, when the situation is so obvious to them that they forget how to communicate about it with someone who doesn't have the same experience. We don't take the time to carefully work through our understanding of the client's needs, resources, opportunities, and we just don't communicate effectively. The result is that the client may, at best, waste a lot of time chasing unproductive solutions, and, at worst, reject your advice altogether, because this conversation is so frustrating.
2. The client is delighted to have a nearly "turnkey" solution, nods enthusiastically to everything you propose, and stamps the problem "solved." Unfortunately, this turns the client into a spectator in the training process. They never really embrace it, and the trainees, especially, can immediately detect that their managers or their training department is just going through the motions, that they aren't really invested in the training or the outcomes.

Of these two, the second is the more dangerous situation.

Clients who are complete spectators in creating the training they need are bound to be disappointed with the results.

That's bad for your relationship, for your reputation as a provider of training, and for their internal reputation with the employees they are trying to influence!

The next time those "spectators" launch some training project, the employees will already be skeptical. They'll just ride it out, like any other fad, and go on doing things the way they always do.

If you encounter a training need that your vast experience allows you to size up instantly, stop and remind yourself that your client needs to work through it step by step. They need to understand what they need to do, and why they should do it that way. And they have to be making decisions about options you offer, not rubber stamping decisions you make for them.

In the short run, spectator clients are easy and profitable to work with. In the long run, they are frustrating and a drain on your energy and revenues.

Bring your experience to bear, but make sure your clients do their share of the work to benefit from that experience.