How important is it that training content be fully customized for your organization?
Our reader poll today asks: How important is it that training content be fully customized for your organization?
- Not at all. It’s about the methods, not the customization: 56.1%
- Not at all. It’s about the methods, not the customization: 25.3%
- Very. We demand the majority of training be customized: 9.9%
- It’s critical. We won’t conduct training unless it’s customized: 8.7%
Beware of Customization. The vast majority of you are looking for customization of your training. While this is absolutely true of technical training related to your business processes or industry-specific skills, beware of customizing all your training. As someone who’s offered training services on soft skills for well over a decade, I’ve seen the downside of customization. When you’re training people on core skills like leadership, communication, problem solving, decision making etc., if you customize the session with custom case studies and examples, two unhealthy dynamics occur. First, participants tell you everything that’s inaccurate in the example. Second, they focus on solving the example versus learning the method at hand. Those dynamics can ruin an otherwise productive training session. Avoid the temptation to customize everything. It’s not always a good idea, and in many cases it can defeat the purpose of conducting the training in the first place.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 210,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.
I think that the issue with customisation is not to do with the the approach used (e.g. case studies) but maintenance and its economics. If the approach does not result in the desired learning outcomes, then there is something wrong with the design of the course.