The training development process is highly collaborative, requiring healthy interpersonal dynamics in order to facilitate the required degree of information sharing.
While many of your encounters throughout the training development process will be professional and productive, others may not go as smoothly as you would like. And some have the potential to be difficult, to say the least.
The following 3 strategies will help you to successfully address some interpersonal factors that can negatively impact your training development effort.
1. Maintaining an Anti-Appeasement Stance
2. Overcoming the Inevitable Encounters with Arrogance
3. Avoiding Insularity
Let’s take a closer look at each.
1. Maintaining an Anti-appeasement Stance
Appeasement is the act of yielding to demands in a conciliatory effort at the expense of other principles. The ramifications of appeasement in the context of a training design and development effort are significant, and can compromise the overall quality and effectiveness of the resulting training curriculum
Training development requires the solicitation of input from various segments of the organization. The information obtained by the training development team is analyzed for relevancy, factual accuracy and its ability to satisfy the curriculum learning objectives. Information meeting the team’s criteria is incorporated into the training curriculum accordingly.
Appeasement becomes a factor in the training development process when information not meeting the required criteria is incorporated in order to satisfy one or more individuals in the organization. Irrelevant information resulting from appeasement can hinder the ability of a training curriculum to properly address and fulfill its learning objectives.
The Root Causes of Appeasement in Training Development
Throughout the information gathering process training designers and developers will encounter any number of potential contributors. Many will have meaningful input. Others, however, will be promoting the inclusion of their own input for reasons unrelated to the required learning.
A strong training designer will be highly selective when determining what information becomes part of the final training curriculum. Some designers, however, can be influenced by two common appeasement factors- conflict avoidance and fear, that negatively impact the critical information selection process:
Conflict avoidance manifests itself in a lack of strong will and leadership results in an avoidance of challenging those with irrelevant input. Instead of being selective, the training designer accepts irrelevant information in an effort to please all contributors. As a result the potential for learning is reduced as the curriculum becomes cluttered and unfocused.
The fear dynamic comes into play when a higher-level organization member provides unrelated information that the training design and development team is afraid to objectively reject. Fear-based content often makes it through many reviews and frequently ends up in the final training product. As a result, the learning-based content becomes overshadowed by this agenda-based input.
Taking Control of your Content
It is important to stand your ground when making your content decisions. You, as the training designer, know what information will work best in meeting your learning objectives. A few simple actions will help you maintain control of your projects.
Focus on your audience.
Your objective as a training designer is to satisfy the learning needs of your training audience, and not the personal preferences of others in the organization. The training audience must drive your content decisions
Be assertive.
The training designer is responsible for the overall quality of the resulting training curriculum and must take ownership of the content decisions. Be firm in your resolve when determining what information you will use.
Get some support.
There are circumstances where it takes a very high degree of diplomacy to counter the inclusion of content that does not fit. Not all training designers possess these diplomatic skills, therefore it is often necessary to seek additional support from within the organization when defending your content decision.
2. Overcoming the Inevitable Encounters with Arrogance
Arrogance manifests itself in displays of superiority or self-importance and plays a significant and detrimental role in the training development process as it creates inevitable barriers to the healthy collaborative dialogue required in successful curriculum design. Let’s take a look at the impact of arrogance on the training development process both from within the training design and development team, or as encountered through subject matter experts in the field.
Arrogance on the Training Team
The ability to successfully gather relevant, factual information is one of the key traits of a successful training designer.
Occasionally, however, members of the training development team will possess an inflated view of the importance of their role and of themselves. This sense of self-importance is not well received by other organization members. As a result, the healthy interpersonal dynamic required for successful information gathering is impeded, or perhaps shut down completely.
It is imperative that all members of the training development team keep their roles and self-image in the proper perspective to allow for successful collaboration with other members of the organization. Overcoming arrogance on the training design and development team will require strong leadership capable of identifying and counseling arrogant team members accordingly.
Arrogance in the Field
All training designers are likely to encounter arrogance when attempting to obtain information from subject matter experts in the field. These encounters prohibit the gathering of critical information required in creating a solid training curriculum.
Displays of arrogance from the subject matter experts generally present themselves in one of the following ways:
“I’m too good for this.”
This non-verbal yet unmistakable superiority response results from an inflated sense of importance and position in the organization. The training development effort is viewed as inferior to other more important work. As a result of this thinking, these individuals are unwilling to participate in the training development process.
“ I’m too busy for this.”
Those who are truly busy and productive generally manage their time wisely, care about the organization and are usually eager and willing to offer assistance. On the other hand there are those in the organization who wrongly perceive themselves as being perpetually busy, or who claim to be busy simply to avoid the performance of requested tasks.
In either case these individuals immediately invoke the “busy” response when their assistance is requested. “Busy” responses can be either verbal or non-verbal and include:
- Evasive behavior
- Procrastination
- Tension and stress
- Rudeness
Overcoming arrogance in the subject matter expert realm can involve one or more of the following actions:
Use the “teamwork” angle.
Advise the self-important people that everyone is part of the same team. And let the busy people know that you are busy, too. Continually stress the importance of everyone working together towards the common goal of a quality training product.
Request the required information in writing.
In your requests, be clear about your timetable and specific information needs. Copy applicable team and organization members as required.
Escalate the issue.
Don’t be afraid to go up the organizational ladder if you are not getting what you need. It is beneficial for the organization to be aware of uncooperative members.
Find someone else.
Many arrogant subject matter experts may not have anything of value to offer anyhow. It may be better to simply find another resource.
3. Avoiding Insularity
Insularity is defined as a collective detachment or isolation similar to that experienced by individuals living on an island.
Some degree of insularity is present in just about every organization, and can be observed as a bonding of like-minded individuals who collectively form their own organizational “islands.” These “islanders” become detached from the organizational mainland and eventually begin to function based on the consensus of their insular group rather than their own individual thoughts.
Since successful training design requires gathering fresh and innovative information with a high degree of real-world relevancy and applicability, the impact of insularity can be detrimental to the training development process if not avoided.
To maximize the use of valuable training development resources, it is helpful to identify and avoid any pockets of insularity present in the organization. Identifying insular pockets is often possible only after the information gathering process has begun. At this point an experienced training designer will be able to make the distinction between real-world, forward-thinking subject matter experts and those with limited and/or unrealistic perspectives. The designer must then filter out and cease pursuing input from the identified insular pockets.
In some cases, however, simply avoiding identified insular pockets is not an option as the organization itself may be predominantly insular in nature.
Teaching new ideas in a predominantly insular environment will require skill, experience and hard work to find the right people in the organization capable of providing the input required for successful change. Oftentimes a clear organizational mandate and support from key players at top levels of the organization will help towards obtaining and properly conveying the fresh new ideas.
Without significant effort on the training development team and a high degree of cooperation from the few organization experts capable of facilitating the necessary change, the end result of any training development effort in a predominantly insular organization will be the status quo.