“Business training doesn't work.” This is the opening statement to Tom Bird and Jeremy Cassell's Financial Times Guide to Business Training, perhaps not a promising start! In fact this was a great opener and within 5 minutes of reading their introduction I was on board with their views about business training. Maximum benefit is best achieved when training is approached holistically with attention paid to what happens before and after any training event, and, most crucially, when the training is clearly aligned to an identified and agreed business need.
This book is promoted as being a “single reference” for anyone involved in business training, whether they be newly qualified or experienced, working within a learning and development department or as an independent freelancer. Designed to equip its readers with sufficient knowledge to ensure that the training they deliver will be valuable and engaging, it operates both as a reference guide and a source of ideas, with a range of hints and tips throughout. With its mix of reference and practical advice it is clearly aimed at training practitioners.
Tom and Jerry, as they refer to themselves, are well qualified to write this book with over 30 years experience in business training between them. Together, they run their own corporate training business RTPC Limited and are partners at The Møller PSFG, which provides coaching, training and consultancy to professional service firms.
The Financial Times Guide to Business Training is presented in five parts: part 1 – training: adapt or die, part 2 – needs analysis, part 3 – design and practical application, part 4 – the trainer as a performer and part 5 – embedding, learning transfer and evaluation. Within these sections the authors cover all the elements you would expect to see in a book on training: the role of the trainer, conducting a needs analysis, designing and structuring training programmes, training methods, the role of learning styles, influencing skills, creating the right learning environment, engaging the audience, how to be flexible within your training, dealing with training challenge and making training “sticky”. The style is informative and relaxed – it feels as though Tom and Jerry have used the same criteria for writing the book that they would with face-to-face training. Each section is clearly introduced, the content succinctly outlined, with prompts and opportunities for the reader to engage with what they are saying, plenty of variety in the way information is presented, tables, models, case studies, etc. and a useful summary at the end to confirm the essential learning points enabling the reader to reflect and absorb the key message. This is not a difficult book to read and although they suggest that you can dip in and out if your wish or just go to the parts that interest you this book has a clear narrative and logic which makes reading it from beginning to end appropriate.
The Financial Times Guide to Business Training provides a good overview of training introducing all the recognised essentials: Honey and Mumford's learning styles, Kirkpatrick's evaluation model, NLP modelling and more. Experienced training practitioners might feel there is little new here, but there are two key messages being promoted: the importance of aligning training to a clearly defined business need and the positive impact of an “holistic” approach to planning, designing and embedding training. A definition of “business” training is provided early in the book where they make it clear that they are not talking about coaching, mentoring, on-the-job training, NVQs or the like, instead their focus is on such things as induction, team development, skills programmes, compliance: anything which can contribute to the needs of the business. The most useful parts of this book are the chapters which straddle the actual face-to-face training advice. These sections emphasise the importance of creating the right learning experience to deliver the identified business benefit, plus the necessity of embedding learning and transferring it back to the workplace. For training practitioners who want their interventions to make a demonstrative difference and have an impact on business outcomes the “best practice training model” presented by Tom and Jerry is a useful, and challenging blueprint to consider.
The Financial Times Guide to Business Training is well grounded with frequent reference to academic and industry specific research. There are plenty of pointers for further reading, which, though referenced in the core text, might have been more usefully presented in a reference section. Another interesting aspect of the book is the regular inclusion of links to the Financial Times Guide to Business Training web site where there are potentially further examples and tools for the reader. This could prove useful as some of the subjects are introduced almost like tasters and are only briefly explored.
In summary, this book would be a valuable reference resource for any learning and development department and would make useful reading, in particular, for those who have influence over the training strategy, as well as up-front delivery. There are some significant challenges here for those who are responsible for commissioning and designing training interventions and the idea that you are working as a “performance” expert rather than a trainer is a refreshing look at what we are actually aiming for when we train people.
