James Kirkpatrick
Jim Kirkpatrick has developed and managed a career development centre since 1995, worked on strategic planning teams and consulted with organizations all across the world in topics on evaluation, teambuilding coaching and leadership. Jim conducts workshops in the Kirkpatrick Four Levels Business Partnership and his newest topic is Training on Trial, which is also the title of his most recent book.
T/D: Jim, the title of your book is very compelling. Give us some more background on why training is on trial.
Kirkpatrick: My father, Don Kirkpatrick, invented Four Levels, 50 years ago. I was recently looking at a quote that said, “Training managers had better be about the business of demonstrating their value before the day of reckoning arrives.” I shared this quote with him and I said, “Dad have you ever heard of this?” He said, “No” I said, “Are you sure? He said, “No, it sounds really, really timely!” I said, “Well you wrote it!” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah and you even published it, I am reading from the ASTD Journal. He said, “I still don’t remember.” I said, “You published it in 1959.”
That’s why I wrote the book because he’s talking 50 years ago, about the day of reckoning, that we need to be creating and demonstrating our value, and we still have not taken that seriously enough. We still believe that we get a free pass, as training people. We believe that we earn our keep by filling up classrooms and that we should be seen by the business as being valued for that. The day of reckoning is here, the free pass is over. We need to be not only creating value in the business, becoming business partners rather than training professionals, but we also need to be able to demonstrate that value.
This book is really a kind of wake-up call. The good news is, there has never been a better opportunity to make an impact. We talk about ‘wet cement.’ The cement is now wet with the current economic situation the way it is. Executives and Business Managers are looking for any kind of help to get an edge. It’s our great opportunity, so that’s why I wrote the book.
T/D: Before we get into the gist of the book, and hopefully some strategies you’re going to supply to us, how do you think we, as trainers, got trapped here - you said your father wrote this statement in 1959 and we haven’t changed a bit, really.
Kirkpatrick: You know, I really agree. There is research from 1975 that says 15% of what people are learning in formal training is applied to the job. Jim and Dana Robinson revisited that study 30 years later and it was still 15%. We are in cahoots because business says: would you please provide training? We say - okay. We don’t say - what are the needs, what will success look like to you?
T/D: So do you think we’ve propagated that role of being a service instead of a leader in a company?
Kirkpatrick: I think so.
T/D: We’re not reaching out to them, proactively and saying - what can we do for you as the training department?
Kirkpatrick: Exactly. We may try but we give up too easy. We don’t know how to make a business case. Training, in and of itself, is of very little value to business; it’s the execution. It’s about - are they doing what it is that they learned? And if not, what’s the point other than ‘check/mark training’? We’ve all been in cahoots together, it’s “us” as training versus “them” in business. We need to figure out how to become better partners with them. We talk about it, but people really don’t know how to do it.
T/D: So tell us how to do it. There is no seat for us at the table so first we have to shoulder our way in, right? You must have strategies in the book?
Kirkpatrick: That’s exactly right. How do you shoulder your way in? There is research that says 70% of training failure comes from the environment after training. In that people don’t get to use what they learned. Or the reinforcement and accountability is not there.
T/D: My most frequent experience is management doesn’t know what we train their workers on, so they don’t know how to reinforce it, they don’t know what to reinforce.
Kirkpatrick: Right, and then when it fails, the training gets worse and we happily pass it off saying ‘they’re not coaching,’ and ‘they’re not’ etc.; but it is our responsibility to go and help them do just that. So other than showing them research, is to ask them to fund one impact study and be able to show the power of your work. For instance I did it with L’Oreal in Paris. They were having trouble being respected by the business. We picked out one high impact program, ran the gamut, made sure the support was there, reinforcement, the managers knew their role, collected data, collected chain of evidence all along the way. We had a corporate jury and the training people went before the L ‘Oreal corporate jury, who are the senior partners, and showed them the power of the training. They called me 6 months later and said, “Will you help us prioritize the requests we are getting from the business?”
T/D: This is a brilliant strategy! Is it the training department that needs to recognize this and take the initiative to ingratiate themselves to the upper echelon of management? Or is it upper management “inviting” us, saying – you’ve got to prove your worth or you’ve got to get out of here?
Kirkpatrick: It’s both. The business is saying more and more “you need to demonstrate your value.” They are charging us with a crime or whatever you want to call it: ‘costs exceeding value.’ Honestly the biggest sell that I find is in convincing the training people that their job extends beyond, design, develop and deliver.
T/D: Yes. You’re going to love this; my analogy for trainers is that we are like flight attendants: “Bye bye, good luck, we’ll never see you again”
Kirkpatrick: The Four Levels of Evaluation has been whittled down to, smile sheets, tests, and hope for the best. People say - we never get to level 3, never get to level 4, we’re too busy doing our training. I say all you’re doing is putting a bulls-eye on your back saying – “Look how much we’re costing you by pulling people out of training.” So all we’re doing is saying when budget time comes, “We are fair game,” because all we are doing is costing, and we’re not demonstrating our value. We need to. The day of reckoning is here.
T/D: This is great Jim. Thank you for taking the time to “talk” with us.