Human Capital & Corporate Universities Newsletter
By Jay Cross
An astute VP at a major Silicon Valley chip producer was concerned with the meager results of the company’s classroom training. He wanted the firm to focus more on building competencies and less on training events. Workers at the company had been happy to pick and choose traditional training from a buffet of offerings. Taking away their choices would require extreme measures.
So the VP shut down the training department. Cold turkey…
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So…I’m an educator and many of us have noticed the same kinds of results (or lack thereof) from the types of professional development opportunities that are offered to our teachers. I can just imagine the same story written from that point of view…
“An astute administrator at a local school district was concerned with the lack of results of the district’s professional development opportunities. He/she wanted the district to focus on building instructional competencies and less on workshop events. Teachers in the district had been happy to pick and choose traditional (sit ‘n git) training from a buffet of offerings. Taking away those types of choices would require strong leadership. So the administrator stopped the offering of these traditional training offerings. And then…
So many complaints come from teachers about the training they’re offered yet nothing is ever done to try to make changes – either from the teachers or from the administrators. If only someone would completely cut out the traditional training offerings and implement a bold, new idea for professional development, I wonder what would happen? Is there more to your story?