The many lives of capability building programs

Technically speaking, ‘capability building programs’ are meant to do exactly that – to build the targeted capabilities. However, after spending two decades in business organizations, I have come to realize that capability building programs serve different purposes in different contexts, including those that are very different from the original purpose. 

Let’s take a look at some of the 'uses' of capability building programs (starting with those that are closer to the original purpose and then moving on to those that are quite different):  

1. Capability building programs as ‘Crossing the Rubicon’: Here the implication is that capability building programs create ‘sustainable change in behavior’ (which is the behavioral definition of ‘learning’). Of course, most capability building programs fail to achieve this.
2. Capability building programs as ‘Invitation to learn’: This is based on the philosophy that ‘you can lead a horse to water; but you can’t make it drink’.
3. Capability building programs as ‘Training’:  Here the implication is that it is something that is done to the participants. While some people do say that ‘training is only for animals’, this philosophy is very much ‘alive and kicking’ in many organizations!
4. Capability building programs as an element of the 'Employee Value Proposition': This typically happens when a company makes an explicit promise of 'x' days of capability building programs per year per employee as part of its Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Yes, this works best when these capability building programs are conducted on regular working days! This approach can be extended to positively impact the company branding/business development efforts also (by highlighting the investment the company is making in capability building to improve the product quality/ to serve the customers better).
5. Capability building programs as 'Knowledge management': When an expert is leaving an organization, the organization might ask him/her to conduct a capability building program to pass on his/her knowledge, even when that knowledge is not immediately relevant to the people attending the capability building program.
6. Capability building programs as 'Enculturation': This typically happens during new employee induction/onboarding. Another variation here is 'culture building workshops'. 
7. Capability building programs as ‘Reward’: Some organization use capability building programs as a reward for high performance. It does raise some questions. For example, won’t the employees prefer to receive an equivalent amount of money in cash as opposed to attending an expensive training program?
8. Capability building programs as ‘Paid holidays’: Capability building programs can provide ‘pleasant distractions from the unpleasant realities at the workplace’.
9. Capability building programs as ‘Detox’: Some capability building programs can indeed be fun or even 'meaningful fun'. Some programs like ‘Human Process Labs’ can also provide some degree of emotional detox. Yes, this might highlight the implicit assumption that there is something toxic about the workplace. 
10. Capability building programs as ‘Rites of passage’: This happens when training programs are linked to level transitions, Here the primary purpose is to enable the psychological transition required for the level change - in the participants and in the 'significant others' in the organization ecosystem (see ‘Accelerated learning and rites of passage’ for details)
11. Capability building programs as ‘Team building’: Here the message is that the opportunity for facilitating interactions between the team members/cross-functional team members (and the possible increase in connect between them and to the team/organization) is more important than the program content. Yes, this could trivialize the concepts of 'teamwork' and 'employee engagement'. 
12. Capability building programs as ‘Importance signaling’: If a capability building is positioned (formally or informally) as ‘only for the most valuable people in the organization’ (e.g., top talent, people who are being groomed to take up top management positions etc.), it can indeed serve as a way to signal the importance that the organization gives to the concerned employees. Yes, some of the participants might promptly include this in their CVs/mention this during the interviews for jobs outside the organization.    
13. Capability building programs as ‘External benchmarking opportunities’: This works best in the case of open training programs conducted by prestigious institutes that attract participants from across the world. Quite a bit of the learning in these programs comes from interacting with the fellow participants and from knowing what the other companies are doing.
14. Capability building programs as 'Corporate rain dance': This occurs when capability building programs are used as 'solutions' to organizational problems that are not related to capability gaps at the individual level. Yes, they do give the management the illusion that something is being done about the problems (see 'Leadership training and corporate rain dance' for details). However, they can make the participants feel 'victimized' (see 'Training the victim' for details). 
15. Capability building programs as 'Sales hook': Here capability building programs are used as an opportunity to sell other products. 
16. Capability building programs as 'Brainwashing': This happens when the focus of capability building is on 'unlearning and relearning'. 
17. Capability building programs as 'Golden handcuff': Here the idea is to send the employee for an expensive long duration learning journey program and also attach a retention clause/service bond. 
18. Capability building programs as 'Immediate profit generation': This typically happens when the monetary value of the improvements coming from the 'action learning projects' that are part of the capability building program is estimated to exceed the cost of the capability building program. While this enables the Learning & Development (L&D) function to position itself as a 'profit center' (as opposed to being a cost center), whether this 'profit' is real is often a point of disagreement between the HR function and the Finance function. Also, to maximize the 'profit generation potential' of the action learning projects, the link between the action learning projects and the learning objectives of the program gets overlooked. Yes, the capabilities built during the program can and should impact the business results (and this is very much aligned to the original purpose of capability building programs). However, they are usually more difficult to estimate/ happen over a longer period of time and therefore might not be very promising for showing immediate profit! 

I am sure that more such 'non-standard' uses of capability building programs can be found. Also, a single capability building program might serve many of the uses mentioned above. This does raise an interesting question: "why do so many alternative uses of capability building programs exist, even when they are not the most efficient ways of achieving their 'unstated' objectives?". I guess, the word 'unstated' might offer a clue. In some of the organizations, spending money on some of those alterative objectives (or even attempting to achieve them directly) might not be 'culturally acceptable'. In many cultures, learning is considered to be a 'noble' activity and hence it is put on a pedestal. Hence, by achieving some of those alternative objectives through a capability building program, they can gain more respectability! 

Of course, the above discussion was from the points of view of the organizations and/or the participants. Since there are other stakeholders involved (like the facilitators, L&D team, vendors etc.) there are additional interpretations possible from their points of view. For example, for a facilitator, capability building programs can mean multiple things like a source of income, a calling, an avenue for self-expression etc. 

Any thoughts/ideas? Any other uses of capability building programs that you have come across?

Unorthodox concepts in HR : Part 5 – Training the victim

In this post, we will continue our exploration of Unorthodox concepts in Human Resources/People Management. Here we are exploring concepts that are unlikely to be found in ‘respectable’ text books (and also not taught in ‘premier’ business schools) but are very much real in the paradoxical world of people management (See ‘The attrition principle’,  'In the valley of attrition' , 'Sublimation of vision statements'  and 'Computer-controlled Manager Empowerment' for the previous posts in this series).

Training the victim' is one of the most common 'crimes' committed in the domain of HR/Learning and Development. Often, this 'crime' follows a standard plot. There is a steady deterioration in the performance of a unit. Customers are unhappy. There is a lot of firefighting happening. The unit head is shouting at the senior employees. But nothing seems to be working. The unit head feels that since the situation hasn't improved despite all his efforts, the employees must be incompetent and/or don't have the right attitude (e.g. 'solutions mindset'). So he calls the HR Business Partner demands that the employees should be trained urgently. This leads to things like attitude training, skill-based training and training the managers in the unit on people management (under fancy names like 'engaging and energizing teams'). The employees dutifully attend the training programs, though they feel that they are being blamed (or even 'punished') for no fault of theirs. Even after the training programs have been rolled out, there is no significant improvement in the performance of the unit. 

These kind of situations occur mainly because of wrong diagnosis/wrong need identification. The main problem in these contexts might not necessarily be related to the capability level of the individual employees at all. The problem could mainly be at the strategy, structure, policy, business process or leadership level. However, it is relatively difficult/inconvenient for the organization/unit head to address the issues/make changes at these levels. So there is a temptation to jump to the conclusion that it is an employee capability issue and to attempt a training solution. Since the real issue remains unaddressed (despite the 'training solution'), there can't much improvement in the situation. 

I am not saying that there won't be issues at the individual capability level. Of course, this possibility should also be explored and if there is evidence for the existence of such a need, an appropriate learning solution could be attempted. My point is just that a proper diagnosis needs to be carried out before a solution is attempted (instead of jumping into the most convenient solution) and that when it comes to taking the responsibility for the deterioration in the performance of the unit in such situations, sometimes, the individual employees are 'more sinned against than sinned'.

Often, the way the HR function is structured in the organization increases the possibility of a wrong diagnosis. This happens mostly in those organizations where the Learning function separate from the Organization Development and HR Business Partner functions. In these contexts, when a business leader directly contacts the Learning specialist supporting the unit with a 'capability problem' (or even with the request for a particular training program), it is highly possible that the Learning specialist just carries out the request without spending much effort to check if the problem has been diagnosed correctly and if a training solution is appropriate. Sometimes, this happens because the Learning specialist does not have sufficient understanding of the entire business/people context in the unit or because the training specialist does not have the requisite diagnostic/consulting skills. In these cases, 'training need identification' becomes no more than 'order taking'. Also, if the training specialist is measured mainly on the number of training programs/number of person-days of training, then there might not be much incentive for the training specialist to 'refuse an order' or even to 'question an order'!

Hence, a close partnership between the Learning function and the Organization Development/HR Business Partner functions will help in making the diagnosis/need identification more accurate by bringing in the requisite diagnosis/consulting skills, enhanced understanding of the context and greater credibility/influence with the business leaders (see OD Managers as Court Jesters). This would also make the 'solution' more appropriate and enhance the effectiveness of implementation by being able to manage the change better. Of course, defining the mandate for the Learning function in a more holistic manner and using the correct performance parameters to assess/reward Learning specialists would also be required.

Any comments/ideas?

Note: It is interesting to note that from a psychological point of view, 'training the victim' can be considered to be a variation (or a mild version) of the broader theme of 'blaming the victim'. This involves holding the victims responsible (at least in part) for what happened to them when something bad happens. This enables others (e.g. the unit head in this case) to absolve themselves of any blame/responsibility and also to reduce cognitive dissonance which would have resulted if they had to admit that the 'system' (strategy/structure/policy/process, in this case) that they were responsible in creating/managing might be at fault. This, in turn, helps them to avoid the need for taking the more difficult/painful remedial steps that are required to address the real issue/cause of the problem. 

Sometimes, this can also lead to tragic-comic situations. A few years ago, I heard about a situation where there was a proposal to conduct 'followership training' for the entire staff in a unit. Apparently, the unit head was a very poor leader and he was making the life of his staff miserable, leading to problems in employee engagement and retention (that, in turn, were creating issues for the HR team). Since it was felt that the unit head won't be open to any sort of feedback and/or training, it was being suggested that the staff in the unit be trained in followership (as the leader won't be/can't be trained on leadership)! This might qualify as a classic case of 'trying to solve the wrong problem' !

Sight, Insight and Foresight method for managing non-performance

This post was triggered by an interaction on Twitter that I have had with a senior HR professional on 'addressing non-performance'. We agreed that the focus should be on 'getting rid of non-performance in non-performers' as opposed to 'getting rid of non-performers'. Then, he asked me how exactly would I accomplish this. This put me in a fix; how will I say something worthwhile in 140 characters in response to such a fundamental question considering that our senior HR professional would have read (and even created) tons of material on performance management? That is when I came up with this 'Sight, Insight and Foresight method for managing non-performance'.

Though I was only 'semi-serious' when I came up with the above 'method', later I felt that it might not be such a bad idea to detail it out a bit. To be honest, there is nothing particularly new in this - it is 'old wine in new bottles'. It is also more of a 'perspective' than a 'method'. However, I feel that as the product (basic principles of performance management) is good & the need it addresses is real (still relevant), the requirement is just to ensure that remains attractive (appealing) to the customers by means of new packaging (positioning)! Also, I am convinced that when it comes to the basics of life and work, our problem is more to do with 'inaction' and not 'ignorance'! Hence, if new packaging can increase the probability of a good concept getting the attention it deserves, it is definitely worth the effort. So, here we go!

What do the various elements of the 'Sight, Insight and Foresight method for managing non-performance' mean?

'Sight' is about developing a shared understanding among the stakeholders (especially between the employee and the manager) regarding what exactly are the performance objectives, how will success be measured and how well one is doing against those objectives & targets at any point of time. This is not trivial, as there can be a disconnect between the manager and the employee on 'On what good looks like'  especially in the case of non-routine and rapidly evolving jobs. While SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Relevant, Time bound) objectives can help to some extent (especially if they can be made to remain SMART over the entire performance period - no easy task, I must say!), there are deep psychological factors that might lead to a situation where the employee disagrees with with the organization's/manager's assessment of his/her performance ( See Performance ratings and the 'above average effect' for details). 

'Insight' is about generating understanding through performance coaching about the factors that lead to non-performance and how to address  them. While this would involve providing developmental inputs/opportunities where required, we must ensure that the root causes of non-performance are correctly identified. Often, problems at the structure, process, policy, work planning & leadership levels get wrongly (and conveniently!) interpreted as 'non-performance' at individual employee level and hence get diagnosed as  'individual capability issues' (see 'Training the victim' for more details). By the way, if the diagnosis leads to the conclusion that the root cause of non-performance is 'lack of organizational commitment' on the part of the employee, we must check if we are using 'Appropriate metaphors for organization commitment'! Hence, the 'insight' we are talking about here is for both the employee and the organization!!

'Foresight' is about predicting possible impediments to good performance and dealing with them proactively. These impediments usually become apparent in hindsight*; but, by then, the performance window would have closed and the employee would have already been labeled as a 'non-performer'! It is also about identifying and addressing non-performance early enough - before it becomes a full-blown issue. If the performance standards are very high and 'non-performance' means 'anything other than outstanding performance', then deeper aspects related to person-job fit, employee engagement (See Employee engagement and the story of the Sky Maiden) , culture (See Of reasons, rationalizations & collective delusions) & meaning (See Architects of meaning) also need to be considered!

*Note: It is interesting to note that foresight and hindsight are represented by Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus in Greek mythology. Prometheus means 'he who thinks before' and Epimetheus means 'he who thinks after'. 

Any comments/ideas?