Training Development

Are You a Competent Trainer?

Before you respond with an offended “Why, of course I am!!”, let me follow-up with a second question: When was the last time you thoroughly and objectively assessed your training competencies?

Hmmmm. Just as I thought.

Many of us do not know how competent we really are as training professionals. All we normally get are level one assessments, commonly referred to as “happy sheets.” (I suspect they’re called happy sheets because the participants who fill them out are happy the training has ended!)

Self-knowledge of our training strengths and weaknesses is critically important in today’s change-driven, ferociously competitive business environment. One of the hottest topics being discussed in leading business magazines and in ground-breaking books such as “Workforce 2020,” by The Hudson Institute think-tank, is how companies can and must increase their “intellectual assets” — the knowledge-base of their employees.

Management guru Dr. Peter Senge, writing in the September 1997 issue of Harvard Business Review magazine, calls this mandate “capacity building . . . the enhancement of people’s capabilities and knowledge to achieve results in line with their deepest personal and professional aspirations.”

How important is “capacity-building” to corporate success? According to Peter Drucker, nothing less than the competitive future of the United States rests on our ability to increase our knowledge.

All this is good news, of course, for trainers. The idea that knowledge is a “commodity” that can be valued just like any other corporate asset can only enhance the value of training to our organizations. As “knowledge experts,” our primary task is to transfer knowledge to those who need it to perform effectively.

In short, I believe there has never been a better time to be a trainer IF — and here is where assessing our training competencies comes in — we are prepared to seize this opportunity to build corporate capacity by enhancing employee capabilities and knowledge.

What Is A Competency?

Before we look at the competencies we trainers need, let’s define what a competency is. A competency has three components: knowledge, attitude, and skills.

Here are two more requirements:

• Correlates to Job — To be defined as a competency, it must be relevant to your job and be important to the successful functioning of your job. If you don’t do it in your job, you can’t be expected to be competent in that behavior.
• Can Be Improved — To be considered a competency, it must be able to be improved through training. This requirement removes many personality traits and characteristics from the equation.

McLagan Study of Successful Trainer Competencies

Reprinted by permission of the American Society for Training and Development