Training Development

The Missing Ingredients

Personal Values To ASTD’s recipe of 13 core ingredients for a successful trainer, here are some additional ingredients I personally believe are necessary for the creation of a competent and well-seasoned trainer. These four ingredients come under the heading of Personal Values.

Personal Values

• Commitment to Excellence — We must be very diligent in continually striving to improve the way we conduct our business and profession. Every time any of us has a sub-par performance, we all suffer. If we expect excellence in the workforce, can we ask anything less of ourselves?
• Ethical Considerations —Three key battles we all must fight (and win): maintaining confidentiality, managing personal biases, and balancing the needs and interests of the organization and the individual.
• Dedication to the Profession — We must have the same dedication to our profession that we have to our organizations, communities, families, and ourselves.

A Willingness to Embrace Change is the final Personal Value I believe is essential to our success as training professionals. If change is inevitable — and we all know that it is —- then the best bet for our own success is to serve as a catalyst for change within our organizations — to help organizations and individuals understand and benefit from change.

Becoming a Catalyst for Change How to become a catalyst for change? By having the professional curiosity to find out whether you’re a competent trainer and reading this article, you’ve already demonstrated your willingness to make personal changes — a key first step in helping others to change.

Along with that willingness, you’re going to need a game plan to guide you in the difficult task of achieving change. The one I’ve used to help me grow and change during my many years as a training consultant is from Peter Senge’s book “The Fifth Discipline.”

A Game Plan for Mastering Personal Change

• Continually clarify and deepen your personal vision (know where you’re going)
• Focus your energies (tune out distractions)
• Develop patience
• See reality objectively (not what you want reality to be or the way it should be)

So . . . Are You a Competent Trainer?

I believe the question “Are you a competent trainer?” must always and forever be answered “no.” Every week (every day?), we’re asked to learn new skills, take on new tasks; the likelihood that we’ll arrive at our competency “destination” is dim.

I hope you’ll agree that the personal and professional rewards lie in the journey.

Matrix Roles & Competencies for HRD Success

Reprinted by permission of the American Society for Training and Development