By Iain Thomson, ex Head of Training & Development at the Bank of England and now a freelance consultant/trainer (iain.c.thomson@talk21.com)
Checking in recently at Heathrow for a job in the Balkans and flying Club with a major airline, I was told curtly that the incoming flight was delayed and that I would have to sort things out at the ticket desk opposite. Check-in could simply have booked me onto the next flight, but, no, I had to stand in a 1-2 hour queue and 'probably miss my connection'. A case for customer care training? No! - more a case for consultancy about system redesign because the clerk was agency-employed, not authorised to make decisions, and clearly not directly accountable to the airline concerned.
Sitting on the plane later, various issues went through my mind. Times when 'consultants' had referred to 'trainers' as if the latter did not do such important work as the former. Then reports of BA undoing the £6mn change to their tailfin logo made on consultancy advice, Consignia changing its name back again at a similar cost, and the story of Figgie International brought to virtual bankruptcy in the US by two firms of leading consultants.
Turning to training, I recalled occasions when HR departments in the UK had invited trainers to develop appraisal skills in managers who had not been truly consulted about a new appraisal system, or, worse, whose own senior managers were not committed to the process. Then the stories of trainers caught between line management and HR departments, each decrying the other's will to exercise real discipline in cases of poor performance. Finally, the plethora of training suppliers all too ready to sell courses as a panacea for situations that may not warrant training first, or at all.
Clients and suppliers of consultancy and training services need to be more discerning. A greater focus on outputs and outcomes (ie improved performance, better results) rather than on inputs and processes (eg training, appraisals) would help. Ethical suppliers could encourage clients to see 'consultancy' as more powerful for exploring how people want to work together, and aligning organisational systems and processes. Clients could benefit from discerning 'training' as better focused on skills rehearsal, and reinforcing people's confidence to improve things to achieve agreed outputs and outcomes.
Clearly, consultancy and training are not singular concepts - people can develop in many ways without being sent on courses - nor are they mutually exclusive - they can be combined in an ethical and effective manner, with either one paving the way for, and supporting, the other.
Encouraging organisations and their people to see the interdependence of their activities, and the wider impact of any interventions to develop performance, could help them to get a better return for their investment in consultancy and/or training. Imagine a member of staff who might benefit from coaching - would it be more effective on a one-to-one basis using an external coach, or with the coach focusing on the working relationship between the manager and staff member by coaching them together, or coaching the manager to coach the person? The latter two options are more powerful - systemically getting to the root of any relationship problems, and more likely to develop an on-going dynamic within the organisation.
There are, of course, limits to the potential effectiveness of any external intervention. Leadership and key players' determination to bring about necessary change can be much more powerful than either consultancy or training. When I undertook a 1-month systems audit and training needs analysis in a large bank in Central Africa, it was soon obvious that first-class HR and other systems were in place, and most people well trained/educated. The problem was that the senior management were not prepared to ensure that the systems and training were properly applied (even when stung by a local consultant's comment: "They're the most over-trained and under-performing institution in this country!" - reflected one way or another in numerous reports from previous international consultants in my role).
Unfortunately, Guzzo & Gannet did not include consultancy per se or leadership in their 1988 list of 'recorded effects of interventions to facilitate productivity/effectiveness'. They found training rated highest at 0.78, with goal setting close behind at 0.75 (easier and cheaper than training?!), financial incentives 0.57 (so much for money as a prime motivator!), work redesign 0.52 (an easy target for consultants?), and appraisal a poor 0.35 (a case for training, or, per Coens & Jenkin's 2000 book Abolishing Performance Appraisals, a prime candidate for some fundamental rethinking?).
Finally, helping organisations to avoid over-reliance on 'expert' consultancy, 'ritual' training and 'over-engineered' systems at the expense of simply developing closer working relationships and actively engaging with their people seem to me to be key to performance improvement.
A shorter version of this piece was first published in the January 2003 issue of People Matters.