Getting a certificate means you showed up. It does not necessarily mean that you participated, were engaged, or that you learned anything. Sadly, the only question we often get asked after attending a workshop, seminar, course, conference, or webinar is, “Did you get a certificate?”. While it may be important to have that as part of your training record, we seem to confuse showing up and receiving a certificate with learning.
While you might gain insights and actionable takeaways during the training, learning is a longer-term process and requires some ongoing effort on your part including spending time engaged in reflection and active or effortful retrieval, spaced over time. As important as the insights, takeaways and potential learning from the training are, the implementation, the actions you take to apply the insights, takeaways, and learning, is what will make an impact.
Once we get the obligatory “Did you get a certificate?” question out of the way the next question should be, “What are some of your insights and actionable takeaways from the training?” Once you identify your insights and takeaways the next step is to identify the actions you will take to apply what those takeaways, a timeline for those actions, and an accountability partner to ensure you follow through.
For the last two years I have been challenging myself, my fellow trainers, and my W.I.N. Wednesday newsletter readers with this quote from Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” This quote is a challenge to all of us to continue to learn and grow so we know better, then to take action to implement what we are learning and to “do better”.
The current trend on LinkedIn, which is the only social media platform I am on, seems to be for people to post pictures of certificates after completing an online webinar or workshop or some other form of training or to post pictures of book they purchased or are reading. If you feel the need to do that, then my challenge to you is to also list your insights and actionable takeaways along with a list of steps you will commit to taking to implement those takeaways as well as a timeline for implementation.
One of the reasons training is often one of the first things to get cut when budgets get cut is that we do very little to ensure we get a return on investment from the training so training is seen as a line item in the budget and an expense. We need to evolve the culture of our organizations to where training is seen as an investment in our people and our organization. This requires us to be intentional and deliberate about ensuring we get a high return on that training investment. If you are a supervisor, then let your people know before they attend training that you are going to have these conversations with them after the training to determine their takeaways and action steps. Also be sure to share your insights, takeaways, and action steps with your team after you attend training. Even if your supervisor does not have the conversation with you before you attend training, you can initiate it after the training and take action to implement what you learned.
Showing up is a good start, but it is just the start.
Take care.
Brian Willis
Winning Mind Training – Providing practical training to law enforcement professionals in the areas of instructor development, Performance Enhancement Imagery, leadership and mindset.
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