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Feature
Defining capability
Paul Matthews sheds new light on delivering successful learning outcomes in the workplace
learning project that you have on the go, or one you delivered recently; it is probably a training course because the vast majority of learning and development activity is training. It is likely that you have done a great job of course design, and you are responding to what the organisation wants. Your learning outcomes were put together following some discussion with the managers who wanted the training course. The delegates are having a lovely time in your training room because it is fun and interactive, and they also quite like the free lunch and blueberry cheesecake. And you are having fun! Yes, there are hassles; such as scheduling problems, late delegates, and technology that seems to have a mind of its own. But you are helping people learn, and that is what it’s all about isn’t it? Helping people become more of who they
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learningmagazine.co.uk
ere is a thought experiment that involves your promotion.
Congratulations! First, consider a
can be, that’s what gives you the real buzz. You are looking forward to receiving some great feedback at the end of the day when the course is over. You are already looking forward to delivering the same wonderful learning experience to the next cohort. You love your role as a learning manager. Now... I hereby promote you. Ta-da! Congratulations, you have been promoted to capability manager! At this point, you are probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Why the drum-roll and background music? Don’t you do that already, help people learn so they are capable? Let’s back up a bit, and I will tell you about me. For instance, I am a senior manager in the operations side of your organisation. I run a department, and my job is to make sure that the production figures from my department meet all the targets I have been given. This is no easy task and I am working under quite a lot of pressure right now because the performance of my department is slipping below that which my boss considers acceptable. That is why I sent some people to you for training. I have a
performance problem, and clearly it is caused by the fact that quite a few people in my department cannot do the jobs I am asking them to do. Training seems the obvious answer, and training is your job isn’t it? When they come back from your training course, there are indeed some changes in how they go about doing things, but unfortunately not enough to make a significant difference. Certainly not enough to enable me to meet my department performance targets. They still don’t seem to be capable of doing the tasks that are delegated to them. Oh, I believe you when you say they passed the test and should be capable, but when they are in front of the task they need to do, they still can’t do it. They are still not capable. Your definition of capability seems to be
different from mine. You look at capability as something intrinsic to the worker without reference to their environment, and that doesn’t really work for me because my only concern is whether the worker can do the job when they are at their desk. That is, are they capable of actually doing the job at the point
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