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training is to have mandatory times when this will occur and to make it fully interactive. As the instructor goes through the material, each person should follow along by executing each task for himself. Simply showing employees how to perform some operation does not mean they will be able to do that operation on their own. Those who are good with technology often get impatient with those who aren’t—they want to just grab that mouse and show them how it’s done. I have a technology person like that on my staff and I constantly swat his hand away and insist that I do the clicking myself so I learn better. And, again, the key here is repetition. Better to teach five shortcuts and repeat them three weeks in a row during your training sessions than to teach five new shortcuts every week and have none of them stick. We are all so busy doing our jobs that we don’t take time to learn these shortcuts.

For example, I like to enlarge the type on my screen so that I don’t have to use my glasses while working on my computer. And then I have to remember to put the font size back to normal-size type before sending the document on to a client. One day while my tech expert was watching me do this, he showed me that right on the menu bar of Word, there is a little window where you can enlarge the “view” without enlarging the actual type itself. Simple, fast, and I never have to remember to change the size of the type. Over the years I have surely wasted a month of my time enlarging type and setting it back to normal size. There are probably dozens of things you do for which some genius programmer has created shortcuts. Another way to learn technology, if you are a high-level executive, is to go through some of your normal tasks while a more technical person watches over you and shows you shortcuts.

Email is another area where training is key. I was the last person to do email and now I can’t live without it. But I learned it by having an expert watch over my shoulder and walk me through it and then come back several times during the course of the week to show me more and more shortcuts and easier ways to do things. Same with PowerPoint. I couldn’t live without these tools today. The productivity boost is enormous.

Now let’s introduce the most powerful training you can possibly conduct in any company or department.

Workshop Training

Workshops are a powerful way to facilitate training, improve skills, and implement new procedures. This method is so effective for improving any company, department, issue, or skill that we have devoted an entire chapter to it. In the next chapter, you will learn how to use workshops to solve every problem in your organization and improve any skill area.

Exercise

What’s your training plan? Everything works better with a plan, so jot down the answers to the following questions to begin creating your unique training plan. Write down whatever comes to mind even if you don’t know where to begin. In the next chapter, you will learn how to get very clear on how to develop your training plan by using these notes to create an organized program.

What kind of training are you going to provide?

Who? Which departments or people need what kind of training?

Why? What’s the impact going to be?

When are you going to conduct the training?

How? What methods will you use and why are they best for the material you’ll cover?

Conclusion

Developing a regular and consistent training program will enable you to effectively and systematically accomplish the following:

Train new employees who can hit the ground running.

Upgrade knowledge and skills of existing employees so that everything they do works better, smarter, faster.

Provide continuous professional development so your staff becomes more and more effective.

Solve any and all problems that come up in your organization.

If you take the time to sharpen skills and improve knowledge in every possible area, your company will start to run better, smarter, and faster—like a finely tuned sales machine. The companies that conduct the best training