Stakeholder Consultation for Training

L&D teams get stuck in the same loop: someone asks for training, we take the order and we either find the course or build it. …and performance barely shifts. It’s not because the training was bad. It’s because the conversation was bad. The first five minutes of a training needs conversation will make or break everything that follows. And yet, too many L&D professionals still ask the same surface-level questions: “What training do you need?” “When do you need it?” “How many people?” “Workshop or eLearning?” None of these tell you anything useful. They only help you build activities, not outcomes. My recommendation is to stop asking about training. Start asking about performance. Here’s why. When you jump straight to “What training do you need?”, you instantly position yourself as an order-taker. You trap yourself in the solution instead of understanding the problem. And the moment you do that, you’ve lost the chance to influence anything upstream. But when you ask questions like: “What business outcome are you trying to achieve?” “What’s the issue you’re seeing and how is it affecting performance?” “Who’s impacted and what are they doing now that’s not working?” “What’s the cost of not solving this?” …you get to the truth fast. And once you’re operating at the level of impact, not activity, you can do your real job — diagnosing, challenging assumptions, identifying blockers, and recommending the right intervention (which often isn’t training at all). In my 30 years in L&D, I’ve seen this one shift transform L&D teams. When L&D professionals move from “course creators and course finders” to “performance consultants”, everything changes: Stakeholders start listening. Budgets stretch further. Solutions become sharper. Learning becomes intentional. And most importantly, performance improves. CIPD data shows that only 29% of organisations say their L&D function is “business-aligned.” That’s not because L&D lacks skill. It’s because most teams are still stuck answering the questions stakeholders ask, instead of asking better ones themselves. If you want credibility, it starts with the questions you ask. If you want impact, it starts with the problems you diagnose. And if you want to stop wasting time, money, and goodwill delivering training that was never going to fix the issue, then this is where you begin. Ask better questions. Get better outcomes. ---------------------- Follow me at Sean McPheat for more L&D content and and then hit the 🔔 button to stay updated on my future posts. ♻️ Repost to help others in your network.

Is training the answer? Keep asking yourself this question when requested to provide courses and online modules. Better still - have a performance consulting conversation conversation with your stakeholder. Several years ago at Coca-Cola Amatil the National Technical Manager asked me to get my team to create a new eLearning module about food safety practices in the production environment as he was concerned about issues being picked up in quality checks. I was curious about this request as the production operators were already completing food safety training. I asked him "Do you think the operators don't know where they have to wear hair and beard nets?" "Do you think they don't know when they have to wash their hands?" He paused for a moment and responded "Well, I think they know - but they're not doing it." That was a turning point in the conversation, giving me the opportunity to ask: "So why aren't they doing it." While we did end up creating a new single national eLearning module to replace the many different local versions that were in us, we did so much more to tackle the behaviours of the group who could make most impact on the underlying issues. Working with the production managers and team leaders on their practices as leaders to set the standards and reinforced behavious was the key to addressing the product quality issues. I ran a Performance Consulting workshop for a client's L&D team last week. We got SO MANY good (or is it bad?) examples from the group about being asked for courses when training really wasn't the answer. What examples do you have to share? PS: Reach out to me if you want to chat about building Performance Consulting practices and skills in your L&D team. MichelleWorksOutLoud

I always question, how I can make meetings with stakeholders feel like a casual chat for them while I derive the essential information for creating engaging learning experiences. I came across a magic wand ✨ Rance Greene's book offers a powerful mnemonic -P.R.I.M.E.D. Ask these P.R.I.M.E.D. questions (in any order) and you will end up with a training goal and a lot of stories. 💬 P - Personal Opinions ❓What do you feel the root problem is? ❓What outcome do you expect from this training? Your business outcome and the root problem are hidden in these answers. Listen carefully! 🌟 R - Real Stories ❓Can you share a real story that illustrates the problem? Listen for stories to uncover characters and conflicts. 🔻 I - Initial Indicators ❓What brought this problem to your attention? A great opening question to start the conversation. 📈 M - Metrics ❓ What are the reports indicating in regard to this problem? There's a story hidden in this data. 👉 E - Examples ❓Can you provide an example of the kind of issues you've noticed in regard to this problem? This is a good warm-up question to get the conversation flowing. ⚠D - Distractions ❓ Is there anything distracting employees from performing their jobs well? A good question to ask if you feel that training might not be the solution. What's the one question you start with? This month, I am reading Rance Greene's book (link in the comments) and sharing my visual summaries here. Follow me Rachna Ghiya to learn along with me 😀 Visual Inspiration : Janis Ozolins