Make your Training Vision a Reality

This post is specifically for the new trainers who want to start their careers on successful notes. Equally, it is beneficial for those pursuing it for quite a long time and want to give their career a boost to a new height. In this post, I would be talking about one of the secrets behind my successful training career based on years of experience. This is about transforming a unique training vision of yours into successful reality in a corporate market. Unless you devise your own vision and convert it into applicable strategy among your learners and clients, you don’t achieve the status of a great trainer. Let’s discuss this apparently theoretical but actually highly important factor, for your successful training endeavors.

Determining the vision & fit

A vision, being a corporate trainer, is highly based on the market you serve and the degree of your passion, enthusiasm, and professionalism[1].Some hold the vision to successfully conduct communication-based training, while some want to achieve the status of a friendly and warm trainer. Speaking professionally, no matter what your career objectives are, being a trainer, devising a precise vision and achieving excellence in your market, must be the core focus.

Today, organizations are going through massive changes and turmoil with what usually seems to be continual restructuring, re-engineering, downsizing or rightsizing. They are learning to be competitive. Competitiveness is a broader term in a corporate perspective. It also means aligning the employees’ skills, knowledge and expertise to organizational goals, in a way that not only achieves organizational success but also develops employees in every sense[2]. There is a “win-win” situation that your clients (organizations) want to achieve. Can you take it as a starting point to devise your vision? You should!

You essentially hold two information sets[3]:

• The information you get from your evaluation of the industry, market, and organizations operating within
• The information you have collected from the internal training department of your client (organization)

How do you know if the two are a fit for your vision?

Firstly, look for the elements of your vision that fit directly with the objectives that you would be pursuing over the upcoming year. For instance, if a new CRM system is being implemented in your client organization, your choice for using simulation software to develop training tutorials is probably a right on. In fact, you might be able to pilot the simulation software with the key project such as a CRM system execution. On the other side, if a lot of organizational initiatives entail the need for having a classroom training that is heavy on personal interaction; this might not be the time to consider a simulation program. However, don’t forget to think of the alternatives.

The high-level interaction or communication could be a great reason to roll out a web conferencing program and system for training. The evaluation of these two information sets would start to develop your training strategy[4]. But what about the development of your vision? Bear in mind that a vision simply shows how your organization (client) exists. In fact, you might already be having a general vision statement for your training; however, this doesn’t mean you can’t devise the vision for the coming year. That’s what I have discussed in my previous posts i.e. rebalancing your training portfolio with time.

Your vision doesn’t have to be “vision statement” in the truest sense of the world. Your vision should serve as a regulator as well as a practical check as the year progresses and projects objectives change[5]. For instance, if your client organization is making immense changes to the customer management system in the coming year, one of your vision statements could be to support the objectives of customer management in the upcoming year. The vision statement you devise can focus your internal training department as well. For instance, if you know that the coming year is the year of innovative training, make this your vision statement. The idea is to develop a set of statements that keep your training goals on the track, in particular, when things become nebulous.

Turning Vision into reality

Once you have developed this vision, “connect” it to your organization with a strategy. For instance, determine which projects are coming first and which ones seem to be a year-long part of your work. If you are not sure regarding how you would be able to assist some major initiatives, it is probably the time for developing an assessment strategy.

Think of the CRM initiative example given above. This is quite an earth-shaking initiative literally, so in order to determine where to start, the part of your strategy would be to evaluate the departments that are involved in, in order to engage with them as the project progresses. Since you are making this strategy, you would soon be seeing the pieces falling out, because of lack of financing, human resources, technology, and know-how. Be sure to consider these parts, since it would help you in turning your vision into reality.

[1] https://www.yourtrainingedge.com/training-vision-5-defining-the-vision-and-determining-a-fit/
[2] https://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Dec-94/ayers.html
[3] http://www.mmmts.com/mission_vision.htm
[4] http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/Transforming-Vision-into-Reality.aspx
[5] https://www.engageselling.com/articles/041223article_achievingyourgoals

Copyright  Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.