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Moving from Training to Performance

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Moving from Training to Performance

A Practical Guidebook

Berrett-Koehler,

15 min read
9 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Human resource development has a new bottom line: performance.

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Training professionals are shifting their focus from teaching to improving the performance of individuals and organizations. Dana Gaines Robinson and James C. Robinson have compiled a series of articles by members of the Association for Training and Development that approach this trend from varying angles. The common theme is identified at the start: Trainers are becoming performance consultants, working with companies to improve business performance, learning and work environments. After presenting this foundation, the book traces it through organizational partnering, performance change, large and small departmental organization, and employee alignment. The Robinsons serve up a feast of charts, examples, lists, chapter highlights and profiles of each author. This is written for the instructional designer, organizational development consultant, training manager, performance consultant and other specialists. Thus, non-trainers may find it jargon-laden and inaccessible. The multiple authors generate some overlap, and the book is aging, but otherwise this exploration of how to improve performance will appeal to everyone in the field.

Summary

Dana Gaines Robinson and James C. Robinson

The human resource development (HRD) profession has been changing itself, as a growing number of large corporations downsize their HRD departments and outsource jobs. Increasingly, firms are hiring performance technologists, performance consultants and interactive learning specialists.

As a result, the training profession is undergoing dramatic changes and moving from a focus on helping individuals learn to a focus on helping them improve performance. Basically, human performance technology (HPT) is the science of improving human performance in the workplace through analysis and the design, selection and implementation of appropriate interventions.

Although the focus on performance isn’t completely new, two elements are gaining an increased emphasis - the need to create a partnership with management and the need to link performance training to the goals of the business.

The partnership approach is different. In the past, training has functioned in a parallel relationship to management. But, today, the individual partners in these relationships are called "clients." The term "performance consultant" now refers to...

About the Authors

Dana Gaines Robinson and James C. Robinson are, respectively, president and chairman of Partners in Change, Inc., a human resource development and performance consulting company. Both speak frequently at major conferences in the field, including the ASTD’s International Conference and Exposition, the TRAINING Conference and Expo, Training Directs’ Forum Conference and the Assessment, Measurement and Evaluation (AME) Conference.

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