Training in Organisations: Tackling the Trinity

Sitting in our comfortable classrooms at some of the best institutes in the world, attending lectures
on Training & Development by some of the veterans in the field, little do we understand about the
ground realities that ail todays organisations. While the gurus in the industry and consultants in
their expensive suits can harp away in glory and make mind blowing presentations about how to
increase the efficiency of training delivery or how to enhance the effectiveness of training programs,
they seldom touch base with the realities. There is no dearth of literature or expertise available to
guide an organisation in setting up the perfect Training & Delivery Strategy. But even with so much
guidance, the causes of such epic failure may be, and mostly are, fundamental.
Let us consider an organisation with well documented T&D Strategy which clearly states its T&D
Mission & Vision and also outlines all details regarding T&D at ABC. However, in order to execute its
well laid out T&D strategy and fulfil the training requirements for the year, there are three forces
that the organisation will need to balance Vision/Strategy, Culture and Resources The Trinity.

The Trinity
The Trinity includes three forces Resources, Participants and Quality engaged in a gruelling tug of
war. Let us explore each force in details:
Vision: Vision drives strategy which in turn impacts the importance given certain aspects of the
organization such as quality versus quantity and affect the preference for and effectiveness of HRM
practices. No intervention will succeed in the face of conflicting strategies. For example,
organizational strategy shapes the overall perception of training as an expense or an investment.
Specific interventions such as diversity training or total quality management are doomed to fail
when training content collides with organizational strategies. Training designed to encourage
creativity will not overcome a culture that rewards mediocrity. Even well-designed customer service
training will not transfer if supervisors measure the number of transactions processed per hour
rather than customer satisfaction.
Culture: Clearly, training does not take place in a vacuum. Even with perfect design and enthusiastic
trainees, positive change requires organizational support. At first glance, achieving training success is
a simple matter of following well-established guidelines derived from decades of research. However,
training failure can be a manifestation of the values, beliefs, and assumptions shared by members of
various levels of organizational culture. The disregard for sound practices is an immediate cause of
failure but also a reflection of cultural barriers that can circumvent the best-designed program.
Beliefs that training is simple, unimportant, or pointless generate behaviours such as employing
incompetent trainers, rejecting the recommendations of competent trainers, discouraging transfer
of learning to the job, and failing to recognize positive transfer.
Resources: Resources include financial resources, technical resources, infrastructure, intellectual
capabilities and, most importantly, time.

Vision

Balancing
the Trinity

Culture

Resources

An organisation might need to attend to one force more than another depending on the stage of its
life cycle. Furthermore, one (or more) force(s) may be so influential that there may not be any T&D
activity in the organisation.

Organisational Life Cycle

During its life time, every organisation goes through sequential stages of development over a certain
period of time and they not only grow in sizes but they mature in their structures as they adapt to
support their growing demands both internally and externally. The number of stages can vary but
broadly they can be categorized under four main stages: Entrepreneurial, Collectivity, Formalisation
and Adaptation stages respectively.
Each stage has its typical characteristics and faces certain obstacles. As such, in each stage, one or
more forces of the Trinity are predominant. Let us see how:
Entrepreneurial stage: The biggest driving force behind growth is the founders motivation and
commitment. Creativity is encouraged and tasks can be best described as frantic rather than being
coordinated in systemized ways. There is easy and quick communication between members and also
towards the market response. It is structurally and financially unstable whereas the decision making
process is simple and quick as a leader takes all responsibilities.
Collectivity stage: In this phase, companies generally keep their informal structures with one-man
ownership while realizing the importance of production efficiency. However, no action for change
takes a place. When the previously mentioned obstacles in the first stage have been dealt with
cooperation between employees that focuses more on human resource management and
interpersonal skills become more important. The reason behind the slow transition is the founders
resistance against delegation of responsibilities to other managerial roles. The delegation process is
called depersonalization procedures.

Formalisation stage: This occurs when firms put more emphasis on control and administrative
work. At this stage, administrative effort rises at the expense of its entrepreneurial spirit as flexibility
of interpersonal communication and decision making processes are hindered by more structured
long-term priorities. One of the most distinguishable differences is that communication is no longer
informal but becomes more hierarchical. It shows that the solution for the former state has become
the limitation of the current stage.
Adaptation stage: Maturity is generally accompanied with older and bigger size firms where both
production and managerial structures are balanced. This stage is arguably the most optimal stage for
all firms where the growth rate peaks. However, at the level of maturity, firms tend to have less
failure level but then it is younger and smaller firms, in particular exhibit the highest growth rates.
Thus maturity state might provide firms with market security but the high growth is no longer
accompanied. Firms must learn to Adapt and regain the creativity in order to sustain growth.

Impact on L&D
As each stage has its typical characteristics, there are certain obstacles which every stage faces. As
one or more forces of the Trinity are dominant in each stage, let us see how L&D in the organisation
is affected:
Entrepreneurial

Collectivity

Formalisation

Adaptation

Conclusion
Training effectiveness depends on the power and status of the profession. Central to overcoming
bias against training and HRD is improving the image of HRD. Real or perceived training failure
undermines the profession. Nothing is more critical than reaching agreement on core competencies.
The pursuit of a grand theory should not preclude consensus on midrange theories including the
social context of training effectiveness. HRD must define itself or leave the task to others.