Yesterday I received yet another promotional flyer in the mail promising a glorious transformation—in just one day—on how to supervise people.  Before I comment specifically I should outline a few reasons why I feel qualified to do so:

1. For 18 years I’ve been teaching supervisory skills in management development classes and through one-on-one coaching.
2. All three of my college degrees are in creating training and development programs in which people truly learn. (undergrad / masters / Ph.D -almost done!)
3. The main area of focus for my business is teaching other people how to do the same.

So now let’s look at the claim being made on the flyer’s front page:

“You’ll be able to unify employees into a smooth-running, productive team, despite differences in personality, background, and age.”

Unify employees?  Into a smooth-running, productive team?  Despite deep differences? In only one day?
 
It gets deeper:

 You’ll be able to:
- establish supervisor-subordinate relationship boundaries that will be understood and respected.
- Control absenteeism and tardiness.
- Develop a keen sense of timing for taking corrective action or firing an employee.

Professionally speaking, to gain these skills in only one day is pure nonsense.

Interpersonal Skills are Deeply Ingrained

Depending on which study we read and which industry we look at, the average age of a manager is somewhere between 30 and 47. Because interpersonal skills are so deeply ingrained, anyone who tells me that one can master a skill in one day and override 10 or 20 years of deeply embedded emotional patterns is watching too many late-night infomercials.

Without equivocation, it’s impossible to equip a learner with the ability to do these things in a day.

Jon Busack works at the Center for Professional Development at Boise State University. As a professional development specialist, he views such workshops as drawn out sales pitches for buying further training from the company providing the workshop. “There’s no support after the day is over,” Busack says. “No one to call to ask specific questions. Too often it’s just an expensive networking opportunity.”

Stop Believing the Hype
Learning these skills takes repetition, and that takes time. Business owners need to stop believing the hype (or should I say tripe?). If people haven’t previously been able to do the things listed above, they’re not going to emerge from a day-long workshop suddenly able to do them.

Personally, I like to include online learning in conjunction with a workshop. I like to include free phone follow up after the workshop. I like to follow up with our learners to see where they’re having success and where they still need support. Repetition over time combined with support brings results.

With all due respect to the purveyors of traveling road shows, mastering skills takes time.

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Filed in Work, Business, Opinion, Training, Management, Leadership, Team Building, Workplace