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Jan 12
2012
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Hitting a moving target with training!
Posted by: Lawrence Berry, CPM on Jan 12, 2012 00:42 Tagged in: Apartment Training
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Leadership as you know is a topic near and dear to my heart. I believe there are certain qualities in great leaders, and I also am a firm believer there are distinct differences between management and leadership. That being said, both management and leadership has a responsibility to insure those that follow or work with them have the tools and knowledge to exceed and excel. We can complain that someone is not performing or meeting goals, however, what are we doing to insure support is provided that leads to greatness. That support comes in training.
Training and education is never done, but it is an evolutionary process. It also means following up on what is taught to insure clear understanding, and keeping an open mind to finding new resources and ways of teaching and seeing the benefits. The moment we believe we are done with training or supporting from an educational standpoint, we have failed both ourselves and those working with us. Fair Housing is one example of an area we "assume" our team members know. We give them an online course to complete or on occasion send them to a workshop if the funds are in the budget. I have in the past written about the trend witnessed related to this topic. When interviewing managers or anyone that is already in the business I always ask, "What are the protected classes in Fair Housing?" I have yet to have more than two candidates in ten able to easily give me the correct response. Our industry has many resources for education and training from site led reviews, regional workshops, Internet based courses, corporate conferences, and apartment association events. So why is it our people do so poorly in this and other areas we "assume" they are trained in?
The answer is in several areas all critical to benefiting our teams, creating a motivational environment, and raising the skill levels of our associates. First is follow-up. How often do we confirm understanding of what is taught? What I have found when talking with industry trainers is we seem to be lacking in training trainers and leaders/managers to verify educational success. We instead assume they get it! The key to great education is not that they can pass a test on an Internet required course, but they "retain" what they have learned and can use it effectively. Second, we fail miserably at conditioning the training over time. Humans for the most part need conditioning. Our people pass that Fair Housing poster many times a day, why don't they know what is on it? Because we fail to provide reminders and conditioning over time about the importance. Third, we fail to explain the importance of the training and what they should expect. This is to not only insure they have a clear understanding, and they won't be surprised as to why we will be following up with occasional testing.
These points are also true when it comes to closing, troubleshooting for maintenance, risk management, and so many other areas. Make education a process and condition your teams to expect it and you will probably find they desire it. Help them identify with how this will help them move up the ladder of success, and you will no doubt find yourself being more successful. Great leaders also have willing and great followers. Since we cannot do the job alone, it is the great followers you develop that will raise your ability to lead further as well.
Visit my other blogs at: www.multifamilysuccess.blogspot.com
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Another point is credibility as you say. Whoever is teaching or training has to be credible from a standpoint of both the knowledge of the subject, but also in how to present it. A great point is those in the multifamily housing industry who have been in roles relevant to those in the classroom must as you say, relate to those being taught in the presentation. You make a good analogy with parenting. You can read all the books you want, but the first time you change an overloaded diaper you learn more than all the books in the world. Most of use conditioning from our parents as to how we raise our children. Unfortunately, being good at leasing, management, or marketing is not something we learn in childhood and can be very different from what is learned in college. You are spot on when you in your last paragraph, and no you did not screw up the point...simply added another viewpoint which is why we have this forum.
Thanks.
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I am with you on the training portion. There are also those personnel that do not do well in class, but put them in the arena where the action is and they are beasts to be recond with on the job. But for sure no one should sit back on their laurels and not hone their skill with more training and refresher courses.
The other thing I will say is that I believe the best trainers in the world come out of the military. Sure their are those that are better than others, but there they also have a train the trainer type courses and when those trainers go out, they know their subject. Also, trainers who come from the field can relate with the people that they are training as I think this is also very important. It is like someone teaching parenting to people with children, but have no children of their own. You want your people to learn, a lot of time their has to be credability before you have the attention of your students and I think this applies to housing as well. There is what we call sometimes the book answer and then there is the real world answer.
Sure that I have strayed from your main point here, but I do believe in leaders preparing their staff for greater roles through not only training, but hands on as well. People normally retain more, by doing (hands on).
The method I like in training is the: Task, Condition, and Standards. Tell them what it is that is being trained; under what conditions they will be receiving this training; and to what standards, in otherwords what they are expected to know after. They are give a written test as well as hands on (if possible) afterwards and if they do not know the subject to the standards that were set, we retrain.
Hope I did not screw up the point you were making here Larence.