So a lot of times my clients ask me, "How do I go from a training event to creating behavior change?" After all, they're paying us to provide skills that they want to see applied in the field and one of the things that really makes a difference is senior management involvement.

00:01  I will never forget, I was at a senior vice president's office having a meeting and a vice president walked in and started talking, just trying to get some information from the senior vp. The senior vp just continued looking at me and doing what he was doing, not actually answering the vice president, which struck me as kind of odd at the time. The vice president looked at him and said, "Hey, are you not listening?", and he goes, "No, I'm listening, but you come back when you have a proper purpose, process, and payoff," which is one of the skills that we had recently taught their salesforce, and the vice president walked out a little bit, probably infuriated, but said, "OK, I'll be back." It struck me that by having that senior vice president reinforcing the skills that they all had just learn, even to another vice president level, almost a peer, it sent a very strong message that they were not just paying for a training event, but they were really invested in creating behavior change.

01:38  The thing with this particular company was that they had set clear expectations upfront and I think that's very critical as well when you're bringing in a training event that you expect to create some changes in the organization. Set clear expectations, make sure that people understand that they will be held accountable for the skills that they're learning. When things are happening that they are getting proper feedback and coaching in a timely fashion and really pay attention to see whether your managers are capable and understand how to coach those behaviors and how to reinforce them.

02:17  A lot of times when we meet with clients, because there is a seniority level in a sales management function, they tend to think that managers know how to coach their people properly. But the reality is, when we're teaching you these skills and we expect people to behave differently, all of us really need to understand how to do that properly and learn from what we have to offer.

02:44  So in summary, when you're doing an intervention that you really don't want to just stand as a training event, but you want truly to create behavior change, make sure that people understand the expectations, that your managers know how to coach to those new behaviors, that there is accountability throughout the organization and that feedback is given in a timely fashion.

Best of luck and let me know how I can help you achieve more effective training!