Training Plus: Revitalizing your Training

Citation

Cattell, A. (2001), "Training Plus: Revitalizing your Training", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 178-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2001.33.5.178.2

In his preface to the book, Brian Clegg states that Training Plus applies the power of business creativity to training, developing new ways of getting the message across both to those who pay for training and those who receive it. He also states that the book is not intended as a beginner’s guide to training, but rather provides a series of incremental steps, taking a training organisation or in‐house training department from its present state to a whole new level.

Perhaps the latter is a rather over‐ambitious claim. Certainly, the book offers a number of “different” ideas and approaches, many of which are more aligned to development‐type activity than traditional training. However, I suspect that, like myself, many trainers and developers have been using similar creativity approaches and methods for a number of years.

The book is divided into five “zones” (not chapters):

• •

  Zone 1 – The introduction. Examines training from a good news, bad news point of view and makes a case for training being more creative. It also places creative training in a context and explains how to use the book to best effect.

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  Zone 2 – Do we need people? Identifies new technologies such as computer‐enhanced training, the Internet, hypertext and do‐it‐yourself multimedia. Clegg suggests that, in developing training plans or new courses, trainers need to consider how a blend of the new and the best of the old training methodologies can be achieved.

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  Zone 3 – Self‐assessment questionnaire. Assists the reader to assess their own (and their organisation’s) current state in each of the six sections in Zone 4.

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  Zone 4 – Actions. Represents the main body of the book and uses case studies, anecdotes, “war stories” and practical examples, plus occasional theoretical reference, to outline a variety of different approaches to:

• – The environment in which the training is carried out.

• – Communication as regards learner energy, relationships and effective learner‐centred presentations.

• – Vehicles such as games, books, cassettes, stories, role play (revisited), breakout groups (overhauled), outdoor development, action learning, and what the author terms surprise packages.

• – Support in terms of after‐event reinforcement such as books, software, e‐mail extensions, intranet reinforcement, prizes and give‐aways. The section also gives practical examples of warm‐ups and spur of the moment activity at the beginning of events.

• – Development using creativity techniques, finding materials, flexible development, ideas, fun feedback and evaluating benefits.

• – Targeting and marketing covering matching the individual, wants versus needs, selling training benefits and advertising. The section ends with suggestions on how to make trainers business orientated and how to improve the visibility of the in‐house training function.

• – Zone 5 – Agenda. Briefly describes how the reader can build an agenda for transforming training.

Brian Clegg’s text is constructed as a series of “snapshot” suggestions, ideas and anecdotes rather than an in‐depth explanation of activities. It is written very much in the practical genre and is interesting rather than highly informative.

Clegg has an obvious enthusiasm for his topic, his main thrusts being transforming tired training and effecting change in perceptions of the training function. He possibly assumes that many others in the field are not already doing this.

At £16.99 the book represents reasonable value to readers who may wish to use the text as a dip‐in, dip‐out resource in terms of alternative training and development ideas.