Chandler's Plea For Integrated Learning

I think we all acknowledge that traditional training – typically a day or two scattered around the year on almost random, standalone topics – does not yield results. Yet common ground is hard to find on any precise nature of a preferable on-going model.

My personal approach is to deploy a recording mechanism for when skills are used in the field that occurs in real-time, captures both consequences and refinement, and crucially, does not increase the salesperson admin burden in any way.

This of course, requires funding. Unfortunately many sales organisations are having their budgets squeezed in these credit crunch, recessionary times. As a result I find myself talking less about the workshop sessions I run, in the face of what happens after leaving the classroom door shut.

Seeking inspiration from someone with gravitas, I was digging around some dusty storage boxes the other day for papers on what constitutes the most effective sales training approach along such lines. I came across a Q&A with Alfred Chandler. When a Harvard Professor he was considered the pre-eminent business historian. He’s a key facet of his findings:

“the reason why some businesses succeed whilst others fail is to do with how companies learn and apply what they learn”

He recommends that you must institute an “integrated learning base”. Clearly this is something that most sales training or best-practice initiatives either fail to consider, or mistakenly leave solely to technology to support.