It is not easy to select the ‘best fit’ between what your company needs, and the trainers and/or courses on offer. As a rough and ready guide, every available option will be good enough for something or someone’s needs; the question is, is it the best choice for you or your organization? A great deal of time and other resources (including the goodwill of staff) are wasted on misdirected interventions.

In order to facilitate good choices (and to prevent bad and ugly possibilities from being realised at your cost), consider the following basic elements in an analysis to be undertaken before opting for a particular trainer/course:

1. The focus (i.e., the situation, task, or person in need of intervention, change, or training)
2. Available resources (e.g., time, place, money, capabilities)
3. Envisaged aim of intervention (e.g., improved human relations, greater productivity, or acquisition of specific skills and/or knowledge)

Focus

Making sure of what or who to focus on – in other words, the focus of intervention – is certainly a good place to start thinking about trainer/course choice. Unless the focus is well specified and agreed on by all significant role-players, it is not a good idea to merely pick and choose from among available options in the hope that ‘things’ will improve. This is even true if one or another option immediately feels ‘right’, comes with a recommendation, has a good ad campaign, and so forth. These impressions are not enough to base a good decision on!

Clarifying the focus will include undertaking the following:

a) In-situ observations, interviews with significant role-players, and cross-checking of opinions on the matter at hand
b) Establishing a time- and base-line of the problem to be put right
c) Re-negotiation of the focus with significant role-players

The information forthcoming from the above serves as an important input into the in-house discussions about the problem and the right strategies to opt for in improving on matters. Whether these functions can be fulfilled in-house is a matter to decide at the outset. Buying these in does not mean that you buy these functions plus whomever they come with as part of future training – all in one. Once the focus is clarified through these moments in analysis, you are however in a position to choose wisely and well among available trainers and/or courses.

Resources

d) Obtaining independent measures, assessments, or test results on the problem
e) Describing the gap between what is and what is aimed at through intervention

Once again, the information forthcoming from these serves as an important input in clarifying the problem, and key role-players have to decide whether to buy these functions in or use in-house facilities/personnel. With unlimited resources all mountains can become molehills, but we have to acknowledge limits in these as well as the fact that no intervention starts from a clean slate: it is important to take account of what is the case before intervention on order to achieve a good fit between trainer/course and your needs, as well as between available means and the goals of the intervention.

Aim

One of life’s great difficulties has to do with having great wisdom after the fact, but often certain blindness before we have to act – it is this that makes choices among available options so hard. We learn ‘backwards’ as it were what would have been the best thing to do! This is further complicated by our human tendency to value things we do not have and can not do more than what we in fact have and can do – here and now, ready to hand. The green grass over there is tempting partly, at least, because it is as yet untested by our experience. We therefore rely on the expertise of others and the best of current knowledge on an issue, in general, to support our actions, but, as I am suggesting here, these will serve our needs best if we are clear on what it is that we want to get out of the planned intervention. Phrased differently: once we can specify our aim(s), choosing the right intervention will be easier.

Aims are not ‘wish lists’ though, but well-specified goals that are clearly related to particular means to achieve these; this is the point of considering the focus and resources as well as the aim before choosing a trainer/course – even though these might very well change through the course of a successful intervention. Drawing up such a means-goals plan of action is ideally part of the analysis and could be undertaken by in-house personnel or bought in. The latter has the advantage that someone from outside comes without the shared assumptions and taken-for-granted views that those inside a company of necessity have.

At best, considering the focus, available resources, and the aim of a planned intervention is not a 1, 2, 3 step-wise process, or a once-off discussion: going back and forth between these will ensure the best choice of trainer/course and thus the best outcome of the intervention because the focus, resources and aim are clarified in greater degrees as the discussions progress. They will progress to the degree that the information from elements such as listed under a, b, c, d & e, above, are made available to discussants while finalizing the focus, resources and aim, and before choosing a trainer and/or course. Engaging in such discussions will have the added benefit of opening necessary lines of communication in your organization and ensuring that the chosen intervention is suited to your company-specific needs. And, lastly, specifying the focus, resources and aim will allow you to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen intervention during and after its course.

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