The Challenge of Sending Individuals for Training
The idea of sending staff for training is not new. In fact, it seems to be the go-to solution whenever staff performance needs improvement. Some organisations and sectors implement mandatory training for individuals every year. Over the years, we have received an increasing number of requests for corporate training. The requests are often generic, commonly labelled as–improving communications, improving working relationships/team dynamics, leadership training.The lack of specifics often stems from not knowing high leveraging area of improvement required.It’s not enough to simply tell someone to be clearer in their instructions when they don’t know how to go about it. There is a gap between where individuals are and their ability to deliver the KPIs expected. And this requires a clear action plan for individuals to work on expanding their capabilities. The short fall for many individuals attending trainings or workshops, is the ability to work on the nuances of their capabilities. Most skillsets that organizations emphasize on are usually higher level, secondary skillsets with more complex combination of fundamental competencies. When certain fundamental competencies are lacking, that’s when individuals feel the strain in taking in new knowledge and skillsets, much more applying them rapidly and efficiently.
The Competency-Building Framework
The Competency-Building Framework (CBF) was developed by Celine Wong and Barney Wee (PhD),with over 25 years of application in training and organisational change.It was also referenced closely to NLP, Meta Programs and Multiple Intelligence.The CBF served as a roadmap for individuals to tangibly track their progress over a period and it forms the structure for sustainable skills development. As with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the CBF identifies key competency markers for individuals to track their learning progress more tangibly. This helps individuals stay aligned to their learning objectives and helps them identify their competencies over time.The CBF aims to support individuals by first creating an awareness of where they are with regards to the fundamental competencies identified:
- State Management: Maintaining efficient internal state during interactions
- Observation and Testing: Picking up non-verbal cues during interactions for a more effective and wholistic interaction
- Rapport Building: Consciously building trust and achieving sustainable cooperation
- Questioning: Asking questions by categorising and connecting information to gain clarity and expanding possibilities
- Mental Rehearsal: Envisioning ahead of time in preparation to put the plan to action
- Giving Feedback: Giving clear feedback that the recipient can act and improve upon
- Framing Conversations: Managing expectations and information exchanged for effective conversations
- Self-Resourcing: Develop and execute appropriate plans, while adapting as the situation changes
Each of these fundamental competencies are further linked to key competency markers. These competency markers allow individuals to know what adjustments to make to improve their capabilities. This is built on turning desired capabilities into a language that the body can execute clearly. Neuro-actionables thus becomes the neurological vocabulary to bridge the gap between knowing and doing.The Neuro-actionables are tied to the senses to enable individuals to locate and target their sense in a way that creates a process to achieve desired capabilities.When capabilities are expressed in a neurological language, they are no longer just a concept; they become something concrete that our nervous system can orchestrate. The five Neuro-actionables applied includes:
- Language Patterns: the questions or statements used in engagements to create the desired impact
- State or Emotions: the two-way orchestration of our physiology and our inner thoughts to get into the state/emotion relevant for the situation
- Observables: tuning the senses to observe non-verbal and verbal patterns, to enrich and verify understanding or make timely responses
- Mental Model/Steps: having sufficient clarity in envisioning key steps to carrying out desired task, enabling more preparedness even in uncertainty
- Behaviours and Actions: physical steps/actions relevant to demonstrating the desired capabilities
