Training departments in law firms spend a great deal of time and effort getting their training "right". We gather feedback from delegates, and constantly revisit the programme to get it as near perfect as possible.
Yet perhaps we shouldn't bother.
Over the past dozen years or so I've seen, delivered, read-the-course-notes-from and taken part in a huge quantity of training. Most of it was well designed and delivered, with a few exceptions. The subsequent impact, however, did not seem to be linked to the design or delivery of the training. Success depends on the willingness of the delegates to become participants.
In former days, when we had days rather than hours for training, a large part of the initial phase was spent "digging for pain" - drawing-out from the delegates the necessity for the training, their own personal journey, and how they would apply it. This phase prepared the ground for the seeds to be planted. Nowadays we move swiftly into the planting phase, throwing the seed out hoping that some will bed in.
This is not necessarily a bad strategy. The Darwinian process of the tough surviving means that those who are motivated and willing to really listen will succeed, and those who are just chair-fodder will fail. Capitalism at its finest. Yet we should not, in these circumstances, take the feedback from the non-participants too seriously. If delegates don't want to participate, modifying the training in line with their thoughts may be a big mistake.
It may be an inevitable condition of life that it takes so long to learn so little. When I was catapulted from senior litigator at a major City firm to partnership with Pinsents in 1994, building a practice would have been easier if I had known:-
- That all high performers receive coaching, not because they are poor performers, but to become the best, because they are restless to improve
- That selling was an art, needing tuition, then constant practice – just like the piano, learning a language
- That there were people outside the law who had the skills and experience to give me a head start – that sales skills were not something that would just happen by magic
- The elements of Key Account Management – that the intensity of approach needed to achieve success was the same as the most complex areas of litigation
- What was really needed to win a pitch – what was going on in the mind of the buyer
- That networking was much more than being affable with as many people as possible
- That I would differentiate myself from most other lawyers by actually doing it - putting sales and other learned skills into practice
Patrick Raggett
Patrick@penningtonhennessy.com