RESEARCH - SPEED TO KNOWLEDGE ... NOT SPEED TO MARKET.

SPEED TO KNOWLEDGE ... NOT SPEED TO MARKET
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— D E B R I E F —

The need is absolutely obvious. Which sales representatives and customer service representatives cannot say that their range of premier products in their porfolio they are managing has increased every year ? Very few. And it is only going to increase, right?

My ten years experience in front line hi-tech sales has shown that several of your product managers are each trying to buy your time to market to their sub-group of clients. A complicated, frustrating juggling act for all.

Frontline staff must formerly learn proven human learning skills. They must now discover powerful on-the-job learning skills to survive the steep product learning curve company's expect of them. Nearly all tertiary degrees have taught a whole lot of content... but never the process of how best to absorb that content. Do you follow ?

All a tertiary degree does show is that this person who has it does have reasonably good rote memory skills given MONTHS to prepare for one exam. Our workplaces are not predictable like it is on a syllabus and staff have only DAYS to prepare. See how it is a different playing field for your staff ? Student : 95 % preparation, 5% performance. Staff : 5 % preparation..on work time, 95 % performance. Michael Jordan : 80 % preparation, 20 % performance. Are you with me ? Something has got to change !!! Are you prepared to change a broken system ?

So... do you actively have in all your staff's performance appraisal criteria (a detailed 'Performance Development ('PD') plan) for on-the-job (beyond syllabus) learning ? You don't ? Then you are not investing in your people... no matter how many classrooms and CD Roms and intranet tools you throw at them. If it is not measurable...it NEVER gets done. Don't assume core skill training and practice can be done "in your spare time." Michael Jordan and every other professional athlete would laugh at this .... wouldn't they ?

Finally, each professional needs face-to-face training as well as internet support training tools like those detailed above. It is not either/or. Research and expert opinion are concluding you need both for "training to stick." Don't try and cut corners... because there are none.

Questions : What price do you put on your product knowledge... what price on your staff's product knowledge ? Make a decision.
And how do I manage this continual barrage of syllabus and generated knowledge... and for different staff functions ??!!!.... a 'knowledge management strategy.' Make a decision.

-SR.

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