I Create Goal-Centric Learning Experience
Hello. My name is Ruben Ter-Minasian. Welcome to my website dedicated to what I do – helping teams achieve their goals.
If you are reading this because you are looking for training, then someone probably told you that I am an expert in sales, negotiations or other soft skills. While this is true, or so I hope, I feel the responsibility to stop you right here before it is too late and invite you to take a few steps back.
Training that you buy will not help you
I bet you and your team have a goal to achieve. You might be thinking that your team is unable to achieve this goal, or you don’t see the results coming as expected, so you have decided that you need the training to solve the performance problem. That’s great! There are a lot of training companies out there that will be happy to sell you their course or two. They all work with the premise that you have made up your mind: You want to buy a training program, and you may have the budget for it, so it is only a question of whom to buy it from. The rest is a matter of their selling skills. I know what I am talking about. You may want to check my profile on LI if you have not done this already.
It may upset you, but I need to tell you that, most likely, the training you buy will not help you. It does not matter which one you buy or how much you pay.
How do I know it? Well, I know it because it is unlikely the training company will work with your goal. They will have the course learning objectives and might check your team’s knowledge gaps, but they will not be responsible for your target. You will be accountable for achieving it and your team, not them. You may argue that the skills they teach your people will certainly help. Yes, they probably will help, but will this be enough for you to achieve the goal or get closer? How sure are you that the skills or knowledge gap is the single most critical barrier that stands between your team and their goal, your goal?
Performance consulting works with your goal in mind
Luckily, I can help you decide if you need training and what kind of training. In most cases, training is not part of the team's performance problem solution. Even when it is, it's likely to be very different from what we typically expect to see in a corporate training course.
My job is to help you and your team analyse the performance problem. Using the action mapping methodology, we will identify the barriers to their best performance. Then we will develop the optimum solutions that remove those barriers. Your goal is the starting and the ending point of the entire process that I will guide you through. As a result, you will get a bespoke solution. I call this performance consulting.
How this site works
You may explore this site simply by scrolling down this page or click each of the menu sections. Whenever you want to go back to the home page click on my name in the top left corner.
If you are already familiar with performance consulting or action mapping, jump straight into the part that looks most suited to your problem or question. One of my principles is that learners should have the opportunity to explore the content in whatever order suits them best and at their own pace. I would love to talk with you about this. Feel free to call me if you want to know more. Talking will not cost you anything. Talk to you soon.
What performance consulting is
How do you know that your team needs training?
When leaders see their people are not doing something they want them to, the most common reaction is training them. Many leaders think this way: “If only they knew what in this situation is the right thing to do, they would do it. Let’s train them that right thing now.” After training, what a disappointment to see that the team is still where it was before the training and has not moved a tiny bit towards their goal.
Imagine you felt not well. You went to a doctor and asked for antibiotics. The doctor gladly said: "Sure, here they go. 19.90 euro per pack. New and improved". You wondered if tests were necessary, but the happy doctor said to skip them. You took the pills but felt much worse in a couple of days. At that point, you wished you had done the tests before. Now you are thinking that the doctor was not a good one. Right you are. That was a salesman, not a doctor.
This story may seem fictitious. Sane individuals wouldn't take pills without the proper tests. Or would they? Why do the same people send their teams to training without a thorough examination? Additional training cannot harm, you say? I disagree. The useless courses do harm. They take the precious time of your people; they cost you money that you could have spent more wisely, and they teach people that the training programs you send them to are a waste of time.
Like a professional doctor, a performance consultant first analyses your problem to determine why your people aren't doing what they should. Only then can they put together a recommendation for intervention of any kind. Performance consultant does not shoot in the dark expecting to hit the target. Instead, they use precise tools to correct just what must be corrected. This set of instruments may include training, or it may not.
The process
Performance consulting is a structured problem-solving approach with specific steps grouped into four parts.
1
Define your goal
It is often a business or commercial objective but can be compliance, time-bound or behavioural goals. The goal must have a precise and widely familiar measurement. Everyone must be very clear about what it is. Most importantly, it must be specific, literally, a number, who and by when must achieve it by doing exactly what. Examples of goals are sales volume, customer satisfaction level, number of incidents or injuries, and number of new customers. You got the idea. Usually, it takes about an hour to get it down.
2
What should they be doing, and why aren’t they doing it?
Once we have the goal specified, we ask what people should do to achieve it and why they aren’t doing it. Alternatively, in some cases, I ask what people should not do and why they keep doing it. It may sound trivial, but this is the most valuable point in the entire process because there is much to uncover here. At that moment, you will start to see the real benefits of the process as it opens your eyes and helps to see the problem from a different angle.
3
Planning interventions
When we understand the barriers between your team and the right actions, we can start planning for the changes. It may be a training activity that allows people to train the skills in a safe environment, or we may find out that training is unnecessary. It might be cumbersome software or a poorly written policy that needs change. Suppose we decide that training is part of the solution. In that case, I ensure it is not a lecture but an activity. Your people will learn to make the best choices and move towards their goals in difficult situations.
4
Evaluation against your goal
Once we develop the best solution for the performance problem, we will evaluate it by measuring how close your team has gotten to the goal. As we roll out the changes, we get feedback and tweak them where needed.
Types of goals that I work with
The process works well with any goals, not only commercial goals. It can be behavioural, managerial or cultural objectives. It is crucial to have a clearly defined for everyone, specific, measurable, and time-bound target.
How is it different from training companies?
You can easily see how different performance consulting is from what training companies and individual trainers do. They sell you their one-course-suits-all program using various methods, like open workshops and teasers. Then they deliver it quickly, often as one training event. Afterwards, they send you an invoice and move on to the next client. You are lucky if there is a follow-up event in the price. They took your money. You got their training for your team. At first, you think it is a fair deal, but then you ask: “Wait, how about my goal?” “What goal?” – they reply.
The way they measure ROI leaves many questions. ROI based on their method rarely have anything to do with your goal and KPIs. Let’s say the training was excellent and fun, but right after, you find yourself face to face with your problem at the same place where you first met those trainers. Your money and precious time have been lost. You cannot blame them for that. After all, you decided that training would solve all the problems, yes?
Isn’t it just common sense?
You may say that performance consulting is just common sense. Yes, you are right. However, I would instead call it critical thinking. Much of the performance consulting process relies on critical thinking. Yet, it is sometimes difficult to apply, and maybe you are in such a situation now. Business leaders are often too close to the problem. They are too busy with daily routines to be able to look at the problem from a different angle. They also need to use a structural approach that is proven to work. On top, one needs to break free from the school paradigm that people need the knowledge to do the right things. They don't. This last thought may seem arguable to you. I recognize that and will be happy to explain it if you contact me. Additionally, you may want to check this site.
You can try it yourself
Having read this page, especially the Process, you may try the performance consulting approach on your own. I will be happy to help you with this if you wish so. Alternatively, as other businesses did, you can hire me as a performance consultant to work with your team to solve your problem efficiently and reliably. Please scroll down to check how I work with clients.
How I work with clients
I do not just recommend change. I make it happen.
I am not a consultant who makes recommendations and sends you the bill after it, leaving it up to you to implement the recommendations or drop them. I make my recommendations happen. Whatever becomes a part of the solution, I produce it for you. I design job aids, draft policies, write wall boards, and develop the training activities if they are part of the solution. I pilot them, collect feedback, improve, and roll them out. Finally, I evaluate the impact of my interventions against your goal and improve them further as long as you may need. You can check examples of solutions on this site. A performance consultant should do precisely this, not just make recommendations based on “some experience”.
The method is open to you
My objective is not to sell you my training course. I aim to develop a bespoke solution that moves you closer to your goal. As such, I am not hiding any materials or methodology from you. My ambition is to show you that there is a better way to solve your performance problem than to buy training and keep your fingers crossed, hoping for the results to come.
How my projects usually start
"Hi Ruben. I heard you are an expert in sales and negotiations. We have a problem with XXX. My people struggle with it. I need you to run one of your training programs for them". These are the familiar words I hear from new clients. The variations are only about the thing the team is struggling with and the training the client wants. It is often sales or negotiation training, leadership, compliance or something else. "Well, I say, thank you for your kind words. Sure, I am happy to help if I can. How about we get together to discuss the problem in more detail?" This kick-off meeting is the start of the performance consulting process. You may not have realized that, but this is the structural approach in action. At that meeting, we will define your goal for this project. We will check for subject matter experts in your organization. We will then identify the audience for learning, those people who have to achieve the goal. And finally, we will specify what they need to do to achieve the goal and why they aren't doing it.
Action mapping
The output of that meeting is usually an action map. Action mapping visualises the relationship between the goal and the actions people need to perform. It then goes further and explores the barriers that block those actions. Please check the simplified versions in the examples section. I pay tribute to Ms Cathy Moore, who developed this approach and brilliantly described it in her book “Map It”. You may want to check her blog by clicking the link below.
What is your role and the role of your SME?
Your support is critical, especially in the initial phase of a kick-off meeting, followed by deeper analysis and prioritization of performance issues. It is also essential to communicate to SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), and any department heads the importance of the project for the goal and to get their buying. Throughout the process, I will take you through all the milestones, like the main barriers, prioritization of actions and prototypes of the activities. You will control every process step by approving the conclusions and findings. As a result, you may decide to relocate resources to address the high-priority issues we uncovered.
How do we decide if your team needs training?
Once we have the action map, you will see if training is one of the solutions or if we can do without it. Often the main barrier to the performance of your people is not a skills gap but, for example, a cumbersome software they have to use or a conflict of interests. Both relate to the so-called working environment. Training will not help in such situations. So, instead of wasting time and budget on training, we will plan how to correct their work environment to enable them to achieve the goal. You can check Examples for more details.
How I evaluate my interventions
Many training companies use arbitrary ROI calculations to prove to clients that the training was worth the money. On the contrary, performance consulting implies that we use the client's goal to measure all our successes or failures. That is quite naturally, don't you think so? I would argue that any other way of evaluation is in favour of the training provider and not the client. Once the project enters the rollout phase, I will get feedback from the learners, their managers and objective measurements of the client's KPI to track the progress towards the goal. I then make corrections to my interventions that may mean changes in job aids, policies or training activities and measure again. It ensures that we are moving towards your goal.
I can advise you for free
I do not necessarily work for a fee. I advise companies and individual business leaders for free whenever I can afford it. I am a great proponent of performance consulting and action mapping. If you need any advice, do not hesitate to contact me. Talking with me won’t cost you anything. We can discuss the scope and the terms later if you decide it is more productive for your goal to hire me.
“Oh no, another training. Please, not now.”
What do you usually hear from people when you tell them you assigned them to a training program? That's right: "Oh no, another training. Why now? Let's do it after the year-end / next quarter/off-season". You get discouraged. They do not understand that training will help them to achieve what is most important now - their objectives. Why can they not see it? That is because your team probably experienced too many information dump courses in the past, the way Cathy Moore describes it. People do not have time to listen to another lecture. But they are eager to learn themselves, and what's more, they will spend hours and hours doing so on their own, on Youtube, Googling it, asking their colleagues whom they trust, and so on. How can we use this hunger for learning to tell our people what we think they need to do to achieve the goal? The answer sounds paradoxical: we do not need to tell them anything. We need to show them.
Show, Don’t Tell
Performance consulting deals with the real problem in the real world. What’s more, it deals with your problem, not somebody else’s issue, a fictional case, or a role-play. When I create an activity for learners, I use their real clients, customers and products or situations they face daily on the job. It is about them and their issues. The activity will simulate real-life situations, force people to make hard choices and immediately show them the consequences. It is not to tell them what is correct or incorrect, right or wrong. It is to show them the results of their choices and let them decide for themselves if the outcome is good or bad.
Learners may take different learning paths
It is very unusual for conventional training programs. They treat learners as children with empty brains or, at best, with a bunch of "bad habits" that the course must correct, and therefore, everyone must go through the same content. But wait, have you hired a bunch of empty heads or a group of kids from middle school? No, you have probably hired experienced employees with some decent past experiences and knowledge. You hoped they would apply their skills to solve your issues and achieve your goals. Why, then, do training companies treat learners like children? Partly, the answer is that the widespread training concept tells trainers to quickly demonstrate to learners how inadequate their skills are and how much they need to learn. After that, they become easier to manipulate. Importantly, it justifies a hefty bill to a client: "Look, your people had many issues in their heads, so we had to work hard to fix them". Performance consulting respects people for who they are - adults. They have luggage of knowledge and skills. They are capable of solving complex issues themselves or with a bit of guidance. A performance consulting approach will spot if they lack a particular skill. We create activities specifically targeted at this gap. Learners can take a shorter route through the activities if they prove they can make the right choices. They only learn what is missing and needed, not everything over again. We save their time and win their respect.
Spaced intervention
Learners will not go through one event as most training companies do. Instead, because performance consulting deals with the problem and your goal, it focuses on skills retention and prepares a spaced intervention for learners. It can be refreshing events, eLearning activities repeated weekly or intracompany challenges. Chat rooms help share the best practices and promote behavioural change even further.
Why performance consulting is good for learners
Performance consulting respects people for who they are – adults. I agree with industry thinkers and practitioners who insist that adults learn differently than K-12 children.
Nick Shackleton-Jones is such a thinker and author of the book How People Learn. I am happy to add to Nick's publicity with my site by recommending his book.
Nick Shackleton-Jones is a revolutionary thinker and learning industry expert.
Will performance consulting help your problem?
Without exception, every commercial or non-profit organization in every industry can benefit enormously from adopting performance consulting. You should check a few examples here. Although taking longer in the initial phase of analysing the problem, it later saves a lot of time and money that otherwise could have been wasted on unnecessary and costly training.
It is not your industry, your situation or your people that determine the success or failure of a performance consulting approach. It is you and your commitment that determines the outcome. You may be a C-level executive, unit director, subject matter expert, L&D manager or head of a corporate university. Performance consulting works best if you are committed to using it. Your support and participation in the process are essential. My role is to guide your team through the process to discover all barriers to better performance. But it will not work without your support. Check What your role is and the role of your SME if you want to know what exactly you need to do.
If you have doubts, it's ok because it might be a new approach for you. As we start our kick-off meeting, you will immediately see the benefits of performance consulting. You just need to make the first step and give performance consulting a try.
Performance consulting will not be an easy fix for your problem; most likely, there is no easy fix in your case. Otherwise, you would have solved it already. Performance consulting is the right way to approach your situation, and it may be difficult for you to tread that route on your own. That is why I am here to help you with the process, guidance, development and delivery of the best sustainable solution to help your team achieve their goals.
If still, you would instead shop for training because you believe in an easy fix, performance consulting is not for you. If you want someone else to fix your team, let me tell you, it rarely happens because that someone else has his own goals, not yours. I can recommend a few respectable training companies I know well enough if you need advice. I can guarantee that after going through their programs, your people will get some new knowledge, and I also can guarantee it will cost you time and money. Still, I cannot guarantee it will solve your problem. If you have read my site till that point, you know why.