Can you value leadership training?

A major debate has been sparked by severe criticism in Personnel Today of the BBC's Leadership Training Programme. An external consultant has declared there is no measurable Return on Investment in training programme, and as such it is a waste of public funds. So …..

Can You Value Leadership Training?

In simple terms, as soon as you have agreed a budget for any training programme design, you have placed what you expect will be the minimum value of the programme to your organisation.

You have clearly made some value judgements, so a great place to start would be to examine those judgements in more detail. Ask yourself the following…

How did you select this programme over other programmes on offer?

What value did you place in relative terms between the style and content of this programme and others?

Did you define the content before choosing a programme?

How was the content defined – who declared a need or objective?

Did you define outcomes and then seek a provider to design content?

Who defined the outcomes, and how?

How did you select a provider – how has this provider won your confidence?

How have you decided who will take part in the programme?

Are participants under-performers, or high flyers being groomed for succession?

Is the programme part of planned career development, or intended to raise morale in the short term?

Are you seeking a powerful way to retain staff, or needing to raise the skills of an entire team to take on a new challenge?

As you start to answer these questions, you will be examining what it is that is being valued. It can be a challenging process. If your answers are along the lines of ‘because that's the way it's always been done' or simply ‘don't know' then it may well be that some training programmes have little or no value.

If you can start to get useful answers to these questions, you have the basis for turning the broad value decisions into financial values. Imperfectly maybe, but in a sufficiently practical way to add value to your decision making, and justification for training programmes.