Training combined with coaching can make a significant difference in job performance and satisfaction.
Each year, organisations of all sizes invest millions of dollars to train their workforce. In the area of Leadership Development alone, Training magazine reported that some organisations in a single year wrote checks in excess of $750,000 (Delahoussaye, 2001, p. 14). As Edward T. Reilly, president and CEO of American Management Association (AMA), New York stated, ‘Training has long been an essential element in business, and it is even more important today with recent layoffs and a slowing economy’ (Delahoussaye, 2001, p. 1). Georgenson indicated in his article, The Problem of Transfer Calls for Partnership, that approximately 10% of the dollars spent on training results in any behavioural change back in the workplace (Georgenson, 1982, p. 75).
While companies realise the importance of training their people, one of the challenges management faces is whether or not any of the skills introduced in these training programmes are actually being used back on the job, especially in this new technological era. Authors, Nadjeschda Hebenstreit and Katrin Hinzdorf, in their article, Taking the lead: Effectiveness of a Modular Coaching Program for Transformational Leadership Development, only reconfirm this concern by stating that, ‘Traditional training programs often do not initiate the quantum leap from understanding a concept to transforming deep-rooted mindsets and behaviours’ (Hebenstreit & Hinzdorf, 2006, p. 52). In succinct terms, Marshal Goldsmith, corporate executive coach guru, refers to the transfer of learning to actual behaviour as a faulty assumption of ‘If they understand, they will do’ (Goldsmith, 2007, p. xiii).
