Cal Wick
Founder and Chairman
Fort HIll Company

I believe that learning and development programs can be key contributors to a company’s success.

For the past 20 years, my interest and research have focused on how to accelerate learning.

The outcome I want to help you reach is to have those who fund your programs say, “Wow!” “Look at what you have delivered in terms of improved results. We want more.”

Cal Wick

Cal Wick is the Founder and Chairman of Fort Hill Company.

Cal is a nationally-recognized consultant, educator and researcher on improving the performance of managers and organizations. His book, The Learning Edge: How Smart Managers and Smart Companies Stay Ahead (McGraw-Hill), is an in-depth study of how companies can make learning a competitive advantage.

His research led to the concept of Follow-Through Management® and the development of web-based Follow-Through Tools® and the 6Ds™ design process that together have been shown to dramatically improve learning transfer and results.

Cal earned a Masters of Science degree as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He graduated as a Rockefeller Fellow from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

The purpose of Learning Alert is to share best practices that help learners follow-through and improve their personal and business results.

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Are you looking at the right
finish line?

In his best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell explains the Power of Context — how small changes in context can produce a profound difference in outcomes. How we define the finish line for learning and development programs is such a tipping point.

The last item on every program plan I have been asked to review is always something like "closing ceremony" or program ends" – suggesting that the participant’s work is over when the last session ends.

If fact, the real work of turning learning into improved performance doesn't start until the class ends. The objective of corporate education – to improve business and personal results – is only achieved if program participants transfer what they have learned to their work and apply it on the job.

We need to change the last item on the agenda to read “launch your follow-through” or “begin application.”

This seemingly simple change has profound implications. It sends the message to the participants and to ourselves as educators that the real finish line of corporate learning is in the work place.

The implicit promise of corporate education has always been that the performance of the individuals and their organizations will improve. This promise is fulfilled only when participants follow-through and apply what they have learned in a way that actually improves results.

Without follow-through, learning and development fails to deliver on its promise.

Pressure to demonstrate return on learning investments is increasing. Learning organizations can no longer afford to leave follow-through and application to chance.

We need to become experts in how to accelerate and support learning transfer. As one Chief Learning Officer said to me, “Some day soon my CEO is going to come into my office and ask what improvement we have delivered. If I don’t have a well-documented answer, I may as well start looking for another job. It no longer will fly for me to say, ‘We delivered 6,000 hours of training’ or ‘our participants liked their courses.’”

Ideas for Action

To extend the reach and impact of your learning initiatives:

1. Define a new finish line for your programs.

Picture a time three months after the event and ask yourself: “What will participants be doing better and differently that benefits the organization?” Your answer should be the sole (and soul) driving force of your initiative. It defines the real finish line for your work as a learning organization.

2. Think of learning as a process, not an event.

Remember that learning begins before the course and continues afterward. Ensure that each step of the process is designed and delivered to maximize transfer and application. Pay particular attention to the most-often neglected post-course period.

3. Harness the work environment to support transfer.

The best-planned and -executed program will fail to deliver results if the work environment – especially the participant’s manager – does not support it. The overall plan for a learning initiative must include efforts to recruit managerial support and reinforcement.

Redefining the finish line for corporate education, and truly thinking of the last session of a course as commencement, have the power to transform corporate education and revolutionize its impact.

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