Go to the legal department of any corporation. Who is leading that organization? It is a lawyer, who is educated, trained and certified in the vocation of law. Who makes up the staff of the legal department? With the exception of the administrative staff, the legal department is staffed with lawyers who are also educated, trained and certified in the vocation of law. Go to your local hospital. Who oversees surgery? It is a doctor who is educated, trained and certified in medicine. Who makes up the medical staff? Other doctors who are all educated, trained and certified in their vocation. Doctors and lawyers (well maybe not lawyers) receive a tremendous amount of respect in our society, and neither is allowed to practice their craft without the requisite certification. Most people would not tell their doctor where to make the incision during a surgical procedure.
Let us now apply that same logic to training departments. Who heads up the training department for your company? Is it someone who is educated, trained and certified as a training manager or training executive? Or is it someone who has been with the company for a long time, moved around from department to department and has now been put in charge of training. If the later is the case, has this individual taken the initiative to get educated or become certified in his new vocation? Who makes up the staff of the training department of your company? Is the training department staffed with professional trainers and instructional designers who are formally educated, trained or certified to do their jobs? Now consider this, how often do business line managers tell trainers how to approach a training program?
Many “training professionals” complain about the “lack of respect” that they receive from the line areas of their organizations. Some suggest that if only they had a “seat” at the executive table, they would be able to create programs that had a measurable business impact. Others suggest that business managers either don’t understand or don’t appreciate the importance of training in an organization. The reality is that the lack of formal educational or certification requirements as a prerequisite for holding a job in training and development leave many organizations staffed with individuals who probably should not be doing the job. The fact that there are no standard set of competencies that one must demonstrate a mastery of to hold a training position, creates an environment many “training professionals” do more of a disservice to to the training industry than “disrespectful” line managers could ever do.
About a year ago I spoke to a group of about 200 “training professionals”. During my presentation, I made a casual comment about Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick’s third level of evaluation. I noticed blank stares from some of the audience members. Finally one brave attendee, who was the vice president of training for a large insurance company, raised her hand and said “what’s a level 3 evaluation?” I asked the audience how many had never heard of Dr. Kirkpatrick and his four levels of evaluation. About one-third of the audience raised their hands. Imagine a group of surgeons attending a medical convention being asked which type of scalpel they prefer to use, and one third of them don’t even know what a scalpel is.
If we as a profession are to get the respect that we so desperately desire, we must agree to, and demand, a set of minimal competencies that are required of those who work in the profession.
