Ed Holton

It is a sad fact that the majority of training programs do not have any type of rigorous test to certify that knowledge and skills were learned. This unfortunate state of affairs severely limits the effectiveness of talent development programs.

Consider this: Would you want to fly with a pilot who had not been tested? Would you go to a doctor for a procedure if he/she had not been certified? Would you go to a lawyer who had not passed the bar? Would you trust your accounting to someone who had not passed the CPA exam?

The obvious answer is no. Yet, we will conduct leadership development programs for the most senior executives with no testing. We will train our salesforce with no testing, or unleash customer service reps on our customers without testing.

Why do we do this? One answer is that the adult learning literature has taught us that adults hate tests (which is true). And, the pervasive use of "happy sheet" evaluation methods leaves trainers too anxious to please their trainees rather than insure their performance effectiveness.

I suggest to you that ANY mission critical skill MUST be tested. It is the only way to insure that our talent has the expertise they need to perform effectively. And if you are running development programs that aren't important enough to require testing, then perhaps they just aren't important enough to run.

Testing is not an insult to our trainees. It is a clear signal that the training is important and using it is not optional. Its no wonder learning transfer rates are so poor when we don't even bother to test people on their knowledge and skills.