Most of us would agree that the weakest link in organizational learning and development occurs in the follow-through phase. Recently, I had a demo on the expanded functionality of Zenger Folkman´s ActionPlan Mapper (TM) For those of you who are not aware of this tool, let me provide a quick overview.

ActionPlan Mapperä by Zenger Folkman, and another tool called Friday5s(R) from Fort Hill Company, are both "transfer management tools" designed to enable inexpensive and systematic follow-through on goals and objectives set in a training program or in one´s development plan. Not only do they prompt learners on a regular basis to reflect on and report out on their progress made and challenges encountered, but also they provide access to coaching from others and generate reports on progress made.

Research has shown that pre-work contributes to the effectiveness of learning, and clearly, time spent in the learning experience is valuable.  What is significant, based on this finding by Dr. Brent Peterson, is that approximately 50% of the ultimate effectiveness of learning can be attributed to what happens after the learning experience ends.

In a recent webcast, we polled our audience to see how many of the participating organizations actively engaged in follow-through after training to ensure skill/behavior transfer. Only 19% of the respondents said they emphasize follow-through more than half the time. 

Respondents were then asked to comment on what gets in the way of effective follow-through after leadership training programs. Their answers shed more light on why so few organizations actively facilitate the link between learning and doing. They can be categorized as follows:

• Structural silos between training and management result in no consistent effort to integrate learning and performance. Training is viewed as an isolated event. The training department´s job is viewed as over once the program has been taken and the ´smile sheet´ handed in.  Managers are often unaware of the content and purpose of the training and therefore, little attention is paid to what happens as a result.
• There is a lack of incentives to bridge training to performance. Neither training departments nor managers are typically measured on whether training returns on its investment.
• Training lacks relevance to actual job environment. It would be tough to transfer training that doesn´t apply to the work. (Of course, we´re wondering why companies would conduct such training in the first place!)
• There is a lack of simple systems for consistent follow up and measurement of results. 

Question: How would your organization answer these questions? 

In controlled trials conducted by Fort Hill and its clients, the use of their transfer management system increased the amount of post-course effort, the number of discussions with the manager, and the degree of improvement as perceived by both the program participants and their managers.

Both of these online solutions are:

• Delivered via Application Service Provider model (ASP), which means the software is hosted on the vendors´ servers. This means little to no involvement of your IT staff in the process and no investment in software/hardware/staff.
• Very user-friendly and intuitive
• Cost-effective
• Easy and quick to implement
• Highly customizable
• Effective at capturing goals set in any training program, IDP or project
• Systematic in their reminders and tracking of progress, plans, modifications, milestones
• Catalysts for increased coaching/feedback conversations
• Priced based on number of users and the length of follow-through
• Helpful in providing reports to management and training administrators to see how and if the training is being transferred
• Flexible enough to be used as simple performance management systems or project tracking systems

Here is a systematic and cost-effective way to keep training projects, IDPs, action learning and stretch assignments on track, and provide an easy mechanism for employees to make development an ongoing priority. They enable learners to quickly and easily communicate their progress and challenges along the way. If we´re truly invested in improved performance over time, it is time to put systems in place to facilitate follow-through and skill transfer.