Extrapolating for a Reality Check

If you've ever witnessed or participated in an organization-wide paradigm shift, then you know it takes two to five years for that shift to become a reality: The budget expended, the number of planning and strategic sessions involved, the countless staff and management implementation meetings, the myriad of training events and organizational development interventions that had to transpire, the volumes of lessons learnedand finally the organization successfully transformed from its status quo into something new.


Extrapolating, if a department or division needs training on a technological advancement, or some new regulatory knowledge base, how soon would you expect to see significant change reach critical mass? Two months? Six months? No matter the scope of any change project, numerous factors will have an impact on the probability for learning, performance, and technology to actually transfer to the workplace as envisioned. This paper is about both positive and adverse factors of a universal nature. The adverse factors are so comically out of proportion in their widespread prevalence that on average "less than 15% of what people learn in training actually transfers to the job in a way that enhances performance (Wang and Wentling, 2001; Baldwin and Ford, 1988; Broad and Newstrom, 1992).




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