What-Where-How:  A Strategic Approach to Training
By Rockie Blunt, President

Today's corporate training function, like all other areas of organizational life, is undergoing a fundamental, systemic change. Traditionally trainers saw their primary responsibility as delivering skills-building seminars, but they are now more likely to call themselves "performance improvement specialists" or "process consultants."  Training is expected to do more than transfer information to employees these days; it functions as a full partner in a company's effort to shape strategic direction.To make this transition, corporate trainers are evolving into organizational development specialists, learning facilitators, problem solvers, and change agents.  The field has become increasingly sophisticated and challenging.  In addition to teaching, trainers must also collect and analyze performance data, plan and design training programs, conduct interventions to solve organizational problems, and evaluate educational projects.This expanded repertoire of responsibilities, in fact, has prompted a new look at the educational process in present-day businesses.  Terms like "intellectual capital" and "knowledge management" have been coined to reflect the accelerating importance of the learning function in our information age.  New positions, with names like "chief learning officer" and "director of knowledge management," have been created to conceptualize and manage this learning potential of corporate America.It is against this backdrop of shifting roles and identities that a more strategic approach to training is evolving.  Think of it as a What-Where-How method.  The What stands for "what's going on now"; that is, the existing performance conditions in a company.  The Where is "where the company wants to be," and the How is "how the company is going to get there."  Within a strategic planning context, the What can also be viewed in relation to a mission statement (what the company actually does), the Where to a vision statement (where the company wants to be in five or ten years), and the How to a values statement (the way the company does business).

It is a short jump, then, to see corporate learning in this strategic light:  the current performance issues of a company or department  are assessed (to determine the What), those issues are examined in relation to the organization's stated business goals and objectives (the Where), and then appropriate training or organizational development interventions (the How) are formulated.