Training Magazine Middle East December 2014 | Page 36

BY DEBBIE NICOL

core marketing

COLUMN - Spotlight On Change

Welcome to your new job as a corporate trainer – congratulations!

Positive signs are evident with departmental executives and leaders contributing their precious time to your extensive orientation process. The icing on the cake was the dedicated two hours from your direct leader who shared clear and focused expectations. That time shone a light on your predecessor’s shortcomings.

What a great start having a blank slate to rebuild the training function. Being the high flyer you are, you look beyond mediocrity, to the space of real and sustainable outcomes and the very fact that all eyes will be on you simply serves to inspire you more. The organization’s success will be determined by your success. It is expected that your efforts will be the make or break of the new strategic initiative, and the objective of building a culture of engagement is crystal clear.

You decide to approach this challenge with marketing the whole initiative across all levels of the organization:

- Marketing by the sponsors of the change.

- Marketing to the middle managers.

- Marketing to the masses.

Start with the core

At its most basic, workplace training is about bringing about a change, in either level of skill, knowledge or attitude. This can then evolve into the deeper level initiatives of organizational development and education, yet the initial intention is change and on-going commitment. Nobody will have a desire to buy-in to the change until they are aware of the reasons for the need to change and the consequences of not changing.

How does your marketing assist with spreading the word about why the organization is introducing a particular initiative? If awareness doesn’t exist, or worse still contradicts other reasons ‘out there’, there will simply be no opportunity to yield or prosper. Credibility will be lost, and at such an early stage, it would be very hard to regain that ground.

A great training resource that many have discovered already is dressed in the guise of a leadership video: Simon Sinek’s ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’. I’ve often seen great alignment of Simon’s message to a sales or marketing environment. His three circles highlight that power of ‘why before what’, and the positive impact that approach facilitated for Apple.

Marketing by the sponsors of the change

As this new strategy was built prior to your arrival, how is it possible for you to spread the word of the reasons?

36 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST NOV 2014

for trainers