TRAINING FOR PERFORMANCE

The best reason for deploying training is to boost the performance of your bank, not just to impart skills and knowledge to employees.

The most successful banks I work with see training as one of several tools they can use to be more competitive, to implement strategies more effectively, to boost the performance of the entire institution. They see training as something that benefits the bank, something that enhances outcomes for the bank.

Their less successful rivals only see training as the solution to very specific problems: basic knowledge and skills for new employees, adapting to new processes or regulations or conditions. They connect "training" and "employee," as if the benefits of better performing employees accrue only to those employees themselves.

A Top-Down Issue

Your goal is to ensure that the business strategies your leadership works so hard to formulate are fully implemented on the front lines. The best laid plans will contribute little to your business success if they are not reflected in practices at every level of the institution.

Why might your guiding strategies be diluted or distorted at the front lines?

• Application lags behind knowledge: you have credit staff with good "book knowledge" of analysis, structure, and so on, but they fall short when it comes to applying that knowledge under current conditions, systems, and processes.
• Skills/knowledge lag behind change: you have highly experienced employees, and that's the problem. Economic conditions, regulatory demands, and market expectations have changed dramatically in recent years, and your employees have not changed with them.
• Colliding cultures: there are very few banks these days that have not been affected by mergers and acquisitions, which mixes together different sets of employees with different ideas about "how we do things around here." They need to "reset" their knowledge and skills to the same point, so they can work seamlessly together to produce better outcomes for the bank.

When you look at individuals, it is easy to identify new employees, or new responsibilities, that require training before those employees can even do their jobs.

When you look at what capabilities employees need to help the bank, and when you set standards for how consistently you want employees to apply those capabilities, you find opportunities to reinforce a common understanding and a shared approach to carrying out preferred practices and designated business strategies.

How I Help Your Bank's Performance

Explore this section for more about the training services I offer. You can learn about:

• the audiences and topics I teach most often;
• the training clients who book me for training again and again;
• the testimonials I receive from clients (and from those who read my published material), reflecting my ability to communicate ideas and influence employee behavior;
• why you may want to customize employee training to reflect your specific processes, language, and strategies, producing better outcomes, faster.
• How to "test drive" my ideas and my communication skills to see if my approach will work for you.

Training is rarely enough. It is one component to building a "tight" culture that aligns the leadership and the front lines of your bank. Please visit my "Culture Issues" page for much more about how your culture impacts your bank's performance.

When the skills, knowledge, or beliefs of your employees match the strategies, standards, and preferred practices of your institution, you gain a significant competitive advantage over your market rivals.