Finally! The ‘feedback’ compilation arrives from a course I ran a few months ago for EU colleagues in Brussels on the general theme of Ethical Dilemmas in Diplomacy.

Everyone is dutifully tasked to complete these forms at the end of a course. A bundle of these forms show trends. Were the great mass of people pleased with what they heard, or not? What sessions stood out on the day? Any obvious clunkers?

But what catch the eye (of course) are the disobliging but somehow oddly perceptive sneers of the disgruntled few:

Rather patronising and arrogant style, giving examples/descriptions irrelevant to the topic of the training. Rather a stroll down the memory lane of a retired diplomat

For all the impressive scale of the global training industry these days, the whole business is to a large extent hit and miss.

F’rinstance. How many readers here have had professional training courses of some sort since starting work?

Answer: everyone.

What courses actually imparted something memorable and operationally useful?

Which of those courses gave insights you can recall and still use weeks, months or even years afterwards?

Almost none.

Back in the FCO I recall a senior management meeting when I suggested that we freeze ‘training’ until we had done some sort of survey of which training courses had actually been effective, and what techniques had been especially worthwhile in getting key points across to the punters. Could any one there immediately recall a brilliant training outcome?

Glazed uneasy looks around the table, followed by quick change of subject.

Back in 1992 or so I did a good management course with the London Business School. I can still remember a number of the sessions, but above all one on How to Break Bad News.

You need to tell someone that they have been fired or have not promoted or that a relative has died suddenly? Yes, there are ways to do this which help the person hearing the bad news cope with the bolt from the blue, and which help the person giving the bad news pace the occasion firmly but kindly.

I have had to break bad news to people thereafter, and (on the whole) have done so well, drawing on the practical techniques imparted on that one training session. Really good.

Otherwise I have sat through all sorts of other courses which have made no impact whatsoever, other than to allow the trainers and trainees smugly to tick lots of Investors in People and suchlike boxes.

My own forays into the world of training since leaving the FCO have taught me a lot. Such as the central role of video analysis.

There is just nothing to compare with being filmed then watching yourself in a role-play of some sort, even for just a few minutes. The gripping horror of the occasion is utterly memorable and so has a transformatory effect, as I noted last week in Warsaw.

We ran short mock TV interviews for the senior course members. They seemed to learn more about themselves and about ‘communication’ in those short role-plays than they had done in years of more formal training based on presentations and principles.

Conclusion?

Sometimes courses generate such seething loathing that participants invent new portmanteau words to express their contempt, in this case damning my tendency to be at once too anecdotal and too toadying:

Much too much anectodiacal (huge loss of time). Need of more time for case studies and exchange between participants.

Fine. Give me more time, and you’ll get better training.

Suggestion  Readers! Send in short examples of what training has worked for you and why! Then I’ll compile them and we can start to change the world