Good training should focus on achieving results, often by personalizing the instruction. The training should ideally not end until business objectives are met. Since I teach presenting, for me this includes the objectives students need to go on to achieve with subsequent presentations. I don’t teach set programs by rote and I don’t teach to “rules of thumb.” I encourage clients to see training as a project, with “student” preparation before and mentoring after the actual training.

You can make it through the curricula, have each aspect understood and even mastered, and still not make substantive change in on-the-job performance. I believe trainers should consult to identify client needs and then apply their expertise, experience and talents to substantially re-shape client performance.

Many trainings lean heavily on hackneyed, tactical rules of thumb (again, in my world, things like slides per minute, words per line, font size, “platform skills” such as gestures, and “one size fits all” rules like never say “um”). While each tactic has its use, training is not a “one size fits all” sport.

It’s also a big mistake to treat what you are training (presentation skills, management theory, your discipline here) as the end product. Repeat after me, “what I am training is always just a tool to achieve a specific business result.” Here’s how this plays out in my work:

I teach clients to see their business presentations strategically. I develop two core abilities: how to work from the audience and the business objective/s to craft the message, and how to find individualized ways to prepare and present. I actually teach how to stop “presenting” and start engaging with their audiences. Most of all I exhort clients to know what they want the audience to do as a result of the presentation. If the presenter doesn’t know, the audience certainly won’t.

I challenge you to make your own training work more effective. Can you set aside your training “tactics” long enough to consult with your clients and keep a tight focus on what they (strategically) need to achieve?