One of the most fundamental transformations in corporate people development has been the widespread acceptance that, for many subjects, teaching does not in fact promote learning. There is a limit to the number of facts that a person can absorb in a day, and not only that, absorbing facts does not necessarily equip the learner to take action in any new way.

For most of us, school consisted of being told things “Learn this, remember this, write this down”. It was often dull, and many pupils found themselves disengaged, unable to imagine how the things they were learning might be used in the real world, still less to actually apply them. It’s hardly surprising, then, that so many managers rely on the same approach when a team member needs to learn or improve at something; the default is to tell them what’s required “Do this, do this, do this”. Often, this gets results in the short term; probably the team member can return to his task, follow those instructions by rote and get the result that’s required. What he or she has not acquired is the investigative, analytical, decision making toolkit that the manager used to arrive at the instructions given. As a result, when a slightly different scenario arrives, they’re back at the manager’s desk, asking for assistance again.

In the workplace, the solution is a combination of mentoring; providing the team member with ideas of where he/she can go to find information on a subject, for instance, and coaching. Coaching is the process of asking questions which help the learner to think their own way through an issue, and identify their own solution. It’s effective because the coach, through asking the right questions, can help the learner discover structures and strategies of thinking which enable them to tackle other, different problems; it provides them with the toolkit to be more self-reliant, and more capable.

Coaching can work well in a workshop scenario too; facilitators can ask the group questions, ask them to share their ideas and knowledge, and the presence of others with different experiences in the room can mean the problem solving and knowledge acquisition happens even more quickly than in a 1-1 situation, but this approach relies on the interaction between learner and facilitator/coach, and the flexibility for the coach to respond and ask questions in ways which suit the particular needs of the group. This is much harder to replicate in the online learning space, where all of the “teaching” side of the interaction must be predicted and programmed in advance.

This has meant that all too often, e-learning has been linear, prescriptive, based on “telling”, and frankly, a bit boring. Worse than that, since people particularly don’t learn behavioural change very well through being “told”, it’s often been ineffective. The key to changing that dynamic is in finding ways for learners to explore concepts without the need for a responsive, human coach. Growth Engineering’s “Discovery Method” achieves just that through a range of means.

The first precept is that, wherever possible, we ask the learner to explore, reflect on, and capture what they know about the topic before we attempt to introduce a model or concept. When the academic thinking, be it a model of leadership styles or the structure of a buying decision making unit, is introduced, the learner is immediately able to see how it links with what they already know and understand, and how the models are often simply giving structure and order to thinking they have previously been doing. This might take the form of making decisions to guide a character through a business scenario, selecting words and phrases that describe situations or individuals they’ve worked with, or just reflecting and taking notes on experiences they’ve had.

After the model has been explained, another stage of reflection, exploration and understanding gives the learner the opportunity to apply the thinking they’ve been doing, in practical ways, to work they are already engaged with. In a piece of sales training, that might mean looking forward to a sales meeting they’ll be having, and capturing some of the questions they are now aware they need to answer. In a leadership scenario, it might involve planning an appraisal meeting, or preparing to try to influence a more senior manager’s decision. Through immediately using the knowledge they have gained, learners embed it much more effectively than through simple memory, and further, they discover the gaps in their understanding whilst it’s still easy to click the “back” button and refresh themselves on the topic.

A final piece of insight into behavioural change came from the realisation that when people are trying to improve interactions, be they sales presentations or operational team meetings, having a strategy of things to try was only part of the battle. What learners really need is the self awareness and emotional intelligence to appreciate the impact of what they are doing on the other parties. Increasing this understanding allows them to make good decisions and get better results far beyond the scope of the specific situations explored in the e-learning. In order to promote this awareness, we turned a common e-learning paradigm on its head. Typically, learners will view a scenario, and then be asked to reflect on what happened, and the results for the protagonist, who represents them. The breakthrough in the Discovery Method was to take the focus off “what were the results for you” and to place it onto “what was the impact on the buyer/colleague/employee”. This ability to consider the impact of behaviour on others, combined with the self-reflective ability to apply tools which the learner has thoroughly made their own, and to make sensible decisions, makes for far more empowered, capable, self reliant and effective employees. And after all, isn’t that exactly what you want?

We provide eLearning platforms, eLearning content and consultancy to deliver your people-development vision

Our eLearning solutions work for both for internal staff and channel partners and our eLearning portals and eLearning services enable our customers to link business strategy directly with the development of their front-line staff.

Providing you with clear and measurable reporting of development against KPIs and company goals, our Academy infrastructure allows you to quickly and cost-effectively set up a bespoke, online corporate academy. The courses allow you to assess your staff, deliver eLearning, book training, test and certify knowledge, perform surveys and report results.

A eLearning portal enables you to

• Provide a portal for up-skilling the knowledge and soft skills of internal staff, and external channel partners
• Implement a certification program that will enable the measurement of knowledge and skills internally and externally throughout the partner channel
• Reduce the costs of training through the provision of online learning assets e.g. eLearning
• Manage HR and training administration e.g. inductions, reviews, development reports 
• Provide transparency and visibility of training and development activity
• Have a portal for sharing knowledge
• Reinforce classroom training

Please see our White Paper on 'How An Academy is Used' here

87% of what is learnt in a training session will be lost 1 month after completion of the training programme. This is usually due to ineffective post-training reinforcement and monitoring by managers. (Huthwaite Research.)

With your own online development academy, you can build a strong development culture and a powerful infrastructure to support all your development and training. 

You can manage a complete, blended-learning programme, delivering development precisely where and when it is needed.

Level 4 Sales and Marketing Management Qualifications

Who are ISMM Level 4 qualifications aimed at?

Level 4 qualifications are Vocationally Related Qualifications designed for sales professionals in an operational sales role, often managing others and allocating resources. They cover the theoretical and practical sales and marketing knowledge and skills required by aspiring sales managers and practicing sales managers to enable them to succeed in the workplace. 

There are three sizes of qualifications in the QCF: Awards, Certificates and Diplomas. These are determined by the total number of credits for the units that make up the qualification. 

ISMM level 4 qualifications in Sales and Marketing Management