Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

Hundreds of you responded to our survey and asked for more one-on-one time with our training staff. We had a good hunch this was how you all felt, and we had already been exploring ways to offer you the highest quality training and consulting we could and not kill off all our local training staff. We also know that the training you learn through workshops can be hard to implement—and we measure our success by what you actually learn and put into practice.

A friend of mine, Larry Lloyd, sent me some interesting information about how people learn and put that learning into action. Larry shared some great questions and answers he learned at a Compassion Grant orientation:

What percent of what people learn in training gets applied on the job?

Answer: According to the National Implementation Research Network’s monograph, Implementation and Research, less than 10 percent of what is learned in training is used on the job. That number jumps to 95% when coaching is used in addition to training.

What is the least effective way to convey information in a presentation?

Answer: Almost 90% of people are visual and kinesthetic learners, so lectures would be the least effective for most people.

What is the biggest impediment to learning something new?

Answer: Incorrect information that people think is correct.

This data reinforces what you asked for in the survey. We will continue to offer workshops, but workshops alone will not produce the fruit on your trees that God desires. To that end, we will be offering more direct consulting for each of you and adding interaction to the workshops to help you learn and apply the principles we teach.

This means that those who attend the workshops can schedule a follow-up personal consulting meeting with your local Mission Increase officer to discuss and apply the workshop material in your context. We are passionate about Transformational Giving, so we will maintain our regular workshops, and the consulting times will be designed to help you go deeper on each subject and get a little extra help to put it into action.

We are hope you will avail yourselves to these personal coaching times, and we hope to see 95% of you put the TG training you learn into action. Be watching for this big change in 2010.

Like our workshops, there will be no charge for the coaching. Just because the coaching is free does not mean that it is cheap or without value. In fact, our survey results showed that those organizations that attended the workshops and implemented the training grew and raised more income. It seems pretty simple—be hearers and doers, and let the results speak for themselves.