Diagnose Before You Design
In part one of this series, we talked about the art of separating the signal from the noise. We explored how so many learning and development programmes fail because they focus on everything at once, rather than the one thing that truly matters.
The whole purpose of learning and development is very simple: to make people more capable and more confident in what they do.
But if you think of any profession - doctor, consultant, salesperson, electrician, mechanic - there are countless things you could train. A long list of admirable, sensible, important skills.
The work of a learning designer is to discern what will make the biggest difference, or what is most critical, right now. And here’s a story of what happens when this discernment is missing.
A Misdiagnosed Problem
A few years ago, we were building an academy for a sales and consultancy team that had enjoyed thirty years of continuous growth. Then, over five years, the numbers had flatlined, and several teams were in decline. One such team was an outbound sales team responsible for calling lapsed customers - people who already had an account but hadn’t spent anything for a year.
The sales leader, who was a genuinely brilliant person, believed the core issue was “Lazy Gen Z.” "They're just not making enough calls", he said.
Of the ten people on the team, nine were twenty-two or younger. It was an entry-level role, and they weren’t making the targeted thirty calls per hour. The diagnosis was generational laziness.
Based on our recent work with similar teams, we didn’t believe this would be the case.
What Was Really Happening
After spending a few days shadowing the team, a very different picture emerged. They weren’t making too few calls; they were making too many. And because they were making too many, the call quality wasn’t good. In many cases, they were actually harming their chances of winning customers back.
We diagnosed the real problem: the training the team had received was antiquated and inadequate. It wasn’t building confidence, and it wasn’t building capability. It was driving all the wrong behaviours.
The sales leader was open-minded and willing to rethink the problem, which made all the difference. We spent two and a half days with the team in the classroom, focusing on just three primary areas:
how to give an authentic and unique introduction
how to ask thoughtful and genuinely interesting questions
how to tell great stories rather than push product
The result was a sales increase of 147 percent. The average call length went from 47 seconds to 15 minutes. Every person hit their bonus month after month for the first time since the team began, and attrition began to fall sharply.
All because the real problem was diagnosed before any training was designed.
The Principle
A great learning partner must do the same. There is no good solution without a sound diagnosis. No transformation without clarity on what will make the most significant difference. No meaningful learning without understanding what truly needs to change.
Closing Note
Thank you for reading, and a warm welcome again to those joining us for the first time. We look forward to seeing you in Part Three.
Have a great week, and good luck with your work.
Benjamin
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