Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Picture 24. What training can address
In fact, any training allows participants to learn something, and any training may cause some
change in thinking – in the table above we just emphasized what training may be designed to do. It
may be aimed exclusively at learning things – e.g. requirements of newly passed legislation and/or
how to apply them in practice. It may be aimed exclusively at changing thinking – instead of
thinking that they annoy one another due to limited space in the office; they should start to think
that they annoy one another due to irrelevant behaviour.
Changing thinking may require learning some new things. However, the new ideas will be valid and
accepted as a catalyst for change based on the participants’ own experience only. It may be
previous life experience, or experience received during the training event. Although organizational
changes may be implemented by administrative force – following the official regulation or experts’
advice – training intervention is about creating an internal drive for change. Then the potential for
self-organization will emerge and the necessary change will happen in a more natural and effective
way.
Basic distinctive features of two categories of training are presented in Table 1 .
Program/ content
Key knowledge and
information resources
Training for learning
things
(To acquire knowledge and
skills)
To be determined
by the client
in advance
Owned by the consultant
Training for changing
thinking
To be determined
by the consultant
during the course of a
workshop
Owned by the participants
Participants
Those who want to learn,
and/or are assigned
by an authority
Those who are needed for
a particular impact
(identified
by the consultant in
collaboration with the
management)
Involvement
Outcome is usually in
linear proportion to the
number of participants
Outcome is non-linear – it
may be zero or a disaster if
there is not sufficient
participation to achieve an
100% result
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