{"id":50,"date":"2012-10-09T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T15:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tuxpan.highpoint.edu\/president\/?p=50"},"modified":"2022-08-29T20:10:52","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T20:10:52","slug":"from-training-to-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/president\/2012\/10\/09\/from-training-to-education\/","title":{"rendered":"From Training To Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me make a suggestion that at first may sound strange, coming from a management consultant. If your company has a training department, do away with it.\u00a0Replace it with a Department of Education and Development.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reason: The new business environment needs fewer people who are\u00a0trained<\/em>\u00a0to do things a specific way and more people who are\u00a0educated<\/em>\u00a0to find new ways of doing things.<\/p>\n

As Stanley Marcus once said, “You don’t train people; you train dogs and elephants; you educate people.”<\/p>\n

What’s the difference?<\/p>\n

Let me put it this way:\u00a0Would you want your teenager to have sex education or sex training<\/em>\u00a0? The choice is clear.<\/p>\n

The word\u00a0education<\/em>\u00a0comes from the Latin\u00a0educo<\/em>, which means\u00a0to change from within<\/em>.\u00a0Training<\/em>\u00a0provides an external skill. Education changes the inner person. Training deals only with the\u00a0doing<\/em>\u00a0level. Education teaches people how to think.<\/p>\n

Let me give you an example: I once ordered an apple pie and a milk shake at a fast-food restaurant. The server smiled and asked, “Would you like a dessert with that?”<\/p>\n

This young woman had been\u00a0trained<\/em>\u00a0to act. She had been conditioned to smile and try to upgrade the sale by reciting her memorized lines. And she rehearsed them to perfection.<\/p>\n

But she had not been\u00a0educated<\/em>\u00a0in customer interaction. She hadn’t been taught to\u00a0listen<\/em>\u00a0to the customer, to\u00a0think<\/em>\u00a0about what the customer ordered and to acquire a\u00a0feeling<\/em>\u00a0for what might appeal to the customer under the circumstances.<\/p>\n

Education deals with the feeling level. The ways you and I act are based on our responses to stimuli. First we think about it, then we begin to feel it, then we act based on that feeling.<\/p>\n

Ronald Reagan won a landslide election in 1980 by asking people to think, feel and act. He did it with a penetrating question:<\/p>\n

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”<\/p>\n

The voters thought about it. They felt uncomfortable about the economy. This feeling of discomfort moved them to behave in the way Reagan wanted them to behave. They voted against the incumbent administration.<\/p>\n

Training attempts to add on the qualities needed for success. Education builds them in.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you should\u00a0never<\/em>\u00a0train people. Training is essential when a specific skill must be learned, or a specific procedure must be followed consistently in a manufacturing process. But\u00a0training<\/em>\u00a0should be part of a broader educational process.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite proverbs conveys the wisdom that when you\u00a0give<\/em>\u00a0people fish, they’ll be hungry tomorrow; if you\u00a0teach<\/em>\u00a0them to fish, they’ll never go hungry. Training gives your employees a fish — a specific skill applicable to a specific task. Education\u00a0teaches<\/em>\u00a0them to fish.<\/p>\n

Corporations have no choice but to invest substantial resources in developing people. So it’s best to invest in ways that let people grow; that teach them to think for themselves; that create a pool of solid candidates for promotion to higher positions.<\/p>\n

My message to clients is clear:<\/p>\n