Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2020 - 25

between learners who attended
training and were then empowered
to figure out training transfer and skill
development on their own and those
who were greeted on the other side of
the training event with a sustainment
structure that featured microlearning
content refreshers in conjunction
with the services of a dedicated and
certified leadership skills coach.
That is the essence of the hypothesis that
motivated a research project The Center
for Leadership Studies embarked upon
with Training Industry, Inc. In the spirit of
complete transparency, portions of the
results surprised us, and we believe they
have the potential to surprise you as well.

THE STUDY

A total of 77 learners from five highly
diverse organizations participated,
including government agency, banking,
non-profit, healthcare and manufacturing
sectors. The study was eight weeks in
duration with evaluations before and
after that measured the following:
* Occupational self-efficacy: Do I
believe I can do my job effectively?
* Organizational adaptability: Can
I effectively respond to disruptive
change?
* Team adaptability: Can I effectively
respond to the needs of my team in
the face of change?
* Workplace status: Do I have the
respect of others?
* Practice: Do I intend to practice the
leadership skills I learn during training
after the event?
After completing the pre-test, participants
attended six hours of virtual training
in Situational Leadership® over two
days. At that juncture, they were
randomly assigned to four conditions of
reinforcement (Figure 1):
* Condition A: Received both coaching
and microlearning.
* Condition B: Received microlearning.

Virtual
Training
A

Situational
Leadership©

B
C
D

Pre-test

4 weeks

Post-test

Coaching: Two virtual sessions (15 to
20 minutes in duration) with a certified
leadership skills coach. Each session
took place at or around the midpoint of
each reinforcement cycle.

review amid the chaos of COVID-19
and social distancing mandates.
Organizational resiliency has never
been in greater demand. Since an
organization's overall resiliency is a
function of frontline responsiveness,
we believe a manager's ability to help
his or her team effectively adapt to
unforeseen and massively disruptive
change is resiliency in action.

* Session 1: Coach provided the learnerpractitioner with feedback on an
application activity completed during
training and facilitated agreement on
an implementation plan, including
elements of perfect practice.

Another aspect of our findings made
more interesting and telling by the
rise of COVID: The entire project was
conducted virtually - each training
session, content refresher and skillscoaching discussion.

* Condition C: Received coaching.
* Condition D: Received no
reinforcement.

* Session 2: Coach and learnerpractitioner discuss outcomes of
initial implementation and agree on a
plan moving forward.
Microlearning: Four virtually delivered
content refreshers delivered at twoweek intervals over both reinforcement
cycles. Each component of microlearning
was designed to take approximately
eight minutes to complete.

THE RESULTS

In general, here's what we learned:
1. Reinforcement had a positive impact
on team adaptability as well as the
intent of the learner-practitioner to
continue practice moving forward.
We believe this is worthy of attention
for a couple of reasons. First off,
this article is being submitted for

2. The participants themselves significantly influenced the results. The
pre-test identified those who placed
high value on becoming better
leaders through goal setting. This had
a positive impact on workplace status
as well as the frequency, duration and
intent of the learner-practitioners to
continue to practice moving forward.
Among the variables that present
themselves between the successful
completion of leadership training and
outcomes attributed to the successful
transfer of that learning, it can be easy
to overlook the learner. It is akin to the

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Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2020

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