Training is an essential component of change management, but alone it isn’t likely to inspire behaviour change. Just because someone teaches you a new skill, doesn’t mean that you will then start doing that thing .
There are other factors that must be considered, such as ‘do I understand why this skill is useful?’ ‘Do I want this skill?’ ‘Do I have a way and reason to apply this new knowledge?’ ‘Do I have the ongoing support I need to become an expert with this skill?’.
And this is why a complete change management approach rather than just training is needed to change behaviour.
Unlike children, who dive headlong into new experience, adults try to associate this new thing with other things that we’ve experienced in the past. Does this remind me of a previous experience (good or bad)?,
How did I do this thing in the past? Is this better or worse than the old way?. This back and forth, comparing old with new slows our learning down and means that we act with more caution.
It is for this reason that many of the assets we’ve developed for users associate the old with the new. Typically the caution we have is because we don’t want to look foolish as we use the new tools. Adults fear looking incompetent, which is something that children don’t bother about so much – and are all the better for!
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