by Ashley Andrus

If Starbucks had a Most Valued Customer club I would have it made in the shade.  Those 600 locations they are closing?  Not my fault. Between my 6am get-‘er-done dose, various meetings, and insane afternoons that scream “get me a mocha STAT!” I estimate that I make an average of 2.3 daily visits to some Starbucks somewhere.

This has been my routine for the last 3.5 years. In that period I calculate I’ve consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,259 ounces* of coffee.

That’s 275 gallons of coffee.

1100 quarts.

Heck, if coffee came in beer kegs, I would have consumed almost 18 of them. By myself.

And I did it all one “tall” serving at a time.

The point? The little things add up. In the same way continuous small doses of material goods accumulate, the same goes for people development. Training—effective training, that is—is not a one-time “hit and run” thing.

This isn’t a newsflash, or at least it shouldn’t be.  When you show up for the first day of Little League practice, you aren’t playing at the Major League level.  You probably can’t even stop that slow rolling grounder from getting through your legs.  When you sit down at a piano for the first time, you don’t play like Liberace. You can’t even manage chopsticks. Building skills takes practice. We know this. So why don’t we more often apply it at work?

Effective people development programs aren’t merely about workshops, webinars, and e-learning courses. Those are necessary, but not sufficient.  True continuous skills development requires ongoing opportunities to learn.

There are a wide range of effective ways organizations can offer bite-sized pieces of information to complement formal content delivery:

• As Gina Schreck of Synapse 3Di explains, “when utilized properly, entertaining podcasts, informative videos, internal discussion boards, social media tools, employee business book clubs and relevant and timely articles can give your brain a Triple Venti Espresso of energy with new ideas and action items to implement.”
• Todd Hudson of the Maverick Institute says “Training needs to learn from manufacturing and ‘Go Lean’. Let people pull the information they need exactly when they need it.”  Whether it’s using face-to-face methods like peer mentoring or digital ones like wikis, organizations are retooling to eliminate waste and make every training dollar deliver measurable business results.
• Tara Powers of Powers Developmental Resources describes the efficacy of true blended learning solutions.  “Instead of stand-alone workshops, employees might participate in a pre-program survey, an e-learning module or online assessment and an instructor-led component, followed by facilitated action planning and regular accountability checkpoints to one’s manager.”

I’m sure there are some people out there who disagree. These are the same people who say “taking the stairs at work won’t make you healthier or lose weight. The only way to make a difference is to commit whole hog and start training for a marathon.” Well, marathon training works for some folks. But for a lot of people, that’s an overwhelming goal. And not everyone has either the time or the inclination to run multiple miles per day, week in, week out.

But a sprint isn’t the answer, either. Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare?  Slow and steady wins the race. You can’t drink 275 gallons of coffee in one sitting.  And you wouldn’t want to even if you could. It’s better to savor the journey—12 ounces at a time.

* 12 oz/visit x 2.3 visits/day x 365 days/year x 3.5 years

Ashley Andrus is President of Zoe Training & Consulting. Besides coffee, her passion is making HR folks and meeting planners look like *rock stars* by providing one-stop access to 90+ speakers, trainers, facilitators, coaches, and consultants.