Transformation of Employees Into Trainers

Transformation of Employees Into Trainers

Creating Disciples: The Transformation of Employees into Trainers

Peter Drucker's definition of knowledge worker sets the pace for a revolution in careers, job responsibilities and the use of technologies to capture, transform and create knowledge in organizations (Drucker, et.al.). Dr. Drucker sees knowledge creation as a key determinant of the effectiveness of how knowledge workers are managed to shared objectives and the solving of complex, difficult problems businesses face (Zand, 23 -- 34). Dr. Drucker saw knowledge as the new catalyst of competitive strength and the ability of an organization to withstand the turbulent nature of markets. His research indicates that the reliance on technologists as the new enablers and supporters of process to create knowledge are in the midst of transforming organizations (Drucker, 79, 80). When the insights gained from Dr. Drucker's thought leadership on knowledge workers are taken into the context of today's competitive climate, the conclusion that the most competitive strategy is one of being able to aggressively capture and quickly use information. He connotes the velocity of change within an organization is directly tied to how well the many processes and systems work together to create a learning ecosystem that quickly grasps tacit knowledge and translates it into a strong competitive advantage (Drucker, et.al.).

In discussing, explaining and critiquing the training model defined by (Martin, Hrivnak, et.al.) the lessons learned from Dr. Drucker must be kept in mind. The reliance in the model on novice employee trainers (Martin, Hrivnak, 605, 606-610) is debatable yet there is no other group in an organization as focused on proving themselves and earning a reputation for exceptional performance. This paper analyzes the model as defined by Martin and Hrivnak (et.al.) and the implications of lessons learned from Dr. Drucker as well (Drucker, et.al.)(Zand, et.al.). Knowledge is now the catalyst of competitive strength and the ability to survive as an organization; to ignore this fact or even to downplay is to invite competitors to overwhelm markets with innovations across every front an organization competes on. Knowledge is also the catalyst that transforms a company's ability to respond to opportunities and threats at speed that would not have been possible before. In this way, knowledge is actually making competition more focused, accurate in response and far-reaching. Due to all these factors it is critically important for every organization to define their own knowledge ecosystem they can rely on to continually fuel competitive advantage and speed of response.

Analysis of the Model for Developing and Supporting Employee Trainers

The initial discussion of the model begins with a series of disclaimers as to why experienced trainers outside an organization cannot be as effective as novice employees within a company at making training sessions and strategies effective (Martin, Hrivnak, 607, 608). This is debatable as the assumption of novice employees being more motivated and having greater passion to manage the training sessions more thoughtfully and thoroughly. Certainly the model is correct in stating that trainers must be passionate about what they are teaching if they ever hope to have their students believe them. Yet to revert the model to novice employees places exceptional pressure to perform on new employees. The second fact of this is that autonomy, mastery and purpose (Ramsey, 2010) is critically important for long-term learning to occur. By having novice employees thrown into a fairly demand role of being a trainer, their motivation to attain autonomy, mastery and purpose of key materials will greatly increase. Therefore, despite the fact they are novices in a given field, the need to reach others is a very powerful catalyst for motivating themselves to learn. Studies suggest that when autonomy, mastery and purpose are together combined that the motivation to continually improve and learn more exponentially increases (Ramsey, 2010). This alone is a critical factor to consider in support of the model proposed (Martin, Hrivnak, 608).