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Disclaimer: Before you read on, know that I'm working for a training company and the following could be considered bias. But also know that most of the opinions here come from years of experience in developing people's skill sets and helping them get more competent at what they do.
For the last 7 years I've been working as an instructor in one form or the other. First couple of years as a consultant for training companies and the last couple of years hired at Sweden's largest CPLS (training company for IT Pros and Developers) Cornerstone. Moving from consultant to instructor has been a long journey, much like going from a programmer to a system developer. The journey has been in understanding the essence of competence and learning how to move instill competency in people. One of the greater plateaus on the road has been that of separating knowledge and competence, to separate the notion that you know a thing or about a thing and that you know how to use it and understands what it is for.
Knowledge is something that I can get by reading a book or an article on internet. But to get the thorough understanding of the subject and the ability to put that knowledge into a context and title myself competent in the same subject I need something else.
I need experience!
Experience is really hard to come by, every company I know that are hiring system developers is looking for it and it is usually measured in years. Every year of experience is worth its weight in some really expensive natural resource. It is usually worth more than any formal education (although employers require you to have a degree of some sort) and even your salary will be based on your experience.
Does experience guarantee knowledge, I would argue it doesn't. Does experience guarantee competence, probably not?
Competence is the combination of knowledge, experience and skill sets. It's a package deal where you need all three to get the full package. And it's a sweet package deal; everyone wants colleagues and employees that are competent because they usually excel at their jobs.
Now if we all agree that competence is the cream on the cake, why doesn't the requirement for competence make it out of the wanted ads and inside the departments?
Let me discuss two common scenarios.
The "Do it aloneers":
More often than not I run into companies that state that:
"We do all competence development in-house, my employees usually surfs the web and I let them buy books that they read on their own time and we believe in competence transfer between peers".
Even though that statement is one of the better I've heard (I have some horror stories, buy me beer and I will tell you), it is really horrific. When it comes to hiring competence is what matters; but as soon as the papers are signed it seems that creating knowledge is enough. Instead of making sure that the employee develops competences effectively, the employee gets knowledge from a book and are pretty much left alone to move the knowledge into competence. The competence value given from the book read will be influenced by what the individual makes out of it, what projects he/she applies the knowledge on and what skill sets are acquired in the process.
The "Conference goers":
Another common statement is:
"My employees get to go to conferences once a year and we have some internal seminars"
This is a much better approach, at conferences and seminars the speakers usually creates a greater understanding for the subject and the ability to ask questions and discuss the topic with someone already competent is invaluable. But conferences and seminars will still only give you part of the package deal, you will not get the competence of the speaker only the knowledge that he/she shares at that specific time.
Conferences and seminars are great as a source for inspiration, energy boost and new ideas, but making you more competent it will not.
Both scenarios, and variation of the two, are very common and the problem is similar. By letting the individual be on his/her own you will always get individual results. There is no way to ensure ROI or even expect any further competence being developed during the years the employee is hired at your company. Some will do great and excel, while others will stop in their personal development and will not move forward with the company they work for.
Would the same employers hire inexperienced self-taught employees rather than someone as inexperienced but with formal degree from a college or university? Most wouldn't. For a good reason.
Achieving competence
They key to successfully achieve competence is to train in the skill you are trying to get. If you where to compete in ju-jitsu, you wouldn't just read a book on the subject (there are several really good ones) you would also train in the techniques the book covers to get experience in using them. You would train, a lot, before you entered that competition. The same should be true for any other skill (competence) you plan to use out in the wild.
So how do I make sure I train effectively? In ju-jitsu it is possible to train on your own. But to improve and to become awesome you need feedback and suggestions on improvements from someone, an instructor, who understands what you are trying to do. An Instructor that is skilled in the art of teaching. Which in addition to give you feedback on what you currently are doing includes giving you drills and exercises that challenges your current ability and sets you on the right path to achieve the skill (competence) you are after. If ju-jitsu is the skill I'm after I usually find one of these instructors in a dojo, a facility created and designed to be as effective as possible for learning, packed with equipment that will further enhance the effectiveness of the training. He will probably not conduct the training in your home with your children running around you, or at your work place with your everyday tasks stealing your attention.
What does that mean for other, less physical and more technical skills, where is the technical dojo and instructor?
There is basically four ways to conduct technical training, each with its pros and cons. I will talk briefly about them here and elaborate on each of them later on.
Mentoring
With mentoring I don't mean a senior person that answers your questions, I mean a mentor that will work with you to develop your competence that like a ju-jitsu instructor will challenge you and give you tasks and exercises to complete in addition to give you feedback. A mentor will help you acquire knowledge by pointing you in the right direction and he/she will know how to help you convert that knowledge into competence. You still do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself, but the mentor will make sure that you stay on the right path and will throw a rock or two on the road ahead to keep you on your toes.
Classroom training
In classroom training you go to the instructor's dojo to learn. You will probably be there with other peers trying to get the same competence as you do, he will have a pre-prepared training program which combines teaching of knowledge with hands on experience and development of skill sets to get you that sweet package deal. A skilled classroom instructor will make sure that you leave his classroom with not only the knowledge of the subject but also the competence or at least some essence of competence.
Workshops / hands-on
A workshop is much like classroom training; you got the instructors and his dojo. But for a workshop the focus is on acquiring the experience and skill sets to accompany knowledge you already got. With pre-prepared exercises the instructor will help you convert that knowledge to experience. Much like a sparring session in a ju-jitsu dojo, there is not much theory just some feedback on what you are doing.
Blended learning
Blended learning is something in between. It combines the ideas of mentoring with the ideas of either classroom training or workshops with a lot of self study. The idea is to mix some training in the dojo with exercises and reading on your own which you will get feedback on the next time you meet in the dojo. Executed right it will get the benefits from mentoring, self-study and classroom training.
There might be others (I've left out e-learning for a reason, I would like to get back on that later) but these are what I have seen work and does give effective results. The essence for all four of them is the mix of theoretical knowledge with experience of using the knowledge in a context. That will instill competence.
The question is, would you go up or send your employee into the ju-jitsu competition without proper training? Or to put a more business touch on it, would you give a book about building cars to the guy you hired to build your car factory or would you like him to have done it at least once before? Or to put it a bit closer at home, would you like to pay a guy that has seen someone else fix a bathroom to fix yours?
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