Elwood F. "Ed" Holton III, is CEO of Learning Transfer Solutions Global LLC and Jones S.

Davis Distinguished Professor of Human Resource, Leadership and Organization Development at Louisiana State University, USA. Dr. Holton has led efforts to create the Learning Transfer System Inventory and the Training Transfer Solution system over the last 15 years. With over 200 articles and 17 books, he is widely considered to be an international expert on human resource development and particularly learning transfer. Contact him at edholton@ltsglobal.com

Dr. Ed Holton is one of the premier experts in learning transfer. Great to work with and extremely professional. November 29, 2010 Robin Kistler, Director, LSU Executive Education, LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute

Ed Holton is one of, if not the, foremost experts in the area of transfer of training and perhaps HRD in general. He has rather ingeniously used the fruits of his career-long research and experience and shaped it into the tools that companies can and should benefit from. Having personally worked with Ed on research projects in this area I can definitively say that his solutions are meticulously developed and designed and boast rigorous theoretical framework (not something you encounter frequently in HRD consulting). At the same time Eds tools and methods are designed for the realworld, demonstrating his exceptional ability to connect research and practice. Last but not least, he is a pleasure to work with, approachable, and down-to-earth and I have always walked away from a conversation with him feeling like Ive learned something new. November 21, 2010 Bogdan Yamkovenko, PhD Organizational Development and Research Coordinator, The Shaw Group

I regard Ed Holton as among the leading experts in the world on the subject of transfer of learning. Although he has written widely and is highly-regarded in the academic community, his unique gift is the ability to convert ideas to practice and make a real difference in the effectiveness of learning initiatives in organizations. November 19, 2010 Tim Baldwin, Eveleigh Professor of Business Leadership, Kelley School of Business

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remainder of the people will be much slower to adopt new things. Now if you do the math that means that we can fairly The Mirage Of The Innovators and Early Adopters In every training class there are at least a few people who just LOVE what we are teaching and jump to implement what they learn. And, oh how we love these people! These are the students trainers live for and easily expect to convince 15% of our trainees to use the new methods we are teaching. Remember what our estimate is of typical rates of learning transfer--10-30%-Exactly in the range that is predicted by the diffusion research!! And 2.5% of the people will do anything new just because they like change! So you see it is a mirage for us to focus just on these innovators and early adopters. Fortunately the early adopters can be influential in getting other people to adopt the new learning but at the end of the day the "fallacy of the few" means we have to look beyond the 15% who are likely to be success stories and find ways to reach the other 85% of trainees. The solution is transfer

keep us motivated from day to day. They are a joy and they make our training lives rewarding and satisfying. Unfortunately they are a bit of a mirage. The mistake we make is that we use these few people as justification for the worth of the entire training/learning effort. These

anecdotal "success stories" become the metric for success. Instead of looking at the return on investment from the whole class, we often focus just on the few success stories and conclude the whole effort was successful. Let me explain why this is shortsighted. There is a rich body of research that explains why we are always likely to find these ambitious few

employees who will transfer what they learn. the diffusion of It is called innovation

research.

It turns out that it

doesn't matter whether we are teaching uneducated farmers to plow rows in their fields differently or college-educated professionals how to service

The mistake we make is that we use these few people as justification for the worth of the entire training/learning effort. These anecdotal "success stories" become the metric for success. Instead of looking at the return on investment from the whole class, we often focus just on the few success stories and conclude the whole effort was successful.
Typically, 2.5% of the

management. The first 15% of trainees are the "lowhanging fruit" of training. To get the rest we have to put in place PROACTIVE

strategies that will catalyze learning transfer.

their customers better the rate of adoption follows a remarkably similar pattern.

people, called innovators, will jump immediately to try something new just because they love new things. Another 13.5% of the people, called early adopters, can be persuaded to try new things with only reasonable effort such as we might do in a training class. The

Well then spending some money to increase learning transfer also makes sense. Think about this--how much more money would your organization make--or save--if you doubled your learning transfer rate? And how much would it cost you to increase transfer that much? Of course, with our TransferLogix system the answer is not very much. Increase Learning Transfer Improvement To Help Your Organization Through The Tough Times Everywhere I look I see people and organizations trying to do more with less in this weak economy. For In the end, increasing transfer is your best investment right now. Don't let tight budgets cause you to overlook your best way to help your organization through the weak economy. It's simple math---get more "bang for the buck!"

example, I am continuing to drive my car with 90,000 miles on it rather than buy a new one. We eat out at restaurants less than we used to and generally try to squeeze more out of our income each month. Every organization I talk to is trying to do the same thing. They are cutting budgets, reducing staff and generally trying to squeeze all they can out of every dollar. I suspect you are doing it too. Trainers and human resource developers, I have the perfect answer for you---improve your learning transfer! I know, the typical answer is to reduce costs. suppose you could DOUBLE the But,

performance

improvement that results from your training programs. That's real money you can make (or save) for your organizations. Cutting costs by not working on

Suppose you could DOUBLE the performance improvement that results from your training programs. That's real money you can make (or save) for your organizations. Cutting costs by not working on improving learning transfer is NOT the right response.

improving learning transfer is NOT the right response. Let me relate it to my personal car situation. I just spent some money on maintenance to extend the life of my car with 90,000 miles on it. If I hadn't spent the maintenance money, the car would have had major problems and I would have to buy a new car. By investing a modest amount now, I can get a much greater return out of the car. In this case, SPENDING money was my best way to SAVE money. Makes sense right?

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right? Clearly they have the most at stake as to whether business results occur. Perhaps they should "pull"

transfer through the organization. On the other hand, most departments don't like to have change imposed on them and HR departments are no different. HR departments are quite capable of subverting change efforts they don't believe in. If CEOs decide to champion learning transfer change, they will need HR as a Learning Transfer Change Needs A Champion Every organizational change needs a champion. And, improving learning transfer in an organization is a change process. The question is: Who should be the learning transfer change champion? And then there is the Chief Financial Officer. They are responsible for monitoring the return on investment from the organization's investments. Thus, wouldn't it make sense for them to push to increase learning transfer so The conversation usually starts with the Human Resources department. They seem to be the logical choice, right? In some respects they are since they usually control the learning initiatives. It seems to make sense that they should therefore be the ones to "push" transfer through the organization and be made accountable for the outcomes. The problem is that that the ROI from learning increases? CFO's certainly "get" the need for improving learning transfer and often have a lot of power in organizations. On the other hand, how many HR departments do you know that have a close relationship with their CFO? And how many CFO's do you know that understand learning? committed partner so they tend to tread lightly.

about half of the outcomes are influenced by factors outside their control; that is, in the work

If CEOs decide to champion learning transfer change, they will need HR as a committed partner so they tend to tread lightly.
falls through the cracks

So what happens in practice--nobody champions learning transfer improvement! It simply because nobody feels

environment. So they are put in the uncomfortable position of trying to influence line organizations to do things to help transfer. The reality is many HR organizations simply don't feel empowered to do it. Sometimes they aren't, and sometimes HR just doesn't know how to be a business partner. Regardless, they just don't feel comfortable working outside what they directly control--the learning events.

empowered to take the lead--and nothing changes. It sits out there in the "gray area," belonging to everybody but nobody.

I argue that SOMEBODY must step up and become the learning transfer change champion in each

organization. The answer to who it should be will likely So why shouldn't line management (CEO, COO, etc.) take the lead and champion the change? It would certainly make sense because they are the ones responsible for the business results from training, vary from organization to organization. It could be HR, the CEO, or the CFO--but somebody has to take the lead.

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So decide today who it should be in your organization-and get started on the learning transfer change journey! Fortunately our knowledge base about learning transfer is also good--it's the adoption in practice that is lacking. When resources are plentiful it's easy to get away with ignoring best practices in learning transfer. In tight times like we are in now, learning transfer is not optional. Smart training organizations are getting very serious about improving results, which means they are getting very serious about fixing their learning transfer problem. It's Not Just More Of The Same! From all over the world I am hearing the same message-we have to get more results from our training/learning investments. In the down economy every dollar counts and our customers (be they internal or external) are challenging profession performance training. to the get results training more from Smart training organizations are realizing that the only solution is to change the way they have been doing business. More of the same just won't deliver the results cases. in The many end They are adopting best practices and looking at the most innovative products to economically fix their transfer problems.

While the desire to improve training results is not new, I

When resources are plentiful it's easy to get away with ignoring best practices in learning transfer. In tight times like we are in now, learning transfer is not optional.
The

results will be cuts in training resources if results aren't delivered. Is your training organization one of the smart ones?

am sensing a tipping point for our profession.

pressure I am hearing from management is at a level I have never heard in my almost 30 years in the profession. What I am hearing are managers that are simply fed up with training that doesn't produce results.

We (the training/learning profession) have to be very honest with ourselves. We are pretty good at getting people to learn. We know a lot about learning and our knowledge base about learning methods is pretty good. But, our track record on getting performance results from training is NOT good. We have been far too complacent about allowing poor learning transfer rates to persist.

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It looks simple to me--if the training you are doing is mission critical, then you MUST insure learning transfer. And if its not mission critical, why are you doing it? Stop the "nice to have but not critical training and use the resources to get real results from mission-critical training and you will be way ahead. I happen to be sitting on an airplane right now and have spent the last two days engaging with the airline industry. Despite my frustrations, I had time to step back and admire how this very complex industry manages to keep planes and people moving rather safely.

One of the things I notice is how well trained the employees seem to be. As much as I hate it when they "go by the book" in implementing a policy, I am at the same time impressed that they are transferring their learning.

Yes, It Can Be Done Practically and Economically! For as long as I have been in the HRD profession ROI has been the "holy grail" of training evaluation. Unfortunately, an effective AND practical method has been elusive. Despite literally decades of promoting it, the fact is ROI is rarely calculated for training investments.

Of course the advantage they have is that much of their learning has life and Because death the

implications--literally.

stakes are so high the industry has apparently learned to transfer learning much better industries. than in many other

So I wonder why? I wonder how we can infuse the same sense of urgency for learning transfer in other types of learning. Don't all organizations have

Utility analysis has been seen sometimes as too good to be true but it really is a carefully researched and effective technique. Now TransferLogixTM from Learning Transfer Solutions Global has implemented this evidence-based approach so that it is doable by every organization for every training program.

Debate has swirled for

years about how best to calculate ROI. Evaluation purists have developed effective methods,

mission-critical training with high stakes if it fails? In my experience, yes--but I don't see them infusing the same sense of urgency.

but they are mostly impractical for all but the biggest training initiatives. The methods promoted by purists

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tend to be costly in either time and staff resources, or money for consultants.

custom study, I (and others) do argue that the ROI metrics produced by utility analysis have a high level of validity. Because they can be easily calculated for

EVERY training programwhich is not true of custom On the other side are "quick and dirty" methods which lack validity but are easy to implement. These methods have proved unsatisfying because the results just aren't credible. studiesthey are a superior approach to making sound decisions about development interventions. Now TransferLogixTM from Learning Transfer Solutions Global has implemented this evidence-based approach so that it is doable by every organization for every training program. So do we just give up? Is ROI simply unattainable or even ill-advised as some suggest? I say no, we can do it and we should. The fact remains that ROI is the universal language of organizations, particularly private sector organizations. And, if we want resources spent on training to be viewed as investments--which they are-then we HAVE to at least estimate ROI. Check it out. TransferLogixTM demystifies utility

analysis so ROI can truly be the benchmark for every training program and become part of the daily lexicon for human resource development.

Fortunately there is a practical and economical way to estimate ROI. Largely overlooked has been a technique advocated for over 60 years by industrial-organizational psychologists called utility analysis. The list of

researchers advocating utility analysis reads like a Whos Who of I/O psychology with Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau (2011) being the most current and wellknown advocates but with much of the research foundation built by the renowned John Hunter and Frank Schmidt . Thus, it has deep and well-researched roots that have demonstrated its validity. Unfortunately it has not been adopted by practitioners because they mistakenly see the statistics involved as too complex. I have spent my whole career championing the need to evaluate results from learning. But traditional evaluation texts make it too much like a scientific endeavor, probably because they are written by researchers. Utility analysis has been seen sometimes as too good to be true but it really is a carefully researched and effective technique. While I would never argue that This post may be heresy to my evaluator friends but I believe we have made training evaluation too complex for everyday use.

these estimates are better than a carefully conducted

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We have to remember that the purpose of evaluation is TO MAKE BETTER ORGANIZATIONAL DECISIONS. A careful read of the decision making research clearly shows that organizational decisions are rarely made using perfect data. Rather, there is a concept called

Often, good enough is all you need.

"bounded rationality" which is everyday terms means the data just has to be "good enough."

That's why I argue for measurement tools and processes that are practical to implement, even if they fail the research standard. We will never get organizations to take measurement seriously if we continue to make it too complex to implement.

We will never get organizations to take measurement seriously if we continue to make it too complex to implement. Our approach is to find a balance between validity and practicality. The real test is whether your measurement methods lead you to the right decision, not whether they meet research quality standards.

Our approach is to find a balance between validity and practicality. The real test is whether your measurement methods lead you to the right decision, not whether they meet research quality standards. If the data is "good enough," then that's all you need.

Keep in mind that so called level one data is NOT valid for good organizational decisions about learning. You have to measure behavior change and business results. Measurement is in itself an intervention that will improve learning transfer.

So MEASURE, but don't over-invest.

Use a practical

approach first and then if the decision is in doubt you can always invest more to get better data. Often the practical approach is plenty good enough. For example, one evaluation I recently did showed learning yielded an ROI estimate of 475%. Sure we could get a more

accurate answer but is the decision really in doubt. No.

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