Although every one of our management and leadership development programmes is customised to meet our client’s specific needs, they are constructed on a consistent foundation – Engage, Learn and Transfer:

Engage
Teaching is easy. Learning can be tough. But changing behaviour is extremely difficult: it takes courage, time and a lot of effort. Fewer than 4% of people succeed unaided. For the rest of us, whether we’re facing the challenge of giving up cigarettes, losing a little weight or being more skilful with our least favourite colleague, the personal costs of trying to do something differently and better loom large while the benefits appear distant and uncertain.

So why do we assume that learners will motivate themselves? And why then don’t we do more to help people to prepare for their change journey?

ASK programmes typically begin six weeks before the learning experience, with a project designed to inform and motivate all key stakeholders critical to the long term success of the programme. Using a mix of influencing strategies, briefings and job aids, we create a coalition around the learner in which line managers, L&D practitioners, senior managers and HR professionals all commit to the aims of the programme, accept their respective roles and responsibilities, and work together to create an environment in which new capabilities are learned but, more importantly, put to work.

Learn
The 70:20:10 organisational learnscape is more likely to feature on-demand digital delivery and informal workplace learning than it is traditional tutor-led training. But before the full benefits of this blended approach can be realised, two challenges must be overcome:
Formal training courses are subject to low levels of learning transfer. Less than 20% of training course content finds its way back to the workplace in the form of new and more effective behaviours. This learning transfer problem has been known to L&D professionals for over 60 years but little progress has been made: while well-researched solutions exist, they are mainly dependent for implementation on line managers

Informal workplace learning currently fails to deliver on its promise because it is largely unmanaged. In many organisations, informal learning drops into the organisational gap between L&D and line management. Each expects the other to orchestrate such elements as mentoring, projects, assignments, secondments and volunteering experiences. And each expects the other to ensure that new capabilities are applied in a way that improves performance when the learning experience is over.
ASK® offers a seamless combination of formal and informal learning solutions.

Transfer
All too often, when the familiar world of learning comes to an end and the task of putting newly learned capabilities to work begins, learners find themselves abandoned: fellow participants melt away, trainers move on to new projects, and line managers have other priorities. It’s at this point that the supportive coalition created during the engagement activity can step up and really make a difference.

To encourage that participation, ASK® has developed a range of job aids and tools to guide the efforts of line managers, mentors and learning sets during the transfer period. We also provide a range of workplace-based services, such as Executive Coaching and our innovative Personal Development Mentoring package, to supplement the work of the coalition and help learners to plan, implement and extract the maximum benefit from their training.

There are many different and entirely legitimate reasons for investing in the development of your leaders, but ASK start with the assumption that the desire to improve some aspect of your organisation’s performance of is foremost. Evidence would suggest that the odds are stacked against such an outcome – unless you Engage, Learn, Transfer and Evaluate.

Evaluate
Often we find that trainers will run a programme with their learners, then evaporate; that isn’t the ASK way – not only do we support the ongoing transfer of new learning and methods into the workplace, positioning mentors and experts to support that embedding of what’s been learned, we also continue to evaluate and assess the application of your learning.

Our Coaches develop lasting, engaging relationships with you and your learners, offering ongoing support and evaluations on performance and understanding, ensuring that the new learning embeds and has a lasting, effective impact on your ongoing journey.