Customer Reviews

What Every Manager Should Know About Training: An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Money's Worth From Training.

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In his typical clear, jargon-free style, Bob Mager explains what training is, and what it's not. "Training" won't fix a problem unless the problem stems from a lack of skill or knowledge.

Mager explains why you can't train your way out of badly designed jobs, or idiotic incentive systems, or a lack of resources. He also shows ways to deal with those barriers to accomplishment.

And that's the heart of the matter. In the world of training and development, we talk about performance improvement -- focusing first on the results you want to get, and then examining possible reasons why you're not getting those results. Mager's book demystifies that focus and that examination.

Skeptical? I've been in the training business for over 20 years. For people who want a quick, cogent, useful understanding of both training and performance improvement, there's no better place to start than with "What Every Manager Should Know."

With book in hand, I turned to a colleague and said, "A manager would really have to be inept and ignorant not to know what's in here." Her response took me by surprise, but shouldn't have, "How many managers do you know who aren't?" Having had bosses who wanted me to train people to "acquire integrity" or "control their absenteeism," I realized why Dr. Robert Mager wrote this book besides squeezing a little extra juice from his previous books.

A core issue the author raises is that lack of performance is not a "training problem." Training is a solution just as Tylenol is usually a solution to a headache. (No one has a Tylenol problem). Training is also to a business or organization what surgery is to medicine. You don't use the scalpel ahead of Tylenol if there is a less drastic remedy in between. According to Mager, only managers, not trainers can be held accountable for on-the-job performance. Trainers are accountable for skill acquisition.

In this book, Mager covers ground from other books he has written such as "Preparing Instructional Objectives," "Analyzing Performance Problems," and "Goal Analysis." That is the book's strength and weakness. This book covers topics from these other works in less depth, but covers them anyway, and from a manager's perspective. It even gives managers tips on how to conduct training themselves. The author also provides a number of helpful checklists for the new training manager, or the manager who doesn't know about training. Nevertheless, this was a rehash for me having read the previous books. As for solving performance problems, his earlier book, "Analyzing Performance Problems" is the most helpful and original.

Mager gets to the point quickly and his wit will bring chuckles throughout the 132 pages. This is easy to read even for the managers who are inept and ignorant. The only thing left for them to do is to recognize it, and, of course, buy this book and read it.

For that, we may have to train'em.

This book has helped me tremendously from the training perspective. It has provided me with the resources and explanation to managers why not everything is a training issue and further explain, in management terms, the limitations of training.

A consultant recommended this book to me and I found it a great support. For me, it confirms the training function as well as provides insight into some of the perspectives taken by many management philosophies.

I was expecting to learn stuff like the most effective way to train people, how to structure training programs, how people learn etc. Instead, this book covers stuff that's very elementary and anyone who's a manager and got a grain of sense should know. It has a condecending tone towards managers--as in, your people need training because you're a moron. For example, "there probably isn't one worker in a thousand who can clearly describe the results (or accomplishments) they are expected to achieve." or "It's not uncommon for people to be expected to do things that they haven't been given permission to do." I only got to about page 50 and the tone and quality were consistant with these quotes.

Look elsewhere if you have a brain.

Valuable book, well worth the reading time. Good for Managers, Training Managers and developers.