The Training Imperative

Tweet

Sanderson finally turned to consultant Hyler Bracey, whose company, The Atlanta Consulting Group, developed a customized program for the poultry company. For the next two decades, as Sanderson Farms grew from 500 employees to 1,600, and from 25 supervisory and technical people to 250, the Atlanta consultants held regular seminars for company employees. Recently, however, Bracey suggested that the job could be handled just as effectively in-house -- and at substantial savings, given Sanderson's training budget of more than $100,000 a year. Sanderson concurred. Now, Don Carter, director of organization development, handles the company's training needs, with occasional assistance from The Atlanta Consulting Group.

To be sure, many small companies lack the financial resources, as well as the management expertise, to set up either an in-house or a custom-made training program. For them, a prepackaged program may be the only alternative to doing nothing at all.

A case in point is JMT Electronics & Controls Inc., of Gastonia, N.C., a 28-person, $3-million-a-year distributor of electrical and electronic components, which bought a standardized training package in hopes of upgrading the skills of its sales force. "Five or six years ago, we'd have never spent money on that sort of thing," says Tim Grooms, JMT's vice-president and the son of the founder. "When you're newer, you just want to get out there and sell. But our main business was changing [from television receiving tubes to electrical control systems]. As we changed, our sales force was hitting a lot of peaks and valleys. We just couldn't get any consistency. I thought a course might take the hit-or-miss out of selling."

As it happened, Grooms's next-door neighbor, Terry Ainsworth, represents Wilson Learing Corp., which offers a program in "Counsellor Selling." JMT signed up, at a cost of $9,000. The program consisted of a three-day seminar in the conference room of a local hotel, attended by 10 of JMT's salespeople. They watched videotapes, participated in role-playing, and studied workbooks -- all designed to teach them how to identify and meet a customer's needs. "Anyone with a brain can learn the technical specs of our products," says Grooms, "but knowing the customers' needs is something else. . . . Our salespeople had been having trouble pinpointing where they were in the selling process. After the course, they were better able to see selling as something that happened in stages. They could figure out what stage they were in, which gave them more control over the sale."

Grooms credits the course with helping the company to find new customers, boost revenues, and achieve greater selling consistency. He was so pleased with the results that he ran a second course six months later (at about half the price of the first). He plans to spend $7,000 on a third Wilson course, this one for the entire company. The goal: team building.

If JMT Electronics is at one end of the training spectrum, Solectron Corp., of San Jose, Calif., is at the other. In 1979, the electronics-assembly company was facing a severe management shortage. Its ability to attract top managers had fallen far behind its steep growth curve. That it was growing at all was a minor miracle -- two years before, losses had amounted to $30,000 a month -- but morale was sinking, and turnover was high. Into the breach stepped Winston Chen, a Harvard Ph.D. and former manager of thin-film tape-head technology at IBM in San Jose. Chen, now president and CEO of the $70-million-a-year enterprise, brought with him a strong bias toward internal training and a firm belief that the company would have to develop its own leadership potential in order to survive.

"People didn't plan, they didn't monitor performance, they didn't communicate correctly," says Chen. "The managers acted like dictators, and the people on the line hated it. It became almost impossible to recruit new talent. Our inefficiency was killing us."

Chen became the driving force behind Solectron's Entrepreneur University, a two-year "Masters of Management" program geared toward training managers in the skills required to run a $50- to $100-million company. Offering some 200 seminars a year, from inventory control and financial management to Japanese manufacturing techniques, Entrepreneur U. holds daily classes from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., and the teaching staff represents all quarters of Silicon Valley's academic and entrepreneurial establishment. Participation is voluntary. "I don't force people to do it," Chen says, "but there's probably some feeling around here that it's good to attend." Employees are paid for their classroom time. The company underwrites the program to the tune of about $250,000 annually (or .25% of revenues). About 60% of that goes to staff salaries and guest speakers, 25% to supplies, and 15% to office space and training rooms.

So far, the return on that investment has been impressive. Over the past six years, Solectron has grown from 15 employees to nearly 1,500. Of the company's 200 managers, 70% are graduates of Entrepreneur University. Says program director Marjorie Quon, "Winston has been our spiritual leader in this. He created the training function, and training has made us a team. Those morning meetings pulled us through all the hard times."

Which may help to answer the question posed by the big-company chairman in Leonard Schlesinger's training story. Why pay to train any of 'em'? It may be a matter of survival.

 PREV  1 | 2