C O V E R S T O R Y
It is obvious that environmental training actually refers to the continuing education of environmental professionals. This should come as no surprise, since continuing professional education is commonly understood to incorporate the education provided to practitioners after their entry-level preparation and throughout the remainder of their career. This education can be for the purpose of updating practitioners on new developments in their profession, maintaining practitioner competence, or preparing practitioners for new career paths (e.g., a move from direct professional practice to management, or to focus on a specialty or subspecialty within the profession).
1930s. This decade saw the foundation and growth of many business schools. Training in universities and companies was modeled on the little red schoolhouse paradigm. Managers were brought into a room and put in chairs while an expert imparted knowledge. The assumption was: "If you know better, you will do better."
1940s. The methodology of these years was influenced by World War II, which pushed thousands of people who needed training into the workforce. To meet that need, supervisors were taught how to deliver job-instruction training and on-the-job training. Both relied on concrete, relevant content with little or no theory.
1950s. The human relations era began after research by Roethlisberger and his colleagues created a demand for training professionals who could improve managers' people skills and teach them about their impact on people. Teaching managers about human behavior provided much of the impetus for the case study method and early utilization of role playing. Magnifying the human dimensions of management through these methods was a substantial improvements over the lectures, films, and tapes of earlier eras. As the study of operations, research, and decision-making flourished in these years, much management training began to focus on quantitative approaches. This re-established managers as the elite who did the thinking and planning for less knowledgeable workers. However, the fifties on the whole saw the training field develop from a concern with teaching managers how to teach employees (and how to better manage tasks) to a concern for how managers' human relations could be improved.
1960s. This decade was characterized by developments in methodology. New teaching methods were required to enable managers to become more skilled in human relations and other management practices. Case method and role play were used extensively, and there was an interest in the work of behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner. Considerable effort was spent on teaching machines and programmed instruction, though primarily for technical training. Sensitivity training, begun in the fifties, came into prominence in these years. Games and simulations also gained favor. Group were increasingly viewed as an important building block in any organization. As a result, group dynamics, group problem-solving, and grid training gained popularity.
1970s. The excitement of new technology for training carried into the seventies, which became the era of personal growth. Encounter groups went beyond the bounds of earlier sensitivity and T-Group training. Experiential learning abounded, allowing learners a greater degree of involvement, and elevating individual needs above the organization's needs.
1980s. In this decade the elements of effective management training became clearer. The framework for this foundation included the philosophy and policies of successful training, appropriate content in management training, methodology for changing behavior, approaches to multiple objectives, and assurance that the training remains on a solid foundation.
Most of us have recent memories of "training sessions" on such matters as health, safety and civil defense, in which participants listened passively to monotonous lectures, often declaimed from a script, in a room with poor ventilation and row after row of seats. Everyone agrees that this type of training is highly ineffective and, moreover, gives participants a negative impression of training.
The big turnabout happened shortly after the political changes in 1989, when borders opened and we found ourselves flooded with new concepts, methodologies and training approaches. This has undoubtedly been very useful, but has also created the biggest challenge facing us right now. And that is: How to overcome the handicap of several decades and recreate effective environmental training in a short period of time? Or, in other words: How to make environmental training sustainable?
Performance = productivity + quality. We also speak of performance. But much of our training provides opportunities for people to practice only in the most artificial and tranquil conditions. Insufficient attention has been paid to performance under adverse conditions. Performance consists of both productivity and quality, but for the past few decades we have exclusively emphasized productivity and ignored quality. This is one of the most significant issues we face because it directly affects every organization's success, employees' values, and living standards.
Training and the real world. Training is still divorced from real working conditions. Rather than harmonized with core work experience, training is often peripheral, detached from life experience. Training efforts are not integrated into an overall development plan for participants and their organizations. Further, such organizational rewards as compensation, promotion, and recognition are not sufficiently linked to the content of developmental training. The payoffs for people who respond well to training are seldom clearly spelled out.
Importance of research. Despite our efforts, much of our training content is not grounded in good research. Most of what was taught only few years ago is now considered erroneous. How certain are we about the content of current programs? We adopt foreign concepts, even whole training programs, but without considering whether they are relevant to conditions in Central and Eastern Europe. We also present new ideas and best practices, but we don't help people learn systematically from their own experience. Nor have we created methods for them to document what they do or reflect on the results of their behavior. Many of us have been slow to change the content of training programs to reflect the realities of the new situation with its emphasis on self-directed work teams and greater personal autonomy.
Interactive delivery. We have learned that high involvement tends to triple an individual's recall and the likelihood of high performance. Yet our training is still a long way from the ideal "flight simulator" experience. People still sit listening passively to lectures. Considerable time is spent on elaborate cases when research shows that most people are more likely to remember a short story.
Responsibility for learning. Having participants sign a contract for what they will do after the training can make a difference, but few of our training activities take that step. Far too much responsibility for learning is placed on the trainers, and far too little responsibility is transferred to participants, even in courses that are supposed to teach empowerment and participation.
Appropriate timing. We have failed to take full advantage of the most opportune times to deliver training. In particular, we haven't devoted enough attention to the process of new-employee orientation, when people are extremely receptive. Typically, they are willing to read and study on their own at such a time, they are thirsty to learn. The same opportunity exists to some extent shortly after a promotion or transfer. But the window is open for only a brief time.
Learning methods. New technology provides opportunities to tailor learning methods to individual learners. Until now, classroom-based delivery methods have made it impossible to adapt these methods for each individual. Most of our participants are mature and have rich life experiences, but our learning methods are still based on concepts more appropriate to juvenile learners. We have not found enough ways to tap into our learners' experience or incorporate it into the training process.
Evaluation. We haven't done a good job of providing the kind of evaluation of training that our clients seek. Evaluation of training's effect on an organization is not impossible. Unfortunately, having ignored evaluation research, we haven't sought assessment studies or real measurements of behavior change. Instead, we have relied on participant reactions, and failed to define post-training behavior requirements.
It is obvious by this lengthy list of problems and opportunities that we have a long way to go. Still, there is no reason to be disappointed with the accomplishments to date. Environmental training in Central and Eastern Europe has made enormous progress from virtually nothing to present offerings that include a large number of training programs for multiple audiences. If this progress has been possible in less than one decade, I feel extremely confident that it will not take us longer than one more decade to overcome the present challenges and achieve the desired sustainability.
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Below is a list of areas in which environmental training institutions must play an increasingly active role in the future in order to achieve sustainable environmental training in Central and Eastern Europe.
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This article is intended to spur discussion among environmental training professionals about the sustainability of environmental training in Central and Eastern Europe. The author is receptive to relevant critiques and comments.
