What does it take to be a great professional? Answer: training, both on-the-job and off-the-job. Let’s focus on off-the-job training.

While conducting a research study on the practices of elite professional service firms, which involved interviews with numerous client executives and senior professionals, I compiled a summary of their training practices and distilled them into the following actionable training tips:

☐ Replace the classic lecture system with integrative and interactive sessions, each containing specific learning objectives that are interwoven throughout the training program. Reduce pure lectures to the bare minimum.

☐ Conduct regular training sessions at least 3-4 times a year. Most need to run for 2 to 4 days.

☐ Use advanced technology, digital simulation, and cameras. Computer/digital simulation exercises help people run through an actual client project, presenting different situations and posing implications with consequences based on participant reactions. Cameras allow participants to see themselves in action and hear the opinions and reactions of others. Cameras also allow a faculty member to serve as a facilitator, an expert who runs the exercises, as opposed to being a lecturer.

☐ Focus on interpersonal skills development. Try to help professionals become better communicators, whether this involves interviewing people or just sitting down and talking with them. If you are not good at this as a professional, you will not succeed. Trainers can teach people how to think about who they will be talking to and what approach to use by giving them feedback on content, rapport, and body language.

☐ Use off-the-shelf modules that take a comprehensive approach to a specific subject, with 80% of the time devoted to exercises. The modular approach permits you to build from one module to the next, with continuing themes and threads throughout. In this respect, a training program becomes like a continuous stream, with each module reflecting a different work aspect.

☐ Intermingle. Intermingling allows young professionals to obtain direct feedback on their skills from senior participants, while senior people can practice their coaching and management techniques.

☐ Participants do not learn from books. They learn by doing. What firms need to teach is awareness. Role-playing helps.

☐ Use robust, relevant case studies. Case studies should reflect real-world client engagements, capturing all the complexities professionals will encounter. Choose industries that are engaging yet accessible, ensuring participants can focus on execution rather than grappling with excessive background knowledge.

☐ Use excellent trainers. A trainer needs to be a teacher, coach, mentor, and buddy all rolled into one. This sounds like motherhood and apple pie — it isn’t.

For more details, please visit www.pieterklaasjagersma.com/on-becoming-extraordinary.