Training your marketing & communication teams works

There is so much good that happens when leaders take professional development seriously. Conferences are great, but there’s nothing like bringing your whole team into a strategic planning session or retreat that examines your bigger work picture and the role your team members play in your shared success.

These are the type of sessions some teams skip because they are “too busy,” but these sessions almost always make work more efficient and effective. Here are a few important reasons not to skimp on the team training:

Training is the easiest optimization

Information is not spread evenly across your team: Managers have experience that team members don’t have, and vice versa. Too often this means communication is uneven and haphazard. Yet this is one of the easiest issues to fix.

A good training session takes your strategic plan and breaks it down atomically – it takes the seemingly “random” day-to-day work and connects it to the bigger picture. This is the kind of information that empowers your team members to make more effective decisions on everything from blog posts to project workflow. But the trick is that it doesn’t happen until the team takes time to step outside their work and examine the bigger picture.

One of the most surprising results of training your team is the breakthroughs leaders get when seeing strategic work through their team’s eyes. It’s not uncommon for leaders to consider strategic or organizational changes after a successful training session.

The results tend to be immediate because team members can see their strategic role more clearly.  One client called us after a training session and said “I just got out of a team meeting. We’re planning for next semester – this semester. We’ve never done this before. I can’t believe it.”

Folks, it’s just that easy.

People are your biggest investment

Retention matters in a competitive job market where opportunities abound. The best way to shut the revolving door is to make investments in developing and training your team members. It makes sense because these are the future managers and leaders – right under your nose.

We know that people are our biggest investment, and yet it’s easy to ignore the results that come from developing their skills and gifts in a way that makes them feel appreciated and valued. Simply put: If you don’t value your team, someone else will.

Taking time to develop your team’s skills shows your serious about their future. It boosts team morale to know that they are doing something bigger and more important than “busy work.”

Great leaders are teachers

It may seem obvious, but the better your team works together the more successful you will be as a leader and manager. The best leaders are teachers – they take personal responsibility for the success of their team and want to see them thrive in ways they never have before.

It can be difficult to have these breakthrough moments during an ordinary workday. Scheduling regular training sessions provides the timeout needed to spend extra time on concepts and ideas that are required to move the needle.

Training can sometimes seem like too big of a disruption – until you consider the opportunities it provides to better your team. Imagine you could improve everyone’s performance on your team by 10% for a minimal investment (training sessions usually run around $5,000). You would take that opportunity every time.

That’s exactly what training is. It’s an opportunity for leadership to shine by clearing the road and removing communication obstacles between team members in a way that gets everyone communicating and working together. It also models the behavior you expect to see from your team and gets them working together to build a team culture that values success.  

If you’re sold on training, you should talk to us at DWCo. We have years of experience working with marketing and communications teams to create the type of team culture that gets results.