Professional Development: Emerging Delivery Channel for Group Soft Skills Training

Soft skills training is typically delivered live so that all may observe and learn from one another's body language. Interpretation of non-verbal cues is an important dimension in soft skills training.

To deliver soft-skills training more economically and without loss of quality, three AmLaw 200 firms opted to deliver three types of marketing and business development programs to learners in multiple locations using an emerging delivery channel: virtual Web-based videoconferencing. Through the purchase of inexpensive Web cams, leveraging virtual technology that enabled people to see one another in real time and receiving guidance from the provider, the firms were able to deliver high-quality training at a far lower cost than if they had delivered it in-person.

Each firm saw three problems:

• How can we afford live soft-skills training for remote trainees, given limited travel budgets?
• How can all see the non-verbal messages of each given one can't using Webinars or conference calls due to the nature of the medium?
• What if internal videoconference systems are unavailable or inaccessible to attendees?

Benefits

• “Just-in-time” high-quality training delivery.
• No travel costs.
• Reduced trainer professional fees.
• Ability to see participants live.
• Reduced multi-tasking during training.
• Cross-office and 'practice relationship building.
• Increased participant productivity.
• High ease of use.
• Reduced risk by tapping provider's expertise.

Challenges

The three firms found that “necessity is the mother of invention” and looked for ways to solve counteracting goals: the need to train and the lack of budget. Each of the firms had similar environments, but different soft-skills training goals.

Similar Environments

Large law firms had:

• Trainees located in multiple offices;
• Strong needs to develop skills of attorneys or staff;
• Reduced budgets for travel; and
• Openness to innovation;

Different Goals

From the first firm: “How do we teach our high-potential Senior Associates the skills required to generate leads and build relationships? How do we match mentors and mentees from across the firm so that they can learn from one another?”

From the second firm: “Given travel limitations, how do we provide continuity for an 'institutional program' associates have come to expect and that we don't wish to discontinue? How do we help them develop relationships with one another?”

From the final firm: “How do we give our marketing and business development staff training in social media skills needed to help attorneys, given they are remote? How can that learning best be facilitated, given the lack of options to deliver a group training experience using the Web?”

Solutions

Each firm opted to engage with Shift Worldwide, a provider of a virtual communication platform, training and consulting services. By combining the use of a platform that facilitated live group face-to-face conversations with services that helped optimize the experience, they succeeded in achieving their goals.

One firm delivered a 10-week training course on “Conversational Selling” to four attorneys located in three separate offices. Additionally, it was in the process of delivering a business development mentorship program that matched eight rainmakers with eight high-potentials who work on the Shift Worldwide platform; nearly all are in separate offices.

The second firm delivered a two-hour interactive business development workshop to 12 attorneys located in six offices across the country.

The last firm delivered a 90-minute program on leveraging social media to 25 marketing and business development staff spread across four offices.

Results

Both clients and trainees were pleased with the new type of delivery. Had the program been delivered live, in travel costs alone, it's estimated that one saved upwards of $10,000 in flights and hotel fees throughout its “Conversational Selling” program.

Said one Chief Marketing Officer: “As we looked at the various training options, we realized it could become pretty cost-prohibitive when your attorneys are scattered all over the world.” The National Client Development Manager at another firm added, “Our business development training programs have been taken to a new and very different level, giving [our] attorneys the ability to learn by seeing and interacting with one another from wherever they are. The platform adds a needed personal element to training and best of all, it's been highly cost-effective.”

“At first, everyone was kind of skeptical about how it would work,” said a participating attorney of the workshop experience, “but it turned out to work really well. There is a personal aspect to actually seeing the person, and you know who is saying what.” She noted that the system could also have other uses, such as “small-group meetings. It could be used effectively to cut down on business meetings and traveling.”

A Business Manager of the Real Estate Group at one firm said, “Learning about social media on the Shift Worldwide virtual communications platform was an excellent experience; I've heard great feedback from others in the group.”

Paul Trout is the CEO of Shift Worldwide, a virtual consulting, training and communications firm based in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

Soft skills training is typically delivered live so that all may observe and learn from one another's body language. Interpretation of non-verbal cues is an important dimension in soft skills training.

To deliver soft-skills training more economically and without loss of quality, three AmLaw 200 firms opted to deliver three types of marketing and business development programs to learners in multiple locations using an emerging delivery channel: virtual Web-based videoconferencing. Through the purchase of inexpensive Web cams, leveraging virtual technology that enabled people to see one another in real time and receiving guidance from the provider, the firms were able to deliver high-quality training at a far lower cost than if they had delivered it in-person.

Each firm saw three problems:

• How can we afford live soft-skills training for remote trainees, given limited travel budgets?
• How can all see the non-verbal messages of each given one can't using Webinars or conference calls due to the nature of the medium?
• What if internal videoconference systems are unavailable or inaccessible to attendees?

Benefits

• “Just-in-time” high-quality training delivery.
• No travel costs.
• Reduced trainer professional fees.
• Ability to see participants live.
• Reduced multi-tasking during training.
• Cross-office and 'practice relationship building.
• Increased participant productivity.
• High ease of use.
• Reduced risk by tapping provider's expertise.

Challenges

The three firms found that “necessity is the mother of invention” and looked for ways to solve counteracting goals: the need to train and the lack of budget. Each of the firms had similar environments, but different soft-skills training goals.

Similar Environments

Large law firms had:

• Trainees located in multiple offices;
• Strong needs to develop skills of attorneys or staff;
• Reduced budgets for travel; and
• Openness to innovation;

Different Goals

From the first firm: “How do we teach our high-potential Senior Associates the skills required to generate leads and build relationships? How do we match mentors and mentees from across the firm so that they can learn from one another?”

From the second firm: “Given travel limitations, how do we provide continuity for an 'institutional program' associates have come to expect and that we don't wish to discontinue? How do we help them develop relationships with one another?”

From the final firm: “How do we give our marketing and business development staff training in social media skills needed to help attorneys, given they are remote? How can that learning best be facilitated, given the lack of options to deliver a group training experience using the Web?”

Solutions

Each firm opted to engage with Shift Worldwide, a provider of a virtual communication platform, training and consulting services. By combining the use of a platform that facilitated live group face-to-face conversations with services that helped optimize the experience, they succeeded in achieving their goals.

One firm delivered a 10-week training course on “Conversational Selling” to four attorneys located in three separate offices. Additionally, it was in the process of delivering a business development mentorship program that matched eight rainmakers with eight high-potentials who work on the Shift Worldwide platform; nearly all are in separate offices.

The second firm delivered a two-hour interactive business development workshop to 12 attorneys located in six offices across the country.

The last firm delivered a 90-minute program on leveraging social media to 25 marketing and business development staff spread across four offices.

Results

Both clients and trainees were pleased with the new type of delivery. Had the program been delivered live, in travel costs alone, it's estimated that one saved upwards of $10,000 in flights and hotel fees throughout its “Conversational Selling” program.

Said one Chief Marketing Officer: “As we looked at the various training options, we realized it could become pretty cost-prohibitive when your attorneys are scattered all over the world.” The National Client Development Manager at another firm added, “Our business development training programs have been taken to a new and very different level, giving [our] attorneys the ability to learn by seeing and interacting with one another from wherever they are. The platform adds a needed personal element to training and best of all, it's been highly cost-effective.”

“At first, everyone was kind of skeptical about how it would work,” said a participating attorney of the workshop experience, “but it turned out to work really well. There is a personal aspect to actually seeing the person, and you know who is saying what.” She noted that the system could also have other uses, such as “small-group meetings. It could be used effectively to cut down on business meetings and traveling.”

A Business Manager of the Real Estate Group at one firm said, “Learning about social media on the Shift Worldwide virtual communications platform was an excellent experience; I've heard great feedback from others in the group.”

Paul Trout is the CEO of Shift Worldwide, a virtual consulting, training and communications firm based in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].