Recommended Books and Organizations
In a world of limited resources, it’s important not to waste time chasing shadows, being constantly reactive to the last email or slack message. Unfortunately, that’s a common pattern with enablement teams in a fast-moving tech company. That’s why it’s crucial, right from the start, to be strategic and implement sound enablement and learning & development frameworks to anchor the function.
Thankfully, enablement teams have vast resources at their disposal, ranging from established adult learning theories, best practices from master trainers, sales methodologies, and thought leadership from industry organizations. I recommend the following books and organizations to anchor the enablement function.
How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results
The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning is essential reading for anyone - executive or practitioner - looking to purposefully drive business results through a Sales Enablement or Learning & Development function. It offers pragmatic and commonsense approaches to get more from your sales or corporate training budget.
What Makes Training Successful
Telling Ain’t Training is worth its weight in gold. Blending research and actionable advice for facilitators, this book provides an insightful review of adult learning principles, frameworks to design training sessions, and ideas for activities to engage participants so they’re more likely to remember and apply what they’ve learned “on-the-job” when it matters.
Designing High Performance Learning Journeys
Improving Performance Through Learning is based on forty years of Dr. Robert Brinkerhoff’s research on training effectiveness. “Event-based” training programs often fail to include opportunities for practice, or application of desired skills. And that’s why event-based training is usually unsuccessful at driving behavior changes - and results - in organizations. This book presents the principles, mindset and tools to design training programs for meaningful behavior change.
Tips, Tactics, and How-Tos for Effective Training
Bob Pike is a legend in the Learning & Development space. His book, Creative Training Techniques Handbook is a practical guide for anyone facilitating training sessions, including presentation preparation, learner motivation, visual aids, group involvement, and effective resource materials.
Association of Talent Development
The Association for Talent Development (ATD) is a wonderful organization. They offer in-person and virtual training courses and certifications designed for Talent Development, L&D, and Sales Enablement teams. ATD’s performance improvement, instructional design, and sales enablement classes are high-value and equip participants with the knowledge and skills to make a difference.
If you’re looking to upskill your enablement team, ATD is a go-to resource.
Revenue Enablement Society
While I’ve only recently become a member, I’ve been impressed with the Revenue Enablement Society’s focus on sales productivity and ROI. The Revenue Enablement Society holds an annual event where enablement practitioners convene to discuss how to best align to business objectives, design enablement programs for ROI, and stay abreast of emerging Generative AI technologies.