Lots of training is going on. Various prices. Various content. What is worth it?
Directors are cost conscious, but free can be a very bad deal, even expensive. You can waste your time. You can get bad information. Your center can have a worse culture. Someone could be hurt. Overall, you can lose an opportunity.
What is most important? Good training. Altogether so obvious that it is missed. You want training that will actually help your employees, your center, or you be better at what you do. You want correct information — not old saws that we all know — but new information, grounded in science and experience.
Science AND experience — not just one or the other. You want something that is real, not something that everyone knows. Science is good at testing that. It is not perfect, but good are getting to reality. How things are implemented, how things are organized, led, made real in the practical sense, though, takes more than theory. It takes real experience.
There is the rub. Not just anyone is an expert. Not someone who has 70 times repetition of one years’ experience. Not just always a professor or theoretician or research, although they certainly have their place. Ideally you want someone who can bring you both. It might be rare, but that is the ideal.
Can you find someone who has been a leader and a change agent? Can you find someone who brings new to you, but tested ideas? Then can you find someone who you can stand to listen to?
Some are funny. Some are cheap. Not all are good. Look for real good — both real and good.