Development vs. Training

Delta Consultants is more a development firm than a training organization, particularly in relation to management, leadership and teaming attitudes and competencies. The key differences:

Development best applies to the critical "soft skills" of managing and leading (e.g. building interdepartmental alliances).

Development emphasizes:

• Self-discovery, attitude change, and emotional commitment to try more effective behavior
• Planning for behavior change and related goals
• Timely feedback from people who matter

Training best pertains to administrative, technical and standard customer skills and procedures.

Training emphasizes:

• Defining, explaining, demonstrating and (sometimes) role playing skills.
• The explanation and justification of methods
• The intellectual (over the emotional or attitude) dimension

A sound development process more likely fosters attitude change with sustained “soft skill” improvements (without training). This is because people tend to become more effective when they discover, commit to, and plan desired improvements, and get just-in-time progress feedback from those who are important to them. Essentially, a development focus is what really makes a difference in enabling positive management and leadership changes.

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