Customer comments on this selection.
 Good for the right person.
I'm someone who usually takes a great deal from what I read. I didn't take much from this book, but do see the value of it for certain types of very analytical program directors. RUNNING TRAINING LIKE A BUSINESS may be great for some people, but this book really put me to sleep (and it is rare for me to get sleepy when I read). I hope the authors have a much more captivating training program.
This book came very highly recommended to me by several different people. As I was reading it on the plane, the man across the aisle even commented to me on what a great book it was, so I must conclude that my lack of connection here must just be me. Sorry.
 Outstanding Book
This is a great book for showing the way to trainers so that they avoid the tendency to always do things the way they have always been done in an environment of changing business models. "Running Training Like a Business" is a welcome book in that it simply and methodically explains how the training function can be run effectively as a profit centre of an organisation.
The authors recognize the intertwined realities of a new workforce psyche, the technology-driven acceleration of information flow and the intense competition for knowledge resources. Adelsberg and Trolley offers a host of innovative down-to-earth techniques that can be applied almost immediately with little or no cost. Adelsberg and Trolley's book is a recipe for change which trainers are advised to adopt.
The book is recommended reading for managers who are interested in adopting the growing trend of running training as a business.
Balanced, Practical, and Applicable
As a training practitioner with 10 years of experience, I found this book to be a breath of fresh air. It provided many practical tools and applications for integrating training into a company's business strategy without losing sight of the fact that workplace education is inherently valuable to all employees.
 Limited in scope...
Management prescriptions for primarily U.S. based companies. Surprised not to encounter intercultural training, expatriate training and/or implications for Multinational Corporations.
A Welcome Guidebook
Training has been viewed as an expense in most organizations, a poor step-child to human resources, at best. It's a cost center in the minds of most executives, a necessary (or is it really?) evil.
With the move toward lean organizations, practically every department is expected to be a profit center instead of a cost burden. "If you can't make a positive difference on our bottom line, we'll out-source you" is the attitude of many executives today. So Running Training Like a Business is a book for the times. Like it or not, if you're in the training field, you'd better be reading this book.
Credibility. Trainers, like many professionals, are wary of all the garbage that poses as valid information. They need to cut through the noise to get the real meat, and they don't have a lot of time to wade through extraneous space-filling material that doesn't contribute to what they need to know. The authors understand. They're senior executives at The Forum Corporation, one of the premier global consulting firms on training and training management.
The authors get right into content. No wasted time here. The writing is concise, supported by graphics where needed. Bullet points at the end of each chapter reinforce what needs to be done to achieve solid accomplishment of objectives. It's a good business approach.
The book is organized into three parts: The Business Case for Transformation, Making the Transformation, and The End of the Beginning. The design is a familiar model to professionals engaged in behavioral change, making the content easier to absorb and apply. Organization change is what this book is all about, and the questionnaires in the back of the book will help the reader assess what needs to be done, progress made, and challenges yet to be overcome.
This book may be a bit difficult, in places, for some trainers. That's understandable; many trainers have not had sufficient exposure to the business side of business. There's plenty of training language to build comfort and a sense of familiarity, enabling readers to find a number of jumping-off points to stay with the theme.
As the author of "Lean & Meaningful," I can say that what van Adelsberg and Trolley have presented is very congruent with what we see in today's corporate culture. The role of training will grow in importance, but it must also grow in producing and measuring bottom-line results.
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