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– Do we ensure that what is learned is relevant to our needs and
is applied before it is forgotten?

– Do we give our people adequate time to integrate new learning?
– Do we measure the return on our learning investment and

insist that trainers, internal or external, take responsibility for
people using what they have learned?
n Do the training people that we employ or hire fully understand and
use their knowledge of how people learn?

Bruce Joyce of Columbia University, New York conducted a respected
study in which he showed that only some 5 per cent to 15 per cent of what
is taught is actually learned sufficiently well to apply it in the workplace.
Fortunately we each tend to learn and use different parts of any pro-
gramme, so if we initiate a programme of supported peer coaching we can
massively increase what is learned and used. Seward and Gers conducted
a twelve-year longitudinal study based on supported peer coaching and
showed that they were able to raise learning and application to better than
90 per cent and keep it at that kind of level for the period of the study.
Details of the total package are described in my book Making Change Pay
(Pearson) as well as in Key Management Solutions (pages 250–267).

They call it the law

It is flattering for any writer when businesspeople and journalists take
enough interest in something to name it after the author. Thus “Lambert’s
Laws of Business” were born. I try to look modest when this is mentioned
and mutter something about wondering where I stole it from many years
ago, but the fact is that like most people I enjoy the flattery no matter how
ill-deserved it may be. The so-called “laws” can be expressed – indeed are
most usefully expressed – as a short series of questions. I believe that “my”
laws ought to be in the forefront of any serious businessperson’s mind, in
question form. When faced with any decision that requires the investment
of time or money I believe that we ought to ask those who propose the
investment:

n What significant contribution will it make to the achievement of
the tactical or strategic objectives?

n When will it pay for itself?
n How clearly and compellingly can it be explained to those who will

have to make it work?

Any doubts about the answers to any of these questions means that you
are not ready for the implementation of the idea. Lambert’s Laws of Busi-
ness state that:

xxiv Introduction