What can Compliance Training Learn from Baseball?

What can compliance training learn from baseball? The hustle matters.

In baseball, success is all about a “hustle” attitude. “Hustle never has a bad day”… so the saying goes. Teams score players with “Hustle boards,” coaches bench players who show a lack of hustle and the MLB even gives out “Heart and Hustle” awards, recognizing players who demonstrate a deep passion for the game of baseball.

And “hustle” means much more than sprinting catch a ball or get on base. It’s energy… drive… and determination. It’s a mindset that reflects how ready a player/team is to handle every situation – even seemingly inconsequential things. For example, have you noticed how players run to the dugout after the innings is over? Why hustle there? It has no impact on the outcome of the game…or does it?

Hustling to the dugout sets the tone for the game. It shows how focused the players are. How amped they are. And indicates just how much effort they’re going to put into the next nine innings. It’s a mindset of winning. And it keeps players ready – primed to jump into action when the opportunity strikes (whether it’s to steal a base, sprint to catch a fly ball or complete the double play). It can also inspire teammates to perform at their best, and help a team win. In fact, coaches will tell you that when teams are evenly matched in terms of talent, it’s the team that hustles (on big and small things alike), that gets the win.

Compliance training might benefit from a little bit of baseball’s hustle mindset.

Rather than viewing compliance as a box to check or an inconsequential mandate, think of it as an opportunity… an opportunity to set the tone for how the rest of your training will look, feel and work. Hustle to rework the content for efficacy, allow employees to engage with self-paced options, incorporate engaging multimedia components and dig deeper to connect compliance to on-the-job scenarios and outcomes.

Because even though compliance training might be just one piece or even a small part of your overall training strategy, it’s an area that, in many cases, almost every employee sees. When it’s not done with effort and attention, it can hurt L&D’s ability to get engagement and buy in for other training initiatives. It can also hurt and organization’s “readiness”. But when L&D shows some hustle and does it well, honoring the knowledge and experience of employees and demonstrating how it’s relevant to their role, it can set the tone and be a game changer (both in terms of boosting the efficacy of the compliance training itself and also improving employee attitudes toward training in general).

Also, the stakes are higher than you might realize. Look no further than Facebook, Wells Fargo or, most recently, Boeing, to see how compliance training contributes to an organization’s reputation, risk and financial integrity. By building a hustle mindset into employee training, you’re readying employees to accurately and confidently use their skills to “make the right play” when it counts.

In training AND baseball, the “hustle” matters – for both big and small components. How we handle the small stuff is an indicator of how successful we’ll be. And paying attention to the small stuff often results in better morale, performance, readiness and long-term outcomes. So, when it comes to compliance training, don’t saunter to first base. Sprint. Don’t walk to the dugout. Run.

Ready to see how Fulcrum can up your compliance training hustle? Let’s connect. We’ll show you a short demo of how our platform works and talk through the benefits other clients have seen in their compliance training as a result of Fulcrum’s Adaptive 3.0 learning platform.