• What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do, I understand
• Training should not be ‘Death by PowerPoint’
• If you think training is expensive, try ignorance
• There are two ways to undergo a training project at work: with management support, or unsuccessfully
• In training, Content is King

That last one is quite catchy. In fact, I’ve heard it so often it’s approaching cliché status in my book. But here’s my real issue with it: It leaves a lot of room for various interpretations that don’t always serve trainers’ interests.

Let’s explore a couple of those interpretations to see when content is king and when it is not.

Choosing an Instructional Strategy

Let’s say you need to train 120 people on a new software system. Should you run some classroom sessions? Should it be done on-the-job just as the software launch occurs? Perhaps some virtual classroom sessions would do the trick? Or maybe you should create some online tutorials employees can access on their own?

If we apply our royal catchphrase, the content would be the biggest factor to consider in choosing the right training strategy. You’re helping people use a piece of software, so why not teach them on a computer? This would seem to indicate virtual classroom or online tutorials would be best.But if they’re all in the same building and you have only one week to design the course, an e-learning approach wouldn’t be optimal.

So content isn’t king when it comes to choosing a training strategy. Other factors can overrule it. Some of these factors are: target audience size, location, prior experience, computer-literacy, and training team’s design experience.

Choosing Instructional Methods and Media

Okay, so you’ve opted for classroom instruction. Now, which presentation and application methods will you choose within that course? Seems obvious: Present with demonstrations, projected for all to see. Get learners to practice using computers in the room with the new software installed.

Content is king here. The skill being learned is the most important factor in choosing among the myriad of presentation and application methods available. Other factors play a role, but they will rarely, if ever, overrule content. Some of those factors are: group size, prior experience, location, equipment available, and training team’s design experience.

The True Meaning

Here’s how I believe this catchphrase can serve us best: Content, if properly analyzed and structured, can produce dramatic improvements in employee performance. You have two options when it comes to structuring your training’s content. It can be based on topics (knowledge) or job tasks (skills). One type of content is bound to be a pauper, scraping by, doomed to serfdom. One type is destined for glory, ruling all other issues in training. That’s right: Performance-based content is king. If your training actually gives people the skills to do something, all other issues will bow in deference to your eventual success. But if your content is limited to facts, principles, ideas and such, you will be overthrown by other issues. Those issues become problems because the content doesn’t deliver true value.

So here’s ultimately how content is king: If it’s valuable, task-based, how-to content, it will rule other issues and prevent them from being problems in the first place. If your content is purely topic-based, you are bound to be mired in seemingly unending issues that just won’t go away.

Alan

Years ago I was a sales professional at a large company. The sales department trainer always conducted some type of team building activity once a year. I want to share a tale of two team building activities where I was a participant, one good and one bad, to show the importance of planning and execution.

First, here is my great team building experience. At the start of one of our annual sales meetings we were divided into teams. Each team received a box of toothpicks and some Styrofoam at our tables. The facilitator told us to build the tallest structure possible with only the materials on the table. The team with the tallest structure at the end of 20 minutes would win.

This activity was successful for several reasons. First, it was short. We were busy salespeople who wanted to get in and out of our sales meeting so we could get out on the road and make money. Second, the facilitator observed each group closely to see how we were working together as a team. Finally, at the end of the activity, the facilitator helped us process our experience by asking specific questions designed to ensure that we came away from the experience learning key things about our communication skills and our ability to work as a team. After the activity our Vice President kicked off our sales meeting and discussed how communication and teamwork were going to play a large role in our department’s success. The activity was fun, safe, simple, relevant, and well executed.

My nightmare team building experience occurred a year later. My colleagues and I volunteered to work at a nearby children’s summer camp located in the woods. Each team received a different project. One team would plant flowers. One team would paint picnic tables. One team would decorate the recreation center. Then there was my team. We were going to clear an area of forest! We spent all morning dragging extremely heavy tree branches towards a wood chipping machine! We did not have safety glasses, gloves, or helmets! At one point a tree branch kicked out from the chipper machine an almost hit one of my colleagues in the head! Many of us experienced cuts and bruises from the heavy labor, not to mention very sore muscles the next day!

This team-building event failed, for my team anyways, because the trainer who coordinated the event ignored the all-important tip:  Know your audience! We were salespeople and not lumberjacks! The activity was not suitable for us and it was downright dangerous!

So if you are asked to conduct and/or coordinate experiential team building exercises for your company, here are some helpful hints:

• Plan, design and setup your team-building activities with care. For example, if you train busy sales people, plan on short team-building activities! Design your activities to ensure they create the type of learning experience you need and allow for full participation so that everyone benefits. Also, make sure you set up the activity to make sure the participants understand your directions and can follow the rules.
• Make sure the team building is relevant to how it will help the employees succeed in their jobs. For example, if you train customer service representatives, the activity should show how using teamwork can lead to the customer receiving timelier, more accurate information.  Otherwise, learners will think the activity is a waste of time.
• Prepare yourself to debrief the activity. Be prepared with questions that will help each team and the group as a whole process their experiences upon completion of the activity. While monitoring, be sure to observe how each team is working together – or not, as the case might be. What does each team do to foster team work? What, if anything, gets in the way? Then, as part of the debriefing process, and without pointing fingers or naming names, you can use some of your observations to encourage further discussion and bring home the point of the activity.
• Last, but not least, if you do not have prior experience designing outdoor experiential activities then I would recommend using a consulting company that specializes in such things. This way your participants will learn from the experience in a safe fashion!

In summary, there is tremendous value in team building experiences. If they are chosen, designed, and facilitated well, they truly bond groups of people together in positive ways. And, they can be fun! Just be sure to make them memorable for the right reasons by being mindful of the tips above!

Do you have any team building stories you’d like to share?

Lynne

1. Get Organized – It is important to have order. It’s time to discard those old files and clear off the desk.
2. Review last year’s evaluations and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Choose one or two weaknesses that you would like to improve upon and create a plan and a timeline.
3. Identify and read a new industry-related book/magazine that can assist in staying abreast of the rapid changes occurring in the field of training.
4. Examine courses that you teach often and identify one or two things that could be done differently that might enhance the course and add more juice.
5. Try something new; an icebreaker, brainteaser, activity, or technique that you’ve never used before, and push out of your comfort zone.
6. Take another Langevin workshop and build on your knowledge and skills and become certified. The more we learn and grow, the more we can contribute.
7. Continue to read and comment on our blog and network on LinkedIn.
8. And finally, let’s have an Attitude of Gratitude. Let’s show gratitude for the opportunity to impart knowledge and skills that will help our participants improve their job performance.

Success is measured by the willingness to keep trying, so let’s begin this New Year with the spirit of joy and enthusiasm that will move our learners and ourselves to be better at what we do.

Linda

We know we have a responsibility to offer participants value for their training time and training dollar.  Participants also have a responsibility. They have the responsibility to participate and some participants even have the  responsibility to expect more from their investment in training than just ONE thing.

Three days later, when leaving the workshop, the same participant, who would have been happy to learn “just one thing” said, “That was great! I learned so much! There are so many things that I can apply as soon as I get back to work – and, oh I had fun, too.”

Isn’t all training supposed to be like that? Every participant should be walking out the door with a sense of satisfaction, feeling that they got value for their valuable time and money.

So what does it take?  We know a lot has to happen for participants to have this feeling at the end of a course. We need to have the right people in the right course at the right time. By right people I mean people who want and need to be there, and can apply the new knowledge and skill back on the job as soon as possible. The right course means that the course is well-designed, well-delivered, and has the “need to know” content for the participants. The course should be as skill-based and practical as possible – keep in mind that no one gets paid for knowing things – people get paid for doing things. If participants get lots of practice during training, it increases the chance that they will be successful in performing the skills learned back on the job.

Even if the course is well-designed, the instructor must be able to deliver it effectively. Many instructors don’t get sufficient preparation time which sometimes results in a lot of reading from slides. In addition to knowing course content, the instructor needs to have classroom management skills – meaning the ability to manage the group, the training environment, and themselves. In too many situations we have subject matter experts, without any classroom management skills, delivering training.

It is also important to note that my participant said she had fun. I believe that if the course content is relevant, challenging and sets participants up for success then people will have fun. This fun is a legitimate part of the learning experience and will help make people want to come back for more.

So, if we can get the stars to align – meaning the right people, in the right course, at the right time – we can anticipate that the participants will leave the workshop with a sense of satisfaction and value. If we can do that, then people will expect to “learn more than just one thing.”

Langevin Team

Why

Why are we doing this program? To address this critical question we must conduct a Training Needs Analysis to determine it training is really needed. If the answer is yes, we must then ask if training will produce the necessary change in the learners’ behavior or skill? If the learners leave the session without achieving the benefit of the training we have wasted their time and ours, no matter how great or dynamic the training program.

What

What decisions have been made? When training is requested the requestor often has “ideas” about how long the training should be, the method to be used for delivery, the budget, etc. Our task is to determine whether the “ideas” make sense and can we create effective training given these restraints. Based on the constraints we must then determine how we can use the principles of ISD to create effective training.

Who

Who are the participants? Identifying the characteristics of our audience will significantly impact our design. We need to look at generation, education, previous training, job experience, etc. and then determine whether our learners will be prisoners, vacationers, or explorers. Once we know these details, we can create a training program that contains examples and features that will help to connect with our audience. Connecting with our audience greatly increases the chances of transferring the learning back to the job.

What

What do our learners need to learn so that they will be successful back on the job after the training? This is critical to make the course content relevant to the learners and to the company. By determining the answer to this question, we can define the expected outcome of the training.

How

How are the learners’ tasks done? Once we know what tasks the participants need to learn, we need to know the level of detail to include in the step-by-step process we will be teaching. Other how questions to ask are:

• How will the training be delivered (instructor-lead, job aids, e-learning)?
• How will the activities (tests and practices) reinforce the learning?
• How will success be measured (reaction, learning, performance, or results)?

By following Langevin’s Instructional Design Cycle you will learn how to ask all of these questions, plus many more, so you can create training that will be effective and fun, and your learners will learn how to do their jobs better. What more can you ask than that?

Martha

Whether you are a designer, or an instructor, there are some things you can do when you anticipate or encounter resistance to a class.

Designers

For the ever-challenging and mandatory annual training, consider…

• Conducting an assessment: Could an assessment – online or face-to-face – determine competency and remove the need for some learners to attend the class?
• Changing the delivery strategy: Is there an off-the-shelf or home-built e-learning module that would satisfy the requirement?
• Changing the class design: Could the class be changed to something more engaging such as a pre-test coupled with a “lessons learned” discussion of areas that the group or the organization struggle with?

For a class about process change within an organization, think about…

• An Icebreaker. An out-of-the-box-thinking icebreaker can help set the tone. Challenge your learners to “Be a gardener star-plant 10 trees in 5 rows of 4 trees each” (see end of blog for answer), where the answer is not intuitive. This icebreaker could serve as an analogy for a necessary but unpopular change in organizational life. Tie the icebreaker to the need for out-of-the-box thinking when confronted with organizational change.
• Exercises geared to handle learner resistance: You can’t sweep resistance under the rug, so try designing an exercise early in the training where problems are acknowledged and then focus on how to make the best of the new processes? Something like, “list the reasons we should not adopt this procedure,” followed by, “identify those factors we have direct control over.” Offer to act as an anonymous ombudsman to bring the learners concerns to management and then concentrate on how to make the best of the situation during the class (i.e. learn the new process).

Instructors

The techniques for designers can also be used by implemented by instructor on the fly when encountering serious push-back from a learner group. Sometimes all it takes is carefully moderated “air time” to defuse resistance.

What do you do to handle learner resistance? Feel free to post your ideas.

Paul

Oh, the answer to the brain teaser? Sketch a 5-pointed star. Where the lines intersect, plant a tree – you’ll end up with 10 trees; in 5 rows with 4 trees in each row. It looks something like the image below.

TIP #1: Limit the number of slides.

I have talked with many trainers who refer to their PowerPoint slides as “decks.” There are 52 cards in a deck … of playing cards, but when it comes to training, less is more. I think of it this way. Less presentation allows for more practice. Presentation only makes up about one third of your training time. The other two thirds are usually dedicated to application (practice) and feedback. Your participants need some time to “do” what you’re teaching them. One of the best ways to ensure this happens is to limit the number of slides by using one slide for each segment of content. Considering the recommendation that only 20 minutes of each hour be dedicated to presentation, probably 4 or 5 slides per hour would cover the material well. Keep in mind, if you use a demonstration, you may not need the PowerPoint slides at all.

TIP #2: Limit the amount of content per slide.

Visual aids are intended to assist the learners in receiving the content clearly. PowerPoint is not intended to be the instructor’s notes. Thankfully, we have lesson plans for those. For greatest impact, include minimal amounts of information on each slide. As a general rule, use 3 to 7 bullet points with only a word, phrase, or short sentence tied to each bullet. This technique allows the group to become engaged with the instructor to listen for the details of each point. If all of the information is contained on the slide, why not simply let the participants read the slides on their own time?

TIP #3: Turn off the display when slides are not being referenced.

We have a variety of participants in each classroom setting, and their level of attention may vary. However, we as trainers are like conductors. We can actually orchestrate the attention in the room. Simply stated, when you are not referencing a PowerPoint slide, turn the display off. I remember being a participant in a session where the “Welcome” slide stayed up for the entire first hour. We participated in introductions, covered basic content, and even completed activities all while the welcome slide remained on the screen. It was distracting. Allow your participants to focus on what you need them to focus on, every step of the way.

It is a challenge to keep the attention of your participants in any training session. If you follow these three tips, your participants are sure to avoid “Death by PowerPoint.” After all, why do you think they call them “Bullets” anyway?

Jim

Yes, they’re here!  Gen X and Gen Y in the classroom. This, and many other incidents like this, have lead me to find the answer to the following question: “Do the Adult Learning Principles we use, developed by Malcolm Knowles in the ’70’s, still apply today?”

A quick recap of some of the adult learning principles reminds us that adult learners:

• Want to control their own learning.
• Need to know why.
• Want to see the relevance and the benefit in what they are learning.
• Want to participate.
• Have a strong need to maintain their self esteem.
• Do not want their time wasted.

So which of the above principles are still relevant today?

ALL OF THEM! The Gen X’ers and Gen Y’s that I know might even have a stronger need for those principles. They want the “need to know” and they want it now! Don’t single them out or embarrass them in front of peers and don’t waste their time with “busy-work.” So, I guess what I am saying is, we don’t need to recreate the wheel. As training professionals let’s continue to design and deliver training following the principles of adult learning and let’s recognize the learning preferences of a new generation of employees in the work force.

“So what should we do differently?” you ask, to meet the learning needs of Gen X and Gen Y.

First, be aware that their best learning time is afternoon and into the evening, so you may not get their best work in an 8:00 a.m. class. They also prefer flexibility when it comes to scheduling training. If possible, provide the option of two half days of instruction instead of one full day. The younger generations love access to information – years of surfing the net have shown them how to find what they need. Maybe we should be teaching them where to find information rather than giving it to them. Gen X and Gen Y prefer a trial-and-error approach to problem solving rather than a rules-based approach. Look for opportunities to give them a problem and let them figure it out. They will use their multi-tasking skills to discover the answer, find efficiencies, and save time.

Although strongly independent, Gen X’ers want continuous feedback; always ensure they are aware of how they are doing. They have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and will invest in themselves over the organization. Ensure they know what’s in it for them when they are in a training session.

A strong interest in cultural diversity ensures Gen Y’s participation in collaboration and community. In training, strive to have a blended learning approach where they can email, text, and be involved in online learning communities.

There is no doubt that the new generations of learners will challenge the skills of instructional designers and classroom trainers.  I have a feeling (actually, it’s “more than a feeling”) that by continuing to apply Malcolm Knowles’s adult learning principles and making adjustments in our delivery methods we can meet the needs of Gen X and Gen Y.

Oh by the way, just around the corner are the Millennials, so “keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.”

Langevin Team

My light bulb moment came when my now 20-year old son made one of his rare comments to me.  He works part time in a restaurant as a busboy and a server.  He had worked in the restaurant for about six months when he said, “Dad, I found out something really neat.”  I asked him to tell me more. He said that “if I smile at the customers when I speak to them, my tips are bigger.”  Now that may not sound like headline news to you, but to somebody just clearing his teenage years, it was a big discovery. Here’s a news flash,  some young people, feeling a lot more at home with video games and television, don’t necessarily have the same interpersonal skill set as a more seasoned adult.

It’s a strong example of the value of “soft skills” training. Had the relatively small restaurant had a more formal training program — it was all on-the-job training — someone would probably have documented how the best performers related to customers. The process of identifying the organization’s agreed upon “best path” is called a task analysis. One thing the best performers surely did was smile at the customers as they greeted them. A simple behavior? Sure. But one that makes the customer seem more welcome — and valued.  The net result for the employee? Bigger tips. But, for the restaurant, more customers satisfied with their experience and more return business. How valuable is that in today’s economy?

In large fast-food chains the greeting process has been analyzed. One workshop participant who trains fast-food employees said that their task analysis of the greeting was posted on the inside of the counter where the clients can’t see it, but the servers do.  They were expected to greet the customers using the steps on the job aid which, in fact, became the organizational standard. The organization recognized the benefit of this organizational standard for repeat business, customer satisfaction, and improved employee performance.

Among the things a task analysis can be used for are:  initial training, job aids, coaching tools, and performance standards. With a technical skill, the outputs often are the indicators of performance. With a “soft skill,” the outputs can be harder to measure objectively.  Sometimes, the best standard of performance is to “do it the way we told you to.”

Bottom line, the result of a thoroughly analyzed “soft skill” is better performance.

Paul

Once we identified the training needed, we began the process.  I did the homework: pulled articles off the web, purchased the book “The Miniature Schnauzer” which included a DVD on training.  With this information in hand we discussed process and procedure.  We were ready for dog training 101.  Not so fast.  Even though we agreed to what and when (now!), we didn’t agree on a plan of action.  Even though we had information in writing, we still reverted back what we “knew” best.  My husband didn’t grow up with dogs as pets.  What he used was what he heard and his experience with Copper, the Cocker Spaniel we used to have.  My son viewed Munchie as his playmate, therefore, training was primarily up to his father and me unless it suited his need.  I grew up with dogs as pets and had my view on what to do.  Munchie had three different trainers with the same objectives, but with different ways to achieve them.

Sounds familiar?  Imagine how confused Munchie was with three different trainers giving the same command but using different hand signals, different expectations about how long is a good stay, and when he deserves a treat.  Imagine when Munchie is talking with the other dogs and he is saying how confused his trainers are.  They can’t even get their process the same. One person is saying stay.  Another person is saying sit. Another person lets me on the sofa and the others won’t. Who should he obey?  And until they get it together I will do what I want to do.

Wow, we really could have used a lesson plan…

A lesson plan is a job aid for the trainer/instructor/course leader.  It provides the details necessary to conduct a training session.  My husband, my son, and I had collaborated on the content.  The lack of structure (i.e. the lesson plan) created inconsistent training, a confused Munchie and no real change in behavior.  We cannot afford the luxury of a confused learner in training.  Additionally, the lesson plan helps to present a consistent message.  Every time training is delivered, it is the reputation of the training department that is on the line.  If there is an inconsistent message delivered, there is the potential for doubt about your department’s credibility.    The lack of consistency in training also gives learners the perception that they can choose what they will or will not do back on the job. Our message must be strong and clear if we are to create a performance change on the job.

I’m not suggesting that training adults is like training dogs, just that lesson plans are a great tool for ensuring consistency and quality regardless of who you are training. Munchie better watch out because we are getting our plan together and taking back our house!!!

Martha