11 Training Resolutions for 2019

As we enter 2019, with less, but grayer hair, more wrinkles, and a growing inability to remember lists greater than four, I have been reflecting on what we trainers can do better or differently as we embark on the new year. So... some things to remember. These ideas were picked from the various posts I made in 2018. Choose four and remember those. Here you go…

A simple design rule. (1) Start with the end in mind. Answer the question... what do you want participants doing differently as a result of your program? Now take that answer and either have them do it exactly as stated in a work environment, or simulate it as a role play or a simulation. If the course is presentation skills... make them deliver a presentation. If it is sales, make them make sales. If it is leadership... they better lead something. Be sure you also have a set of criteria to evaluate their output. Then, create activities and use content to support their ability to pass this final performance test. In other words... build the test and teach to it.

And, now that you have the test, (2) forget consistency teaching to it. It’s the objective that matters. Too often, CLOs and training managers mandate consistency in the delivery of a program across the organization. They claim a course needs to be delivered the same way every time and that information must be communicated to the same degree and emphasis. Otherwise, participants won’t behave and act the same way back on the job. This is a huge mistake. Consistency is a red herring. Consistency ignores context and individual learner needs. It doesn’t take into account that human participants (I can’t speak for dogs, cats, and others) are unique and not automatons who engage content and materials the same way. Plus, the very dynamic of 20 individuals all in one classroom (virtual or otherwise) is in of itself unique. Rather, trainers should focus on designated objectives and use the right activities to get learners to those goals. Doing so will yield varying discussions, activity journeys— different end-user experiences. The goal is what is important. The journey should be whatever gets you there with that specific group in front of you. The learning process should be customized and maximized in the moment for each delivery. Consistency be damned. ??

Continuing this idea… One of Thiagi’s most important principles is (3) Build the Airplane While Flying It. He often teases me (I hope it is teasing) that I have taken this approach too far, but here is the idea... Good training should not be built in the vacuum of a back room by a solitary figure called an instructional designer. It should be designed and delivered concurrently, using the dynamic of the participants to adjust, adapt, and synthesize. While the objective(s) for the course should not change, the journey cannot exist without the immediate input from the participants. Who can predict their reactions and how they will play a game (engage in an activity)? And, their reactions will differ each and every time. Therefore, it is essential to add new activities, take others away, modify, and reflect spontaneously as learner engagement occurs. That means, the trainer cannot just show up and deliver a pre-planned program. She must build it as she delivers it. The designer can provide a basic structure, make content and activity suggestions, but, in the end, it is the trainer who must do the bulk of the work. The best courses are the ones where the participants say afterwards that they felt it was especially designed for them. A truly custom airplane!

(4) Remember what a training game/ simulation is all about! Thiagi taught me that all games have some form of conflict, control, closure, and contrivance. Conflict can be cooperative against a common foe, team based, or individual based. Control equals rules and structure. While philosophically, we could argue for games without ending, for our purposes, a good game eventually ends. Finally, contrivance refers to the fact that games are not natural. They have components in them to not take life too seriously. A simulation is an activity that corresponds to some idea/ concept/ task. Instruction, or training, associates with developing competencies. You can have training simulations (flight simulators), simulation games (Monopoly), training games (Thiagi’s Hello Game), or training simulation games (Thiagi Jolts). Be intentional about what you want to use. If you want the book that talks about this... buy it here at https://lnkd.in/eM7MZRM. 

(5) The best trainer is a lazy trainer.The more a trainer does, the less the participants learn. The more a trainer prepares slides and workbooks, the less the participants learn. We spend too much time making materials and presentations perfect and less time making activities that put learners to work. Even our activities are maniacally over-prepared. More time is spent on how the activity peripherals look than making sure we run a good exercise. We talk a good game when we say "engagement," but that works best when we sit down, stop talking, and stop obsessing over slides. The good news... everyone who sees this message probably already does this. The bad news... there are only five of you. Thanks, Mom.

(6) The goal isn't to have fun. The goal isn't to entertain. Rather... and this seems obvious when stated, the goal is to ensure learning. As we have long identified, one of the best ways to increase learning retention is to engage. But, some make the mistake that engagement is simply having a good time. There are a myriad of ways to engage learners. Provocation, profundity, repetitious practice, experience and reflection, and more. Thiagi has identified over 66 different interactive approaches, and some of them are quite painful ??(I say kiddingly, sort of). The key idea is we engage to enhance learning. We don't engage to entertain. Therefore, we can engage in whatever way best works.

(7) Logistics can kill. They should make your life easier, and, of course, your participants’ lives easier. Unfortunately, too often, they become the overarching focus, metastasizing through meetings derailing all attempts at good instructional design. The number of participants, the room arrangement, the duration of the program, the budget, materials, individualized agendas of stakeholders and SMEs… These considerations distract from your one and only— the actual program goal. Think of it this way… If stakeholders, management, SMEs, and you all valued the outcome of the training highly enough, none of these other concerns would matter as anything other, than... well... logistics. Budget is only a concern if the return on the program is less than its cost. If it is, don’t run it in the first place! A course deemed too long is viewed as such because the time investment doesn’t equal the benefit. And, so forth. A higher focus on logistics only indicates a low perceived value for the learning. Ensure the value is indeed there and never design to the logistic. Design to that objective. Then..., and only then... make the logistics work so you don’t distract via disorganization and discomfort! (ALWAYS ASSUMES GOOD DESIGN??.)

As trainers, what are we actually selling? I know... we sell solutions. Ok. I'm onboard with that response, but really... In the old days, we sold proprietary content. We sold our models and our 4-step process for "x," and of course, we sold our brand. But today, models and processes are everywhere. Go to YouTube and type in How to Resolve Conflict. 47 options will come up. Google it, and more. And, that horrible Ted (I really love Ted). Now, there is a Ted for everything you can thing of! So, indeed, content is everywhere. What about the personalities-- Covey, Peters, Blanchard... If content is truly everywhere and the sage on the stage is no longer useful or relevant, then what we have left is the experience. And, frankly, it has always been the experience, the design, and the activities that worked. It has always been the activity that facilitates participants toward an end objective using whatever content is most pertinent. So... what do we trainers sell? (8) We sell good and solid instructional design. We sell results. The content and the models, the personalities-- all window dressing for a well-designed program.

(9) Debrief only when necessary.We have created monsters! In the past, trainers would often run activities and never, or rarely, debrief what happened. But, we train-the-trainers beat into our brethren the notion that people don’t learn from experience— they learn from reflecting on experience. (This line comes from Thiagi.) Today, people are debriefing everything. Participants come back from lunch and some trainers ask them how it felt. Was it a life transforming event? Some activities don’t need debriefing. They are procedural. The game itself provides the feedback and evaluation. For example, some board games, quiz games, etc. These activities may lead to corrections regarding conceptual understanding, but not in depth debriefing. Other activities, like some simulations, jolts, etc., require the processing of the experience. Learning will occur from reflecting on that experience. The bottom line is debrief with intent. Debrief when the experience of the activity requires an understanding of what happened, why it happened, how people experienced it, and what they will do differently. Otherwise, let it go.

(10) Good training should never end. The idea that a person takes a course and that's it, she is now fully trained is laughable. Today, we tend to talk about follow-up as coaching, or potentially eLearning, even subsequent course offerings, and other options. This is all great to consider. But, I think we should also change the paradigm, the frame, that a course is one day, or two days, or four hours. We should think of development as life-long. As long as we continue to think of training as having finite time boundaries, we don't come up with other viable options for continuous development. Our very way of thinking that a program is scheduled for a set amount of time limits the ways in which we explore learning. And, now we have gone further. For example, microlearning condenses the way we conceive of training. I know... it is intended to widen scope, but really it is just another way to shrink schedules. Yes, practically and logistically, there are many reasons for training to be scheduled. I get that. I don't have an answer... yet... just a thought. But, I think we should explore training as lifelong, endless learning and see where that takes us. Let's change the frame.

(11) Stop doing smiley sheets!!! When evaluating a training program they just experienced, exactly what are participants qualified to assess? Well, they can tell us whether they perceive the workshop as useful and fun. They can describe the experience. They can say whether they liked the trainer. They can tell us if immediately after the program they expect to apply what they learned. They can tell whether they believe they learned something. Of course, telling us whether they learned something is their perception and not necessarily an objective and reliable statement. Participants are actually not all that qualified to tell us whether a training program was indeed effective immediately after a program. Their sense of whether they learned something is skewed by other factors like enjoyment, boredom, amity toward the instructor, and so forth. Their ignorance of what constitutes learning also renders them less likely to understand whether a course was good. Rather, it is better and more reliable for us (learning professionals) to assess application in other ways. I love having peers I respect assess my training and provide feedback. I like talking with managers back in the field who can tell me how specific behaviors and skills are applied after a program. Participants are just not the most reliable evaluators.