Enterprise Learning Initiatives.

“Houston, we have a problem.” – Apollo 13

That single line, paraphrased and popularized in the 1995 blockbuster Apollo 13, revealed much more than the harrowing events of a near-fatal NASA mission. It demonstrated the power of action learning.

Without a realistic simulated environment on the ground, and the life-or-death incentive to resolve threats, the entire crew would have been lost. It is powerful proof that real problems, recreated in training, drive real results.

On the surface, designing effective learning experiences can seem simple. New system? Teach users to reference the system documentation. New reporting structure? Teach employees to use the org charts. But those tools and training are only a sliver off the tip of the learning iceberg.

Learning experiences must address real-world situations. We must teach the critical, the common, and the catastrophic. Why? Participants will buy in only to training that is meaningful and models their on-the-job reality. And organizations will benefit only from employees that teach the right behaviors for each situation.

Designers can’t just cover the expected daily responsibilities and tasks. We can’t stay on the “happy path.” We must alter that smoothly paved highway to include the bumps, potholes, and road closings that can (and do) occur along the way. In short, when training includes opportunities to identify and solve real business issues, participants learn and organizations benefit.

Here’s how to deliver realistic problem-solving experiences:

Branch out from common tasks to common problems. The straight and narrow is a great starting point, but it’s not enough. Let’s say you’re designing training for department store employees. You include scenarios on accepting purchase returns. In the common scenario, it’s relatively simple: (1) Scan receipt. (2) Enter return reason code when prompted. (3) Press the Return button. Great! You can give them several scenarios using different reason codes. But don’t stop there. Ask, “What if…?” What if the customer doesn’t have a receipt? What if it’s past the time window to accept the return? What if this makes the customer mad? (Or really mad?) What if there’s a technical issue like an error message or a system outage? You can see that the answers to these questions are ripe with possibility. So take the time to follow that not-so-happy path, to arrive at learning gold.

Build in time to debrief the problem-solving experience. Create opportunities for learners to discuss how they solved the realistic problem – how they behaved, what process they followed, and the results they achieved. Whether you use individual reflection or group discussion, make learners responsible for identifying outcomes. This debrief reinforces the value of following procedures and processes, especially if they are a significant change to the way things were done before.

Connect to the bigger picture. Help learners identify and describe the effects of their new behaviors on coworkers, the team, the organization, and customers. This drives home how their actions influence others and the business. It also teaches the importance of replicating their performance in the training environment when they’re back on the job.

Keep learning fresh. “Use it or lose it” may be a cliché, but not all clichés are created equal; this one hits the mark. Don’t let those hard-earned learning wins go stale. When possible, train only what is needed or will be used immediately on the job. And extend the learning experience through check-ins, on-the-job challenges, or learning networks. Give employees as many opportunities as possible to apply new skills after their formal training.

No matter the industry – from actuaries to astronauts — the most powerful learning experiences are realistic and relevant. Make them your design priority, and you’ll help learners perform and succeed … no problem.

Heard any good stories lately? If you’ve heard a great speech, I bet there was a story in there.

All skilled presenters – including trainers – use some kind of advance organizer. You instructional designers out there know an advance organizer is a framework to help the learner make sense of the session and the incoming information. It provides context. It answers the questions in every head in the room: “What are we talking about right now?” “How does it relate to the other stuff?” “How much longer do I have to be here?”

Advance organizers take many forms: a list, a flowchart, a timeline, a map…and yes, a story. Here are three kinds of narrative advance organizers:

Well-known stories, like fairy tales and shared history, work because everyone is familiar with them.  The speaker uses each part of the story as an introduction to the content, and listeners instantly know where they are – the beginning, middle or end. Learners retain the information better because it’s attached to something they already know. Bonus: the speaker can use a metaphor to reinforce learning. (For example, Little Red Riding Hood is about avoiding hidden dangers.)

Personal stories are effective because they help learners relate the content to their own experiences. As the instructor talks about his or her own life, learners remember similar situations. This helps recall and reinforces the relationship between the instructor and learner.

Case studies serve as organizers and also deliver content. At each step in the story, the learner hears about a real-life challenge and how it was solved, illustrating how to use the skills being taught.

Here’s an example. Let’s say I want my learners to be able to describe Emerson’s three principles of behavior change. I might tell this story:

I have three kids, and I’ve taught each of them to swim.

My oldest is Fiona. She saw how much fun the other kids were having in the “big” pool, but she still didn’t want to try. So I said, “Remember how you didn’t want to get on the trampoline in our neighbor’s yard? You were so scared at first. But you tried it and now it’s your favorite thing! Swimming will be just like that.” For Fiona, I made swimming feel familiar.

My second child is Charlie. After we compared swimming to something else he loved (swinging on the swing set) to make it familiar, he and I made a list of steps he would take to learn to swim. He put whatever he wanted on the list: “Put my foot in the water.” “Put my elbow in the water.” “Stand in the water and then sit down and stand up again.” He was in charge of his own learning plan, and he accomplished each task until he learned to swim. I helped Charlie feel in control.

My youngest is Sam. I made swimming feel familiar and we made his own list, to put him in control. Then I added an acknowledgement to each step. So he got a sticker on his list for each task he completed, and when he got to a big milestone (like putting his whole head under water) he got to choose the movie for family movie night. We all celebrated his accomplishment, which encouraged him to keep going. I helped Sam feel successful.

These three principles are the key to any big behavior change, even in the context of a major organizational transformation. Make the change feel familiar, controlled and successful.

Stories are powerful learning tools. They take a little effort to build into your program, but they’re well worth it.

Is a narrative organizer not quite right for your course? Check out a blog post on graphic advance organizers, here.

I’m a big kid at heart. I love going to amusement parks, water parks, zoos, festivals…you get the picture!  One thing I find really helpful is a visual map — everything there is to do and where to find it, all in one picture. I look for the “You Are Here” label and I see which attractions I’ve been to and what’s still left to do. I can see the path from where I am to where I want to go. A visual is so much easier for me to follow than verbal information. Without a map, I’d wander around and probably get lost. I wouldn’t see what I wanted to see and couldn’t anticipate when I’d be finished.

Now, translate this into a learning environment. Training graphic organizers use visual symbols and images to illustrate concepts, ideas and relationships between them. They organize the content and activities learners will experience. Just like the amusement park map, graphics used in learning programs trigger something in the brain, making memory and recall faster and more accurate.

Here are a few kinds of graphic organizers we use in learning programs:

• Timelines give learners information about where they are in a session or show a sequence of important events. As I think back to history courses I took in school, those timelines of important historical events were much easier to remember than the text in my books.
• Flowcharts show the order, sequence, direction and relationship of content. These are particularly useful to teach a new business process; process flows show steps and different paths the learner can take, depending on the situation.
• Maps are great graphic organizers for learning. For example, they might illustrate a sequence of activities required to complete a course; as each activity is completed, the visual is updated with a checkmark, so it’s clear what’s done and what’s left to do.
• Tables are useful in organizing content too. A table with a sequence of steps can do double-duty – as a guide during training and as a job aid, when the learner is completing the task in real life.
• Conceptual models are visuals that aren’t tied to time, nor are they linear. They often begin with a main idea or concept and branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics. A mind map is a tool to create a conceptual model. Mind maps are particularly useful for brainstorming. You start with a main topic written in a circle, then draw branches coming out of the circle. Each branch represents a subtopic. A mind map, shown at the beginning of training, can show all topics at a glance; at the end of the session, it can help participants recall the key take-aways.

Next time you’re out and about, see how many graphic organizers you can find. We don’t often think about how much they help us, day to day. But a graphic organizer will be the first thing I look for on my next “big kid” adventure!

My teenager loves superheroes. Her favorite is Captain America. (In fact, she is convinced she is related to him because we share the same last name.) Recently she asked me, “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” We spent the next 30 minutes debating the merits of various superpowers.

The next day, I went into work with superpowers on my mind. I found myself wondering, “What is the most valuable instructional design (ID) superpower?” I considered the many ID skills needed – creativity, investigative, problem solving, technical, and people skills, to name just a few. Then it hit me. The most valuable ID superpower is one of the most underrated skills – empathy.

Renowned author and psychologist Daniel Goleman lists empathy as a key element to emotional intelligence.  In a nutshell, empathy is the ability to walk in another person’s shoes and understand their point of view. It requires emotional intelligence because it involves detecting subtle cues and sensing unspoken feelings and emotions.

Empathy is an instructional design superpower because it enables us to paint a multi-dimensional picture of our learners. We are often limited to just a few learner demographics – job title, location, language, prerequisite courses, and average years of service. But learners are human beings who can’t be reduced to a few facts. We need empathy to fill in the blanks, know our learners, and meet their needs.

This insight doesn’t happen overnight. Terence Brake, author and L&D expert, describes this as a “process of discovery rather than an instant blinding flash of insight. It demands time, attentiveness, and perspective to fully comprehend and act.”

To better understand our learners, we must immerse ourselves in their worlds:

• What do they do, see, hear, and experience?
• What are their day-to-day interactions?
• What are their influences, distractions, pain points, limitations, and areas for improvement?
• What are their goals, values, and expectations?
• What are their skills and competencies?

Ask questions and then really pay attention to the answers. Listen to the words being said but also the emotion behind the words to understand how they are feeling about the change. Are they anxious? Excited? Apathetic? Proud?

Empathy provides instruction designers with x-ray vision into the lives of our learners and helps us understand what motivates and inspires them. Using this information, we can design solutions to fit their wants and needs.  Empathy is my favorite superpower. What’s yours?

I recently wrote about using stretch goals to accomplish things originally thought impossible. Action learning is another way to encourage incredible performance.

Getting humans to the moon in ten years was a stretch goal set by President Kennedy in the 1960s even though, at the time, it was not yet technically feasible. However, NASA achieved their stretch goal through action learning. The teams at NASA built on each success and each failure, learning at a blistering rate and improving their performance to the point they met their goal.

Most of us don’t work at NASA — how do we apply action learning to our training programs? We make it real. When employees deal with actual business issues, there are real-life consequences for failure. They are more focused and productive, and they learn more easily from each success and failure. So the challenge for trainers is to bring some of that urgency to the classroom. The more relevant and realistic the training, the more participants learn.

Here are four ways to use action learning to super-charge your programs:

1. Create an experience that is highly engaging and mimics the tasks of “real work.” Pick a highly realistic training scenario – a situation that adds value to the organization. Make sure the setting, tools, inputs and outputs are as close as possible to the real work situation.
2. Debrief the experience. Review the process, behavior, performance, and results. This step is critical to action learning. Participants examine their actions and the results so that they understand how best to improve outcomes in the future.
3. Generalize from results. What does this mean for the organization? What will the effects be on customers, team performance, Key Performance Indicators, the work of other departments and external entities? Talk with learners about what happens downstream from their tasks.
4. Transfer lessons to the future. Build in ways for employees to apply their action learning on the job.

Action learning reminds me of a saying by Reg Revans: “There can be no learning without action, and no action without learning.” It is truly remarkable what we can accomplish given the right tools, support, and means to reach our goals. Thought and learning are of little value unless converted into action. Another big thinker, Ken Blanchard, said, “Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven’t learned a thing until you take action and use it.”

Do you know everything you need to know to be your best as a learning professional? Well, I don’t. And I hope I never believe that I do know everything. Excellence means growth, and even the best of us benefits from new research and the perspectives of other smart people.

That’s why I love lists like the one TalentLMS just published: Books Every Aspiring CLO Should Read.

Full disclosure: one of our CEO’s books is on this list. But alongside that excellent piece of work, there are 47 well-considered books for learning professionals. Here are a few I can personally recommend:

• Visual Design Solutions: Principles and Creative Inspiration for Learning Professionals by Connie Malamed. We own this book and use it for our more junior folks as part of our development program to get up to speed and client-ready.
• Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal. We love Jane McGonigal around here. She made us take a look at the world of games to see some very important benefits.
• The Adult Learner: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development by Malcolm S. Knowles, Elwood F. Holton III, and Richard A. Swanson. As the subtitle humbly suggests, this is one of the books many consider a “learning and development bible.” I often refer to this for reminders or good rules of thumb.

The list is broken down into categories (corporate training, instructional design, gamification, talent management, etc.) to help you find exactly the inspiration and advice you’re looking for. Happy reading!

Everyone is familiar with goals and setting goals, but what about stretch goals? Stretch goals push and inspire people to accomplish things they might not have thought possible.

Research shows students actually perform better than others when they are expected to do so. This concept is played out in a scene* from the movie Facing the Giant. A football coach challenges one of his players to the “Death Crawl” drill (crawling on all fours while carrying another player on his back). The drill is set up for the player to crawl 10 to 20 yards. The coach tells the player that he wants to challenge him to go 50 yards. The player balks at this idea, and the coach responds, “I think you can go 50 yards with someone on your back, but no matter how far you make it – I want you to give me your absolute best!” Before the player starts the drill, the coach blindfolds him and says, “I don’t want you to stop when you think you’ve done enough; I want you to go until you absolutely can’t go any further.” The player starts the drill with the coach pushing, encouraging, and continually telling the player to keep going just a little bit further. Finally, the player collapses, totally exhausted. Out of breath, he mutters “That’s got to be at least 50 yards.” When the coach removes the blindfold, the player discovers he has made it all the way to the other end zone! He didn’t think he could make it 50 yards let alone the entire length of the football field!

It is truly astonishing what we can accomplish given the right circumstances. Here are five principles to keep in mind when setting stretch goals:

1. Stretch goals are called “stretch” because they are very difficult to meet. If the standard is easy to achieve, it’s not a stretch goal.
2. Stretch goals are not goals people are required or expected to meet. No one should be punished or criticized for not meeting a stretch goal.
3. Performance against stretch targets can affect other parts of the organization. If employees become more efficient or increase output, they’ll change something about the business process. Know the upstream and downstream impacts of changing employee behavior.
4. If people are not given the knowledge, tools, and means to meet stretch goals, the effects can be disastrous. If the goal cannot be met because of lack of support, it has the opposite effect on motivation, productivity, and teamwork.
5. Risk-taking should be encouraged and rewarded, even if it fails. Remember, there’s no penalty for failing to meet a stretch goal. But go one step further and reinforce the impulse to try. For example, one company builds failure expectations into performance reviews – they expect one significant slip-up per year.

Stretch goals are a powerful tool when executed properly. They enable people and organizations to reach new heights. Remember what Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”

*Click link to see a clip of the movie scene: Death Crawl and Death Crawl 1

When it comes to training, there are things we need to do, things we should do, and things we would like to do. We all understand that. However, we often find ourselves reacting and doing what seems best at the moment. We don’t necessarily focus on the top priorities.

How many times have you found yourself facilitating a training session and realized you were running out of time with too much content left to cover? At this point, you either skip content or speed up to make it to the finish line!

The problem doesn’t start in the classroom. It happens because we want to achieve more in our training programs than we have time for.

One way to address this is to use the Eisenhower matrix to manage tasks. The matrix helps you focus energy and time on the most critical elements of your program. All other tasks fall in line behind the most important; they are rescheduled, deleted or delegated to someone else for completion.

What is the Eisenhower matrix?

The Eisenhower matrix was developed by former president Eisenhower to help prioritize his work. It forces you to assign an urgency and importance to each task, which puts the task into one of four quadrants.  The result is a list of targeted tasks in each quadrant and a strategy for each list.

How do we apply the matrix to training?

Think about the goals of your training program and each task you need to complete. Then place each task in one of the four quadrants. Use these descriptions to help you decide.

Using this matrix will help you achieve more by focusing on less. As a bonus, your learners will thank you for not overwhelming them with content.

On Sunday nights, do you watch Game of Thrones? Do you play Candy Crush before bed? Did you collect Beanie Babies?

Trends touch us in all sorts of ways, in both our personal and professional lives. As a learning professional, you know all about the trends in learning and development. “Gamify it!” they say. “Make it mobile!” Sure, that sounds fun, but are those trends the best way to reach your learners?

Well, we’ve thought about it a lot, so you don’t have to. Watch our series analyzing six popular learning methods. These short videos explain each trend and they might help you decide whether they’re right for your learners and your organization.

The videos cover these trends in learning and development:

• Upside-down learning
• Gaming
• Moving away from PowerPoint
• Mobile learning
• Nano learning
• MOOCs

Enjoy!

When I was a waitress in college, before the end of every shift, I had to “roll silverware.” LOTS of silverware. Stack knife and fork on top of a napkin, fold in bottom, then left and top corners, and last wrap right corner around and tuck in to hold. Repeat, repeat, and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And on … and on. Does this sound like something to smile about? No.

So, imagine my wonderment when someone would walk by and say, “What’s wrong? Smile, Randi!” I would oblige, they would leave, and I would return to a rational expression. (What kind of fool smiles at silverware? Why am I expected to show affection for these utensils?) Their insistence was nonsensical. After all, I smiled quite adeptly at actual people – customers and coworkers, deliverymen, garbage collectors, and even random passersby. I didn’t have a smiling problem, did I? Why should I start smiling while I rolled the utensils?

Flash forward to 2018 and my delight seeing news stories of Russian workers being taught to smile before the World Cup began.

The very idea of smile training cracks us Westerners up (pun intended). But Russians aren’t accustomed to “smiling for no reason.” In their culture, it is seen as a sign of stupidity. (Vindication! Take that, silverware lovers!) In fact a Russian woman once said she’d been questioned by police for her “suspicious smiling.”

An anticipated 1.5 million foreign soccer fans gave Russians a legitimate smiling challenge and an opportunity to rethink their unsmiling ways (even if would be only a “smile-cation”). They wanted to appear welcoming and leave a positive impression. They had a great big why to back up smile training before the masses descended.

Back in my waitress days, you couldn’t have convinced me to learn to smile while I rolled silverware. But an entire city of Russians understood why they had to learn to smile.

How can we apply this to our training programs? How do we make sure our learners understand why they must change their behavior? Yes, we can simply tell them the reasons, but how do we make the why integral to the training?

Be brave. Don’t be afraid to let new employees interact with real clients and customers before they’re 100% ready. Restaurants are great at this. Before a grand opening, family and friends are often invited in for a complimentary meal. There’s nothing like a real-world situation to help people up that last bit of the learning curve. Real customers help restaurant employees understand why they need to be ready. Make this work for you — invite select clients or customers to help you improve your service to them.

Go live. Or live-ish. If you’re doing systems training, set up a simulation or training environment that feels real. Faced with a system that behaves like the real thing will help learners realize they are about to impact the business – that’ a big why. Even more compelling: have them finish learning using the live system. Plan for it, supervise learners, and train in controlled, small steps.

Leverage experience. Your experienced team members make effective coaches. They know the business and can share real examples. There’s nothing like a first-person story of success or failure to convince an employee they need to be ready to perform. A coach can also lead role plays, acting as the client or customer, and present challenges to trainees. New employees can begin by shadowing their coaches, who can then monitor and guide them through their first on-the-job tasks.

Maybe, back during my waitress days, a compelling why would have motivated me to smile my way through menial tasks … maybe. I have learned the value of a smile, though. And when it comes to achieving speed to performance, making the why of training as compelling and real as possible is good for business. If you succeed? You’ll leave ‘em smiling … no additional training required.

Want more on Russian smile training? Watch this.