Enterprise Learning Initiatives.

I can’t wait to see your deck! – said no one, ever.

Real talk: chances are slim you’ll hear oohs and awe during your PowerPoint presentation. Don’t take it personally, take it as failing of the business world. Microsoft estimates more than 30 million PowerPoint decks are presented every day. That’s a lot of slides. We’re decked to death.

Keep this in mind the next time you use PowerPoint. While it’s an easy and well-accepted tool for the deck builder, it’s not always so great for the learner. Why?

The way we use decks helps us as presenters and trainers more than it helps learners.

People have to quickly read and glean data from each slide, while you’re talking, before you – poof! – move on and the slide disappears. Same for the next slide. And the next.

If you have a more active and familiar audience, you can expect requests to “go back a few slides” where you’ll re-explain as they furiously take notes. You’ll see a few furrowed brows, but eventually they will stop asking questions. That’s not always a good thing.

If you have a distant or more formal audience, people will tune out and make a mental note to ask you for the deck later.

Most presenters offer to send it anyway. The presenter and audience have good intentions, but it’s sort of a cop out. You’re unintentionally saying, “I know you probably didn’t learn what you needed, but it’s all right here – good luck!”

Many of us in the audience don’t look at those abandoned decks. If we do…now it’s a job aid. You could have designed a job aid that works as a job aid instead.

Most people need both the deck and the presenter to facilitate learning. You probably won’t be with learners when they are trying to execute what you have taught. So even if you have the most amazing deck ever, there are a few things you can do.

1. Even if it’s not training – it’s “just a presentation” – raise it to the level of a learning experience. Think like an instructional designer. People learn by engaging, but every slide is essentially a passive experience. Any kind of content can be turned into an interaction. So, stop. Leave the deck during your presentation to get your audience talking, doing and sharing.
2. Build in time for that engagement. If you have 30 minutes on the agenda, don’t build 30 minutes of slides. Leave time for practice and discussion. And that doesn’t just mean after your slides are done – make it clear you’re ready to stay on one slide until everyone is comfortable, before moving on. Leaving no extra time says to the group, “My deck is perfect – this is all you need.”
3. Think of even the simplest presentation as a multi-step learning process. The steps should include your presentation, follow-up, and on-the-job learning opportunities. So build tools that support each step.

PowerPoint is an incredibly successful and useful tool. But it’s just one tool and it shouldn’t drive the service you are providing to your audience. Put learning first and make the deck follow.

Recently, when I picked up my high school junior from school, I asked her how her classes were. “Boring,” she said. I develop learning programs for my clients, and I never want my learners say anything like that. Usually, if our training participants aren’t stimulated, it’s because we are focused more on content delivery – unconsciously thinking of our learners as passive receptacles to be filled with content. Instead, we need to focus on engaging them. It’s easy to be bored when you’re sitting, with little to do – it’s hard to be bored when you’re taking center-stage as the star of the show.

So, I’d like to provide four tips for stimulating learner engagement:

Stimulate their brains.

Lectures are boring because they trigger only one part of the brain – the part that listens. To make your learning more impactful, try to engage as many brain systems as you can. Engage the visual cortex by surrounding the learning environment with pictures and graphics. We process images much more quickly and effectively than words, and we remember those images longer – especially if they are unique and grab our attention. By appealing to multiple brain centers, we give learners multiple paths to store and retrieve the information.

Stimulate their hearts.

People learn more when they have an emotional connection to the topic. And the best way to build emotional connection is by sharing a story. Stories bring training to life. They give us a main character that learners can relate to. We care – we root for the character through the obstacles and challenges that give the story drama and build our interest. We are drawn into the story and want to know what happens next. We cheer when the hero of the story finds a way to overcome those difficulties – and we learn a little something about how we could do the same when facing a similar challenge.

Stimulate their hands and feet.

Get learners out of their chairs and get their hearts pumping faster. Make the learners interact with and manipulate the content. Have them demonstrate content points. For example, if there are five key customer service principles you want them to remember, assign each principle to a small group and have that group come up with a dance move that represents the principle. Then have each group teach the others their dance move and pull it all together into the whole group doing the “customer service dance.” They might find it a bit silly, but they won’t be bored. And that will be one topic they remember for a long time!

Stimulate their funny bones. 

Laughter is the opposite of boredom. So make the learning fun. Use gamification to inspire some friendly competition between groups. For example, ask learners to share their funniest story from when things went wrong – you might even have them act it out as a skit or record it on video. Then, challenge the group to come up with their cleverest way to use the learning concepts to address the situation.

When learning programs activate participants’ brains, hearts, hands, feet, and funny bones, the last thing you’ll ever hear is “that was boring.”

I’m not a great cook, but I enjoy watching competitive cooking shows like Master Chef and Top Chef where amazing dishes are created. The TV chefs create an experience using the right combination of flavors, textures, and presentation. There’s no cookie-cutter approach; each dish is unique and carefully planned to achieve the optimal eating experience. Likewise, when I want to create a great learning program, I try to use the right combination of learning techniques, blended together, to maximize the transfer of knowledge.

There’s nothing cookie-cutter about my learning creations either. People learn in different ways, so putting together the best experience takes an understanding of audience, content, skills and behaviors they need to learn, and any delivery considerations. There are, however, some staples – elements I think about when designing any blended solution.

Elements of a Blended Learning Program

• Set up. “Mise en place” is a French term for having all your ingredients measured, cut, peeled, sliced, grated, etc. before cooking starts. Pans are prepared. Mixing bowls, tools, and equipment are set out. It is a technique chefs use to assemble meals efficiently. For blended learning courses, the setup is also important. Provide an overview of the course, including how the course will be organized and delivered. Set expectations with learners about how they will interact with media, measure success, and find support after training ends.
• Present. Chefs use a variety of ways to share their recipes and cooking methods: books, videos, TV cooking shows, and live classes. For blended learning, we use classroom instruction, group activities, independent learning, eLearning, coaching, etc. Build a blended solutions solution that gives the individual more ways to learn, improving their chance of success. And allow learners flexibility across a blended program; they learn better when they can control their own experiences.
• Demonstrate. Learning a new recipe for the first time is easier if someone shows you how to do it. Include live demonstrations, video demonstrations, and other ways to observe someone performing well.
• Practice. The best way to hone your cooking skills is to experience first-hand a dish that turns out great and a dish that flops. Allow learners to practice using the content in a realistic, but controlled environment. Simulations and other realistic trials help learners test their learning and get real-time feedback on their performance in a low-risk setting. And, for tasks requiring human interaction, there’s no substitute for face-to-face interaction and practice in a real or realistic setting.
• Assess. Good chefs taste their food as they cook to make sure it meets their standards and expectations. For blended solutions, verify the learner has mastered the skills through performance assessment, certification, or informal learning checks. Just as chefs make sure each part of a dish is right, consider having your learners demonstrate mastery of each skill or behavior before they move on to the next.
• Coach. Every great chef once worked under the wing of an established, reputable chef who taught them the nuances of cooking that can’t be learned from a book. Make managers and peers part of blended learning programs. They should provide structured, ongoing coaching and feedback. This is a key piece of any blended solution; it helps ensure the skills learned through formal training are applied on the job.
• Collaborate. Social media has become a great platform for chefs and casual cooks alike to share recipes, cooking techniques, and lessons learned. Enhance your blended learning program through communities of practice. These communities enable collaboration during the course; for example, participants might use online chat to ask questions, share information, and solve problems. They are also a great way to deepen skills and reinforce critical behaviors over time.

Successful learning takes many forms because learners and situations are different. It’s all about thinking like a Top Chef and finding that optimal mix of techniques. As great chef Emeril Lagasse would say, blended programs give your learning some “BAM!”

By Emerson Director, Learning and Development, Laura Hume

I love my team. There. I said it. We met three-and-a half-years ago. It was going to be a long distance relationship from the start, as they were scattered across the US. They had recently ended a long-term relationship with my predecessor. Most of them were with her for years and had both personal and professional bonds. I knew I had my work cut out for me, but was confident I had something to offer them if they would give me a chance.

I made sure to use our webcams a lot the first few months. We had individual meetings and group meetings. We texted at odd hours. It was a start. I got to know them as professionals and colleagues. I saw them use their instructional design, program management, and client management skills. I discovered who had specialty areas like eLearning or simulation design. I heaved a sigh of relief. My team was smart, talented, creative…and funny, and talented, and caring. I hadn’t been sold a bill of goods in the hiring process.

I also got to know them as people. I learned about husbands, wives, partners, children, cats, and dogs. I figured out who was introverted and who was extroverted. I discovered who needed lots of support and who wanted only an occasional check-in. They were learning from me and felt supported by me. And, more importantly, I was learning from them and felt equally supported. What started as good will and professionalism turned into strong relationships that I cherish.

However, I occasionally feel like I’m cheating on them.

I feel like I’m cheating because I have a secret…I loved my last team just as much. It was a totally different team with a very different company, but I loved them too. Oh…and I guess I loved the team before that one. And the one before that.

I’ve been reflecting lately on the concepts of love, leadership, and high performance teams. There are several metaphors typical in the leadership literature: Coach, Servant, Conductor, and Guide. I love that a Coach sets a high bar and leverages the strengths of each player. Servant leadership, with its emphasis on social responsibility, speaks to me as well. A Conductor creates a unified whole out of talented individuals, which is very much what I seek to do. A Guide brings others along a sometimes difficult path, and that’s essential in our business.

Yet none of those metaphors felt just right to me. Each implies the leader is acting upon the team in some way. None of them captures the reciprocity and interactivity of team-ness. My love affair with my team is not unrequited. In fact, I’m getting more than I give in this relationship. After all, there are many of them and just one of me. Although my title is Director, I am simply performing the responsibilities of my role — just as each member of my team is – and, together, we create an interactive whole.

Finally, I stumbled upon the African term ubuntu. Leymah Gbowee, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, is credited with the definition of Ubuntu: “I am what I am because of who we all are.” Muchiri ¹ notes that ubuntu focuses on a humanistic concern for relationships employing compassion and respect. Eureka! This was what I was searching for — a word that means we are all together part of the whole.

Brubaker, in his article Servant Leadership, Ubuntu, and Leader Effectiveness in Rwanda²
created a survey for his research study to determine whether Ubuntu leadership was a strong predictor of leader effectiveness. Although he found that it was positively correlated, I am more interested in the (unstudied) correlation of overall team effectiveness.

I adapted Brubaker’s survey and replaced the term “leader” with the term “team,” and I have streamlined the survey to five questions.

1. My team provides me with counsel to succeed in my job.
2. My team provides me with resources to fulfill my responsibilities.
3. My team is sensitive to each other’s problems.
4. My team is willing to reach out and help others.
5. My team respects each other’s contributions.

My hypothesis is that a team (the named leader plus all members in the reporting chain) that answers “yes” to these five questions is an engaged, high-performing team.

How will your team answer? How will you? If each of you answers yes, I see an HR-approved love affair in your future, too.

Laura Hume is Director of the Learning and Development line of business for Emerson Human Capital Consulting, Inc.

^{1. Muchiri, M. K. (2011). Leadership in context: A review and research agenda for subSaharan Africa. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 84, 440-452.↩}

^{2. Brubaker, T. A. (2013). Servant Leadership, Ubuntu, and Leader Effectiveness in Rwanda. Emerging Leadership Journeys, Vol. 6 Iss. 1, pp. 114 – 147. Regent University School of Business & Leadership ISSN 1941-4684↩}