We've been designing powerful, experiential training for more than 15 years and we thought we'd share some of our top learning and development tips with you. I hope you find them useful. Look out for more soon.
1. We remember the unusual!
Harsh as it sounds, most training that occurs in business is forgotten within 24 hours or the participant leaving the training room, particularly if it’s delivered by presentation.
But unusual experiences build new connections in our brain and lead to lasting memories.
That’s why an exercise like Witches of Glum can be so powerful: Download it now for free!
2. Be wary of role-play.
Many participants hate role-plays and they are often not a particularly effective learning tool anyway. When we create ‘role-play’ or simulations that attempt to reflect the work environment, participants will try to ‘act’ as they think they’re expected to. This can be useful if it reflects a real change of behaviour but often it doesn’t.
Focus on the behaviours you need to observe and change and create ‘real play’ scenarios where participants will forget they’re learning and behave naturally.
Hungry Chick Inn is a good example of this – it tests participants’ abilities to manage time, schedule tasks and effectively manage a project but does so in a way that doesn’t feel like a test, or learning.
3. Confirmation Bias is the trainer's enemy.
Confirmation bias is a proven phenomenon that means we tend to seek out and give more weight to information and evidence that supports our existing view of the world - and ignore or belittle evidence that challenges our existing beliefs.
In other words, we hear what we want to hear.
The challenge for trainers is not to just tell learners ‘what’ they need to do, but to help participants discover for themselves, ‘why’ they need to change. Exercises like Building Engagement achieve this powerfully – and help participants ‘get it’.
If you've got a comment or question about any of these tips, please get in touch. It'd be great to hear from you.
Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com
www.managerslibrary.com
