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| Sales enablement should be about learning experiences |
If Customer Experience is CX, and Employee Experience is EX, then Learning Experience is LX. If the customer experience is right, we buy more. If the employee experience is right, we engage more. Similarly, if the learning experience is right, we learn more. Here are some tips for creating a great learning experience...
Why learning experiences?
Why are learning experiences so important? Imagine you're learning to drive. For your first lesson, you sit in the car with the driving instructor and he spends an hour telling you how the car works and how to drive it. At the end of the lesson, he says you're ready for the driving test. "But I can't drive yet!" you complain. So, the instructor drives up and down the road a few times, showing you how to use the wheel, the pedals, the gearstick and so on. "See? It's really easy!" he says.Clearly, you won't be able to pass the driving test without many hours of practical experience. You need to learn from your mistakes and get constructive feedback from the instructor. There will be some telling and showing involved too, but only practice makes perfect.
Telling and showing can be effective ways to 'teach', especially if the subject matter is theoretical. But we need repeated experience to learn new skills.
So, first of all, stop thinking of yourself as a trainer. From this point onwards, you're a learning facilitator. Your role is not to teach. It is to encourage your learners to participate in their own learning. You're no longer the expert with all the answers. Instead you promote an atmosphere of cooperation to help your learners to learn from experience, from each other and from you.
Creating learning experiences
Lets look at how to use effective learning experiences to create workshops that 'teach themselves'.
Before we begin the workshop, it's helpful to get the learners into a 'learning state of mind' to make them more receptive to the learning experiences that will follow. There has been much research in this area. Relaxed alertness seems to be the most effective state of mind for learning, exploring opportunities and dealing with new concepts. It is also the ideal state for retention of learning because learners can access their subconscious in this state.
It's quite easy to get people into the relaxed alertness state. Music helps, particularly music with a tempo of around 60 beats per minute – similar to the heartbeat. Play this music in the background as people arrive for the workshop and during breaks. This will help them to relax and reflect on their learning, linking it to past experiences. The more they link, the more they learn. Incidentally, music can be useful to announce a change of pace in the workshop or change the mood of the learners. You can use a change of music to create a state of calm, energy, focus or visualisation, for example.
Now your learners are in a receptive state of mind, you need to keep them that way. Designing the workshop in an innovative, interesting and fun way will make it more accessible and memorable for the learners – and for you! Try to stand back from the situation, focus on the learning objective (not the method) and ask yourself 'how could I get this message across in the best way?'
Use your imagination. Try to come up with a role play, exercise, task or game that will get the message across in an innovative or surprising way. This is always more effective than a straightforward presentation of the information. Remember that this kind of delivery requires more thought and preparation, but it is more effective and it takes the pressure off you as the 'trainer'. You're allowing the learning experience you have set up to deliver the learning for you. Instead of being 'the teacher' you're now a facilitator of learning, providing help, guidance and support to the learners as they work through the learning experience.
When you are structuring your workshop, keep in mind that we naturally tend to lose focus during long activities. We're attentive at the start, but our attention dips in the middle, increasing again when we realise the activity is nearly over.
One way to avoid this is to make sure your workshop consists of many different, short activities. When you do this, learners don't have enough time to 'drift off' before the task is over. Try to change the activity every ten minutes. At the very least, you need to change the pace. The changes don't have to be enormous. Playing a recording, doing an informal role play or exercise to make a point, starting a discussion: all these can be enough to re-engage the room – for a while. What you must avoid is long periods where the group is doing the same thing continuously.
When choosing your learning activities, keep in mind the type of learning outcome you want.
For learning outcomes based on knowledge, you may want your learners to demonstrate that they have understood some new information. You might simply present the material, perhaps giving a test afterwards. This is an easy approach but it could be tedious for the learners – and for you!
With learning outcomes based on skills, there is usually more than one 'right' way to approach a task and you may want learners to try out a variety of new skills and behaviours. Role-plays, games, tasks and exercises work well here.
People can be resistant to learning and change so you also need to consider the underlying attitudes of your learners. You may need to 'sell' the learning and explain what's in it for them – what's the benefit to them of learning this new knowledge or skill? You may need to be inventive to create experiences that will help learners see for themselves the need to learn or change.
When designing a workshop you have a large choice of media: computers, internet, music, video, projector, cameras, white boards, flip charts, books and so on. Any or all of these can be very effective, as long as you address the various learning styles and regularly vary the pace, method and medium of the learning, to keep things interesting.
The other rule of thumb is, keep it simple. You might impress some people with new technology, but the novelty will wear off very quickly. Also, the more technical your methods, the more things can, and will, go wrong. Bear in mind that every medium has its strengths and its weaknesses – make sure you always play to the strengths.
Agreeing learning objectives
Establishing shared learning goals for your workshop is critical. As with almost any undertaking, it's important to set your goals or objectives before you start designing or delivering a workshop. As Stephen Covey would put it, you must 'begin with the end in mind'.Ask yourself – what do I want the participants to learn? What do I want them to be able to understand or do as a result of the workshop? What is the learning outcome I am looking for?
To help make your learning outcomes specific and measurable, try to express them using words that describe an observable action:
Explain the key concepts of…
Demonstrate the ability to…
Identify the main features of…
Describe the procedure for…
As part of your introduction to the workshop you can use your learning objectives to set the agenda. But what are the learners' objectives? How well do they match the objectives you have set? The only way to find out is to ask them. What are the key things they want to get out of the workshop? What do they want to learn? What issues are they having? What's bothering them?
This is an excellent way of allowing delegates to 'get things off their chest'; airing any concerns or objections they may have before you begin. This is essential. If you don't do it, you may find that the question, problem or grievance will fester, only to come out later – or worse, a learner may be so distracted by their 'issue' that they don't learn anything during the workshop.
As the learners tell you about their objectives and issues, note them down on a flip chart. This acknowledges all contributions as valid, and allows you to come back to them at the end of the workshop and 'tick them off'. Where the learners' objectives match yours, you can make a contract, or a promise, that their objective will be met during the workshop. Where a learners' objective cannot be dealt with by the workshop, you can still acknowledge its importance, and suggest a possible solution for meeting it outside the workshop.
In this way all objectives are acknowledged and dealt with in some form – you're ensuring that everyone starts the workshop with a clear head, and that you have the delegates' buy-in to the workshop objectives before you start.
Leading discussions
Let's look at a simple and effective way to facilitate group learning: leading a discussion on a topic.Keep in mind that you are learning facilitator: the learners should be doing more talking than you. The best way to ensure this happens is to focus on asking questions. Asking good questions prevents you from 'showing up and throwing up'. They help to build rapport with your learners by getting them to open up.
Questions are useful to find out what learners already know about the topic in hand. This prevents you from telling them things they already know. By asking questions such as 'what do you already know about…?' or 'what are the key steps in this process…?' you encourage a discussion where everyone can contribute. This is energising and engaging for the participants.
When someone answers a question, clarify what you've heard. Make sure you really understand what they mean before moving onto the next point. Ask questions like 'so what exactly do you mean when you say…?'
Make certain that what you've heard is exactly what they meant. Ask questions that include a paraphrase, such as 'so am I right that what you're saying is…?'
Open questions begin with who, what, where, when, why and how. They produce a useful and detailed answer instead of 'yes' or 'no' and lead to other, related questions and drive the discussion. Another way of asking an open question is to use TED, which stands for Tell, Explain and Describe. For example 'Can someone tell me more about…?' 'Who can explain how…?' 'Can I have a volunteer to describe the way you…?'
A great way to integrate questioning into your delivery is to use the three 'P's. First pose your question. In other words, ask the group a question. Next, pause. Sometimes you have to wait quite a while before anyone will answer your question. Perhaps they're shy, or perhaps they just need to think. Eventually someone will break the silence. Bear in mind it will seem a long time to you, but not to them. Before you break the silence, pause again, just to be sure you've given them enough time to answer. If no-one answers the question, and you're sure you've waited long enough, its time to pounce. Ask someone directly to answer the question. If they don't know the answer, pick on someone else. If you still get no answer, perhaps they just don't know!
Asking good questions is all very well, but if you're not listening to the answers, you may as well not bother! Active listening helps us to focus on what is being said, and to show that we are listening – this helps to encourage people to talk. People like to feel they are being listened to. Being a good listener helps you build trust.
Give non-verbal cues to show you're listening; maintain eye contact and use your body language, nodding and keeping an 'open' stance. Use verbal cues too and paraphrase to test your understanding. But make sure you hear people out – don't finish people's sentences.
Some people are poor listeners simply because they are just waiting for their turn to talk. One way to help this is with a 'double pause'. When the other person has finished speaking, pause. Then before you start to speak, pause again. This gives the other person the opportunity to continue if they wish. Many people need time and space to think, before they can really tell you what's on their mind – give it to them. Remember you have two ears and one mouth. Use them in this proportion.
Learning styles
Different people learn in different ways: how can we take this into consideration as learning facilitators?According to psychologists, we develop the way we learn from a mixture of nature and nurture. Although we may be born with a genetic predisposition to learn in a certain way, we continue to ‘learn to learn’ throughout our lives; at home, school and work. By adulthood we may have developed preferences for learning in particular ways.
We may be unaware of our preferred style of learning and become frustrated when faced with learning experiences that don’t suit us. Luckily, there are tools available that can help us identify our preferred learning styles. These help us to select learning experiences that do suit us and to understand why we find some ways of learning difficult.
As a learning facilitator, it’s also useful to know the preferences of your learners because you can identify in advance which sections of your workshop a particular learner might find challenging and offer them extra support.
There are many psychometric questionnaires on the market that provide a learning styles profile. One of the best known is the Honey and Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire, which identifies your preferences in relation to four distinct learning styles:
- Activist
- Reflector
- Theorist
- Pragmatist
Whatever learning styles model you choose, you will find that many people have a clear preference for one or two learning styles. With this in mind, you must design learning experiences that appeal to all learning styles.
We don’t have space here to go into a detailed description of the types of learning activities that appeal to different learning styles. But as a rule of thumb, try to ensure that your workshop offers a mixture of learning activities.
It’s tempting to focus only on activities that you enjoy. But if you do this, you may alienate some learners. To achieve your learning objectives, you must try to appeal to everyone’s learning tastes in equal measure and use a mixture of learning activities such as:
- Diagrams
- Discussion
- Evidence
- Examples
- Exercises
- Flip charts
- Flow charts
- Games
- Group work
- Guidelines
- Handouts
- Individual work
- Models
- On-the-job learning
- Practise
- Procedures
- Props
- Reading
- Reflection
- Role play
- Tasks
- Tests
- Video
Picture: Mark Brannan, Flickr
