Tip #340: Seven Mistakes That Trainers Make When Choosing Learning Activities- And How to Avoid Them

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” Sam Levenson

A great part of the fun in designing and facilitating training programs is selecting which learning activities to incorporate. There is such a wide range and variety of activities from which to choose. However, new and seasoned trainers make seven common mistakes that you should avoid.

Mistake #1. Assuming you know more than the participants. You don’t want to waste time or bore them silly teaching them what they already know. So ask a question first. If a participant can answer it, you can move on to the next topic area. Remember this mantra: Ask participants first. Tell them the information only if no one else can answer you. It is important to recognize and honor the collective expertise in the room.


Mistake #2. Not meeting the needs of different learning styles. We tend to train people either the way we like to learn or the way that was modeled for us in school. Using just one training approach will limit your effectiveness and the ability of all participants to learn. It doesn’t matter what learning style model you prefer. Just keep in mind that people learn differently and enrich the learning activities to meet a wide range of learning needs. At the very least, enhance the activities so that the oral, visual and kinesthetic learners are set up for success.

Mistake #3. Scheduling lots of activities that have no real bearing on the training content. In order to lighten up training and make it enjoyable, it can be very appealing to add icebreakers and activities simply for fun. That is a fine approach if you are hired to entertain, not build skills. However, if the participants need to gain new information or practice new skills, there are lots of interactive and enjoyable learning activities that will get the job done.

Mistake #4. Assuming that dry or technical information needs to be taught in a dry or technical manner. There are a number of participant-centered learning activities that will ensure that the necessary learning occurs. Take the key points and place them into a questionnaire for group discussion. Pair up participants to complete an information sheet by finding key points in rules or regulations. Provide a case study to analyze. Choose activities that put the focus and responsibility for learning on the participants. That will bring the content alive and make both the content and the learning process engaging and interesting.

Mistake #5. Not modeling what you want the participants to do. When you give an assignment, make sure that you not only give clear and complete instructions, but you also walk the participants through a brief example of what you want them to do. If you don’t model the assignment, neither an effective learning experience nor a successful outcome will be guaranteed. Instead, you are likely to be unhappy with some of the participants’ results, and that will further frustrate the participants.

Mistake #6. Not debriefing learning activities. Group activities take time, so it is understandable if a trainer wants to skip debriefing in order to move the lesson along. However, often the best learning occurs during the debriefing. Debriefing requires participants to consciously reflect on their experience, develop their own theories, and articulate what they have learned. As each group reports on their activity, the other groups benefit from their ideas and outcomes. The trainer also has an opportunity to refocus the participants when necessary, add additional information, and provide a final summation.

Mistake #7. Giving a lecture after lunch. It probably goes without saying that post-lunch activities need to be highly interactive to keep the participants awake and focused. Despite this truism, many trainers still proceed to lecture anyway because that is where they are in their lesson plan. Don’t be afraid to be flexible. Before the lecture, add in a quick activity that will check for comprehension of the morning’s content. Ideally, this activity should also get the participants up and moving. There are lots of effective kinesthetic learning activities that are quick and easy to set up, such as: a relay race, pop ups, a scavenger hunt, or a gallery walk.

Don’t make these common mistakes. Choose to use relevant and participative learning activities that engage the participants and ensure a vibrant and validating learning experience.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #339: Five Content Mistakes That Trainers Make - And How to Avoid Them

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.“ Werner Karl Heisenberg

Whether you are a new or seasoned trainer, there are five mistakes you should avoid when you design your training programs.

Mistake #1. Not conducting a training needs assessment. Make sure that you know who your participants will be, why they will be attending, and what they are supposed to know or be able to do when they leave the training. Otherwise, you may end up providing the wrong training to the wrong people, wasting everyone’s time.

Mistake #2. Not identifying the desired level of learning. The fallback instructional method for trainers tends to be lecture, which can only provide knowledge. You need to know what the participants should be able to do when they leave the training. Based on that information, you can decide if the desired level of learning is comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation or creation- and select the appropriate learning activities to achieve that level.

Mistake #3. Cramming too much information into one training session. First, there is only so much information that learners can absorb at one time. Otherwise, they have cognitive overload. Second, the need to deliver lots of information tends to result in a long lecture, which will probably not accomplish the desired level of learning or meet the needs of other learning styles. Third, you need to manage your clients’ expectations and give them just-in-time training in effective adult learning principles. Focus on the critical information and provide reference materials to support the remaining information. This way you can take the time necessary to check for participant comprehension and give them an opportunity to apply what they have learned.

Mistake #4. Putting times on agendas. You need the flexibility to take more or less time when you need it, depending on the group. If you write times next to agenda items, some participants will start to worry if the session is not where the agenda says it should be. Save the participants from needless concern and yourself from unnecessary aggravation. Put the times on your agenda, not theirs.

Mistake #5. Placing all training information on Power Point slides. Training information belongs in the participants’ manuals or handouts. Power Point should only be used to augment the training, not deliver the training. It is an audiovisual on which there should just be a few points or pictures per slide that emphasize or summarize important content.

Following these suggestions will help to ensure that you train the right people at the right learning level with the right amount of information and the right learning activities.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #338: If You Want Employees to be Productive: Tell Them What They Need To Know

"I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles." Scott Adams

If a business wants to be effective in this (or any other) economy, the key is to make sure employees can be as productive as possible. This can be accomplished by using effective performance management and making sure that employees are able to make informed decisions.

What role does performance management play?

It is impossible to hit a target that is not identified. Employees need to know what they are expected to do, how well they are expected to do it, and how their performance will be measured.

For example: A newly hired trainer in a consulting firm was told that he was expected to meet with clients, identify their training needs, design a training program and deliver it to the satisfaction of the clients and the supervisor. The supervisor would wait until the trainer had delivered a new program twice (to work out some of the bugs) before sitting in to observe the training.

When the first session of the training went terribly, the new trainer did not wait for the supervisor to come to observe the third session. He went to the supervisor immediately to discuss the problem and identify some solutions.
The employee took responsibility for his performance, which is what a supervisor wants.

Why do employees need to understand the back story?

Performance management will tell employees what they should do, when they should do it, and how well they should do it. It does not necessarily tell them the reason behind the task or assignment. Without knowing this, it is very difficult for the employee to make effective decisions.

For example: The owner of a printing company complained that delegation did not work with his employees. When pressed for an example, he explained that he had recently needed to leave the plant. He called one of his employees into his office and explained that a customer would be calling about a printing order. The owner told the employee what he should say to the customer when the customer called.

Obviously, the owner did not tell the customer what her side of the script should be. When the customer called, the customer asked a question that the employee was unprepared to answer. The employee was afraid to make the wrong decision, so he made no decision.

The owner pointed to this situation as an example of the failure of delegation. It was actually a failure of communication on his part. This wasn’t intentional. The owner had had many previous conversations with the customer. He just forgot that the employee did not have the benefit of that information. If he wanted the employee to really be able to serve the customer effectively, the owner needed to explain the background and context of the customer situation. Just providing a script of what to say was insufficient.

If we want employees to be productive, we need to give them what they need to know so that they can take responsibility to monitor and improve their own performance and make decisions to fulfill delegated duties.


May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #337: If You Want Employees to be Productive: Help Them Feel Important

“Three people were at work on a construction site. All were doing the same job, but when each was asked what the job was, the answers varied. Breaking rocks, the first replied. Earning my living, the second said. Helping to build a cathedral, said the third.” Peter Schultz

If a business wants to be effective in this (or any other) economy, the key is to make sure employees can be as productive as possible. This can be accomplished by helping employees feel valued and important, as well as helping them see the big picture.


Why should businesses help employees feel important?

An employee who feels valued and important is much more likely to come to the job with pride and do the work as well as humanly possible.

For example: A group of managers were taking a tour of an assembly line for a pen manufacturer. They asked each person along the line to explain their responsibilities. Then they came to a woman who had the very obvious task of buffing the clips and placing them on the pens. Since they knew that she had seen them talk with everyone else, they asked her what she did. They fully expected her to simply tell them that she put the clips on the pens.

However, what she said was this: “I am responsible for the image of our company. If the clip isn’t buffed so it shines and if it isn’t perfectly aligned on the pen, then the person who purchases our pen will have a rumpled lapel pocket- and that is not the image we want for our company.”

Someone in the company had taken the time to imbue this woman’s work with great dignity and importance. The additional benefit is that, if they need her to temporary assist with packaging the pens, she is going to be equally committed to doing a good job. Why? Because she doesn’t want her perfectly buffed and aligned clips to be scratched or jostled in transit.

Why is seeing the big picture essential to employee performance?

It has a huge positive impact on productivity and quality when employees understand the consequences of their performance.

For example: During a lead worker training program for an assembly plant that made anti-lock brakes for cars, the trainer determined that the participants never walked new hires down the entire line so that they could see the final product. They simply showed them what to do at their point in the assembly process.

When asked if they thought it might be a good idea to show new hires the final product, one woman strongly agreed. Her daughter and granddaughter had recently been in a car accident and the anti-lock brake saved their lives. The woman was awestruck that she might have helped to manufacture that anti-lock brake. She finally realized that what she did on the job could have life or death consequences. Clearly, this insight would give even the most mundane assembly job a sense of importance and purpose.

If we want employees to be productive, we need to dignify their jobs and help them see that their performance has a significant impact on the success of the organization.


May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #336: If You Want Employees to Be Productive: Give Them What They Need

“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” Winston Churchill

If a business wants to be effective in this (or any other) economy, the key is to make sure employees can be as productive as possible. This can be accomplished by: giving them what they need to be successful, and removing system barriers to employee performance.

What do employees need to be productive?

The quality management guru W. Edwards Deming said: “Eighty-five percent of an employee’s ability to perform successfully on the job depends upon the system.” By the system, he meant the policies and procedures, management style and resources of the organization.

For effective performance, employees need: clear direction, reasonable expectations, timely training, constructive feedback, good work relationships, a fair wage, ongoing communication, necessary tools, possible accommodations, etc. All of these items originate with the organization.

For example: Customer service representatives were placed in a no-win situation. The organization set a performance standard of serving a specific number of customers per hour. Yet the organization also insisted that the customer service representatives handle calls to the customers’ satisfaction. It simply was not possible to meet these conflicting expectations.

What gets in the way of effective job performance?

Assuming that employees want to do a good job, are capable of performing the work, and have been effectively trained, then the key deterrent to employee performance tends to be system barriers.

System barriers can include: the lack of a specific tool, inconsistent policies, redundant procedures, unrealistic performance expectations, malfunctioning equipment, plugged communication networks, etc.

For example: A long term metro bus employee was responsible for handling questions about bus policies and routes for elderly and incapacitated individuals. However, the employee was screaming at callers, cursing them out and slamming the phone down. This behavior had been going on for six months (which is five months and 30 days longer than it should have been tolerated!).

After much questioning, the supervisors were able to pinpoint what had happened six months prior to cause the employee to act out in this way. They had moved the employee from the bus barn, where she had access to the bus drivers, could get information about the bus routes, and have backup when she needed to have a break. She was now alone in a small building across the street with only one incoming phone line. She had been inadvertently set up to fail.

She had tried unsuccessfully to bring the problem to her manager, but her concerns had not been addressed. Her behavior toward bus riders was inappropriate and unacceptable, but her frustration was certainly understandable.

Once the metro bus supervisors understood that this was a failure of the system rather than the employee, they identified a variety of system adjustments (including another phone line, back up, and anger management training) that would enable the employee to perform her job.

If we want employees to be productive, we have to set them up to succeed by giving them what they need to do their jobs and making sure that organizational policies, procedures, and systems support them.


May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #335: Six Steps That Organizations Often Overlook During a Major Change Initiative

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts." Arnold Bennett

When organizations are in the throes of major change, managers are often so focused on the logistics of maintaining production levels during the change process that they overlook the emotional needs of their employees.

Employees have hopes and expectations of their role in the organization, worries and fears about how the changes will affect them, and a finite amount of emotional energy and physical stamina to cope with the uncertainty that accompanies change.

If you want your employees to be more receptive to changes and more willing to implement them, there are six key action steps you can take during the change process that will help to ensure their emotional well being.

1. Hold frequent staff meetings, even if you don’t know anything new. Your staff needs to trust that the lines of communication are open and that they are being kept up to date. It is perfectly all right to tell them that there is nothing new to report, but you promise to them know as soon as you hear something.

If you don’t, staff will imagine worst-case scenarios, and staff morale and performance will both plummet.

2. Validate staff performance and accomplishments. Your staff needs to know that you appreciate what they have done in the past and that you are proud of their continuing performance even in the face of uncertainty. They need reassurance that upcoming changes do not mean that their previous work is incorrect or ineffective.

If you don’t, staff will feel very threatened and become very resistant to the changes.

3. Keep staff concerns at a low level. When radical or even minor changes occur in job responsibilities, performance expectations, reporting relationships, or work environments, your staff needs to believe that you will give them the time, training, resources and support they need to continue to be productive.

If you don’t, staff anxiety and stress will adversely affect their physical health and their professional commitment.

4. Make sure that staff know WHY the change is necessary. Your staff needs to understand the origin of the change, the intended goals of the change, as well as the expected consequences if the change is not implemented.

If you don’t, staff will be unable to assess what additional actions or adjustments might be necessary to ensure that the change achieves the intended goals.

5. Get staff involved in planning the changes. Your staff needs to feel that they have some control over the changes that will affect them. If they cannot provide input on the change itself, at least make sure that they have input in how the change is implemented.

If you don’t, staff will not feel committed to the change because they lack any sense of ownership or control.

6. Celebrate with staff as each stage of the change is completed. Staff need to feel that you recognize and appreciate the time, energy, and commitment involved in accomplishing the changes. Change is exhausting, so it helps to celebrate the achievement of each milestone.

If you don’t, staff will feel that they are seen as mere cogs in the wheel of change rather than as valued contributors, and their energy and commitment to implementation will decrease exponentially.

If you want your major change initiatives to be successful, you have to take the necessary steps to satisfy the emotional needs of your staff. If you overlook the potential emotional fallout as a result of the change process, it is almost a certainty that your staff will be less receptive to the change and less willing to implement it.

Tip #334: The Three Questions You Need to Answer If You Want an Effective Training Program

“Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.” Robert Half

When supervisors and program managers send out requests for training programs, they often describe the training they seek in very general terms. They will tell a training provider that they would like a program on customer service, stress management, meeting management, conflict management, or team building, etc.

They can be initially satisfied when a training provider offers a pre-designed “off-the-shelf” program. The two greatest benefits of pre-packaged programs are the facts that they save clients both time and effort. These training programs are easy to find, easy to schedule, and easy to deliver. There is no fuss, no muss, and no deep thinking required on the part of either party.

“Off-the-shelf” training programs frequently have good content and relevant learning activities. However, they have to take a very general approach in order to appeal to the largest possible audience. As a result, they are designed to cover typical topical content and concerns.

For this reason, it is difficult for these programs to ultimately be effective. This is because the organization will always have very specific needs that are not anticipated or incorporated into the program.

If you have the responsibility to find a training program for your organization, you really want to speak with a training provider who will ask you three key questions:

First: Who is the target audience?

Training has to be designed with the target audience in mind. Discussion around this question will generate vital information, such as:

a. What the demographics of the participants are;
b. How many participants will be involved;
c. How receptive the participants will be to the content;
d. What level of skill or knowledge they already have (or think they have) in this
content area; and
e. Why the learning is important to the participants from their perspective.

Second: Why do you feel that there is a need for this specific training?

The obvious problem is rarely the problem, and training may not be the solution, so this is a critical question. Discussion around this question will clarify:

a. What problems the training is intended to solve;
b. Whether these problems would be better addressed through system changes or
performance management actions, rather than through a training program;
c. What knowledge or skills need to be developed or strengthened;
d. Whether the requested training content will actually address the problem or a
different focus is necessary; and
e. Whether the people who really need the training have been identified as the
target group.

Third: What do you want the participants to know or do differently when they leave the training?

A training provider needs to both specify and manage a client's expectations. The answer to this question will:

a. Clarify the training requestor’s specific expectations;
b. Determine the learning objectives and content for the training program;
c. Create an objective basis for measuring the effectiveness of the program;
d. Provide an opportunity to negotiate the logistics necessary to achieve these
expectations, such as the length of time, location, and schedule for the training
program; and
e. Open discussion about what training can realistically accomplish and what the
organization will need to do to reinforce the training.

Training requestors will frequently need to go back to their organizations and discuss the answers to these questions before they can have a well-informed discussion with a training provider.

Yes, this will require a greater time and effort on the part of the organization than simply using a pre-designed program. However, the organization that invests in answering these three questions will ultimately save both time and money, and set their participants up for success:

a. The right solution to the problem will be identified (which will avoid unnecessary
training);
b. The right people will be in the right training program; and
c. The right knowledge and skills will be developed.


May your learning be sweet.

Deborah