Matthew Richter posts daily comments in LinkedIn—well, almost daily. You can follow him and join the conversation by going to http://linkedin.com/in/matthew-richter-0738b84.
For the benefit of our readers, we decide to compile and reprint some of his provocative pieces from the past. Let us know what you think.
Bias
Bias is an interesting subject to study. It's fascinating how the narratives and stories surrounding us lead to misleading understandings. I love that unconscious bias has tipped and become a significant topic of discussion in organizations. But it is not a training topic. Training is about learning and developing skills to close a performance gap. I am hard pressed to identify skills associated with becoming less biased. What I have seen that is readily available—policy and procedure changes in the organization. Frequent conversations between manager and employee. And other types of interventions. But training -- not so much. I think it is a mistake to expect training interventions to fix such important issues when the skill of not being biased can more easily be addressed through structural modifications. But maybe I am biased.
Treat Your Participants Seriously
Today I noted a colleague emptying a bag on a bunch of tables. Toys, candy, stuffed animals, and other odds and ends. His topic was Performance Conversations. I personally was captivated by the Fidget Spinner. I asked him how he would use these things. When asked, he smiled and said toys and candy give participants a chance to fiddle around and doing so enhances their ability to focus. He even prefaced this response with, “Research says...” The Sugar High Learning Technique! Why are trainers so invested in devaluing the significance of what they do by dumping toys on participants? When did it become a crime for us to engage learners seriously? When did playfulness shift away from engaging with learners authentically? I take playfulness very seriously. I hate toys. What we do in business has enough baggage related to our perceived worth. We don’t need to add to that perception with silliness and debunked learning science. Kinesthetic learning as a function of learning style has been debunked. Using toys to achieve this... more so. Mozart does not increase focal capacity. There is no need to reduce all content to pithy sayings and banal acronyms. Treat your participants seriously. Treat them respectfully, as competent adults. Be playful in your interactions. Don’t be banal.
Agile L&D
My friend, Brandon Carson, wrote an interesting post about Agile L&D yesterday. It got me thinking— what does it mean to be agile within the L&D context. Well, first of all, what is Agility? I like the Modern Agile principles. Google Modern Agile. Great website sand resources. They have four principles. The first, and in no specific order, is Make People Awesome. In L&D, I think this is all about the learners. How can we ensure they not only have a great experience, but can absolutely perform the new skills on the job. Second, Make Safety a Prerequisite. I will take a wide swing here, but for me, this means use validated and reliable tools and content that actually have some academic rigor supporting that they work. Third, Experiment and Learn Rapidly. Well... this one is near and dear to my heart. We concurrently build training adhering to all the ADDIE steps simultaneously— rapid instructional design. Finally, Deliver Value Continuously. Training, and all of L&D should be viewed as iterative and never-ending— but that means we need to really measure efficacy and application.