Ask, Not Tell

An additional thought on this ‘facilitation vs training’ topic came to my mind the other day.   We usually call the person who stands in the front of a corporate training room a trainer.   However, if we think of him / her as the one making learning happened for the learners, he / she should be more appropriately called a facilitator.      Of course, it depends on how we define learning.     Let’s say a high level definition (Kirkpatrick L4) – learning happens when the learners adopt the desired new behavior which yields better pre-defined business result.    In this case, learning cannot be forced.   A traditional telling-type trainer is not enough to make learning happened.  In fact, in this case, learning can only driven by the learners themselves.  At most the person who stands in front of the room is to facilitate the learning process.  This could include:

• making them aware of the burning platform for change
• letting them go through process where they can learn from each other
• putting  them through stretched assignment so that they can realise their potential and learn from reflection

This is especially true when we think of the 70-20-10 principle.   A learning professional is not only a trainer (traditionally-defined), he / she needs to be event and process facilitator.    Or I should say trainer should now mean more than giving lecture.

There is a saying – You can bring a cow to the pond, but you cannot make it drink.

A very interesting experience in June – I have organized with a reputable university a general management workshop for our branch managers.  After 2 months of intensive preparation, we finally rolled out the pilot class last month.

I observed the workshop for the whole week.  As the organizer who paid the university a huge sum of money, I was eager to see good quality ‘product’.  Specifically I of course hoped that this workshop can enhance branch managers’ performance.   When I see the professors in action, a lot of thoughts ran through my mind.  For example, there was a professor on the topic of China economics. All the learners liked his session very much.   So did I.   I even said to myself that I would attend his session again.   In short, he managed to make sense for us out of the common economic data in China e.g. GDP, inflation, with a lot of humour and stories.

But….. did the session help enhance the branch managers’ performance at work?  I could not see the strong correlation.    Having said that, I am sure that all will benefit personally from the content by comprehending better on the data.   But I am not sure how strongly such understanding can contribute to better performance at work.

Or I should say… it seems that the session could be differently designed in order to link more strongly to success.   The same applies to other sessions throughout the week.   In fact, it has not been easy in general to influence the professors to alter their content in the first place.    They tend to have strong opinion on what they planned to offer themselves.

I think somehow there is fundamental difference between university education and corporate training.      The former is more about the professors whilst the latter is more about the learners.   In universities, we learn from whatever expertise / knowledge possessed by the Master (i.e. Professors).   In corporate training, we first focus on what the business need is, and then we design the content to address the needs.

A very interesting experience in June – I have organized with a reputable university a general management workshop for our branch managers.  After 2 months of intensive preparation, we finally rolled out the pilot class last month.

I observed the workshop for the whole week.  As the organizer who paid the university a huge sum of money, I was eager to see good quality ‘product’.  Specifically I of course hoped that this workshop can enhance branch managers’ performance.   When I see the professors in action, a lot of thoughts run through my mind.  For example, there was a professor on the topic of China economics. The learners all liked his session very much.   So did I.   I even said to myself that I would attend his session again.   In short, he managed to make sense for us out of the common economic data in China e.g. GDP, inflation, with a lot of humour and stories.

But….. did the session help enhance the branch managers’ performance at work?  I could not see the strong correlation.    Taking this economics session as an example, I am sure that all will benefit personally from the content by comprehending better on the data.   But I am not sure how strongly such understanding can contribute to better performance at work.

Or I should say… it seems that the session could be differently designed in order to link more strongly to success.   The same applies to other sessions throughout the week.

In fact, it has not been easy in general to influence the professors to alter their content in the first place.    They tend to have strong opinion on what they planned to offer themselves.   I think somehow there is fundamental difference between university education and corporate training.      The former is more about the professors whilst the latter is more about the learners.   In universities, we learn from whatever expertise / knowledge possessed by the Master (i.e. Professors).   In corporate training, we first focus on what the business need is, and then we design the content to address the needs.

I received a piece of good news last week – a challenging client came back for more TTT workshops! They are the one i mentioned in the previous post called ‘A rare opportunity’ – the one that I had to stretch myself to handle the hard challenges from the learners!

The repeated purchase is a good assurance to my capabilities.

I was getting my daughter to brush her teeth this morning.   A thought came to my mind – if we ask 100 people around us the following 3 questions:

Q1 – Is teeth-brushing important?
Q2 – Show me the right way to brush your teeth.
Q3 – Do you brush your teeth everyday in the last 12 months?

I believe that we will get almost 100% ‘Yes’ for Q1 and correct answer for Q2, but much fewer ‘Yes’ for Q3.   In other words, they know it is important to brush their teeth and how to do it, but they do not really do it.   And which question matters the most?   Of course, Q3.   I consider myself failed if my daughter does not really brush her teeth though she knows why and how to brush her teeth.

So, what is the implication to training?

When I reflect on the training courses around me, most of them aim to tackle Q1 (i.e. Why) and Q2 (i.e. How).   For example, in a one-day Job Interviewing Skills course, we brought out the consequence of conducting bad interviews e.g. cost of wrong hire (i.e. Why), and then we spent most of the time discussing and practicing skills like behavioral questions (i.e. How).    What are we doing / can we do to tackle Q3?

• Goal Setting and Tracking – We will spend 5-15 minutes at the course end for the learners to write down their action steps back in the workplace.  We then put the goals on a platform e.g. website on which the learners can update how they implement their goals, and more importantly creates atmosphere giving them more motivated to implement.  An example of such website is www.friday5.com.
• Phased Learning Approach – The key to yield ‘Yes’ to Q3 for my daughter is whether she is motivated to form a habit after she learns the ‘HOW”.   It takes 21 days to form a habit.   So, this means we should set the learners to apply the learning after the training event.   This can be in the form of Action Learning projects.
• Cooperation with Business Leader –The learners’ line manager is the best person in the post-workshop learning process.   The line managers can make them practice the learning into their daily work.  They can also impose consequence in motivating the learners to apply the learning

I believe that there is more.   Your idea is most welcomed!!!

In some sense, this is basically a discussion of L4 effectiveness vs L3.   Just that when I look at it from the perspective of whether my daughter will really brush her teeth, a good L4 result becomes non-negotiable!!

I recently heard the following argument about the value of training delivery.    It lingers in my mind for long.

“..… for a learning or training department, the quality of its classroom delivery is of course important.  But its marginal contribution to the department’s well being is diminishing.   In other words, our trainers should work hard to improve their delivery skills from average to good, but it does not make sense to spend resources to move into great.   The additional resources should be spent on communication, perception management…. etc… “

I think the same logic also applies to individuals, in particular those who want to climb up the corporate ladder in a learning / training department – After a certain point, focus your attention for stuff rather than training skills.

Do I agree?   It is complicated.

I agree.  But it depends on how good the ‘good delivery skills’ means.   It is sad if the mindset is ‘It is OK so long as there is no complaint from the learners…… hm….

And it also implies that the world is not simple.   For the trainers, it is stupid to hold the simple motive of ‘I will devote all my energy to make the learners learn better.’   Such motive may only be possible when they are inside the training rooms (assuming that they do not have to respond to email and sms during breaks….)

Or we can see it from the ‘whole system’ perspective?!   If the trainers do not manage the perception and do the communication work, the stakeholders may lose interest in the training gradually….  The latter may then not pay for the training, and the learners cannot learn.    So, doing non-course delivery work is still about helping learners learn….

….  allow me thinking out loud… and thus appear unstructured….

‘Ask, Not Tell’ – I wrote before in this blog such advocate is essential in presentation, training, facilitation and coaching.   I was in a negotiation class yesterday.   It highlights that by research skilled negotiators tend to ask 3 times more questions than average negotiators!   In negotiation, questioning can:

•    Expose problem
•    Reveal strategic information
•    Control the discussion
•    Be an alternative to disagreement
•    Buy thinking time

Asking good questions helps in a lot of aspects in life!!

I had an opportunity recently learning together with a number of trainers on selling / negotiation stills.   The event was led by a very experienced Master Trainer.   I learnt something new from him, which can be applicable to other training topics as well.

His intention was to highlight which stage in a sales call is more important.   He did not just tell us.   Instead, he first asked us to pick from the slide (showing the 4 stages) which one we believe to be most important.   Most chose B.   Then, he said, ‘Recall your sales call in the past few months.  In which stage you spent most of your time on?’    Most chose D.   Instantly, he highlighted a sharp contrast (or even self-contradiction) which drew a great deal of attention from the learners.  You can imagine that we then had heated discussion, and most importantly sticky learning on selling.

This technique can be applied to a lot of other topics e.g.

“How many glass of water we should drink everyday
VS
How many glass we really drank yesterday?”

Or

“Who in your team generated the most revenue last year?”
VS
“Whom in your team did you spend most of your management time on?”

There are often things which we know we should do but we do not put them into practice.   We can easily use this technique to bring out these ‘self-contradiction’.   It is like keeping them hiding in the training room, and then asking all learners to face them (or in fact ‘themselves’).