Ask, Not Tell

Further to my last post, let me compare the virtual classroom facilitator to the radio DJ. The following TO-DOs come to my mind:

Keep talking – You literally do not have dead air on a great radio show. Silence / pause works well in real presentation but not the case for virtual one. Obviously you cannot use your eye contact in the latter case. So, you got to keep talking, even when you are looking for your training note, assigning breakout group or (unfortunately sometimes) fixing your technical problem. Read more

• Course: A 2-hour management skills discussion
• Date: 24 Jan 2008
• Location: Internet
• # of Participants: 21
• I am feeling: Exciting

It is the first time I deliver online. Frankly, it was messy but exciting. It is like learning to ride a bicycle the first time. You fall and hurt yourself but you know that after you pick it up you will enjoy it.

We used Webex online classroom. Read more

I talked about Satellite Delay in my last post. And I did find out something useful through the activity on Day 2 of the presentation class last week. A sales from the Small-Medium Enterprise department said, ‘When we sell to our client, we normally just sit down together and talk things through. Not the kind of meeting where you stand up and present one slide after another. I doubt whether it is useful to prepare too much like what we discussed yesterday for a presentation e.g. thinking through WIIFM, preparing visual aid. In fact, I suspect that with lot of preparation we may appear too polished. The clients may even think we are tricking them, or railing them into a desired solution!!’

It is great that I get to know the learner’s puzzle and thus can help him.

Here is my response, ‘The question is about how you communicate with your client in a sales setting. There are 2 extremes. One extreme is very much like what you said – you sit down and chat. No plot, no prepared material e.g. visual aid. A very casual atmosphere. The another extreme is a very formal atmosphere. You stand in front of your client and present one slide after another. Very much a one-way delivery without interaction.

Now imagine these 2 extremes to be on the ends of a straight line. There are in fact a lot of other ways of communication in between on the line. You can do a stand-up presentation but still be conversational. Alternatively, you can chat with your client but use the prepared material in case of need – just to help to illustrate your point. For example, you need a trade flow diagram to explain clearly how a supply chain solution works. Prepared material is there to make the communication more efficient but not to trick the client, or rail them to your desired solution.

(It snows heavily in Shanghai yesterday. It has been many many years since it snows like this. Just cannot help to share with you the photo……)

• Course: A presentation course
• Date: 22-23 Jan 2008
• Location: Seriously cold in Shanghai, China
• # of Participants: 8
• I am feeling: Good

I did a new activity at the start of Day 2 to recap the learning on Day 1. It is called ‘Satellite Delay’, which I learnt it from the TTT in Singapore. It is simple. We formed a circle and one after another the learners are encouraged to speak about any thought / question / comment which they did not express on the previous day. It is like the signal delayed during the satellite transmission. And that is why it is called ‘Satellite Delay’. Since the learners have a wide choice of topics to pick from (as compared to ‘single key learning point’), they tend to be more relaxed and out-spoken. On the other hand, the activity does compel the learners to review. In addition, it allows the facilitator to understand the learning progress.

One great thing about Singapore is the food, especially the local one. I went out with a few other facilitators for fish ball noodle a few times. It was cheap and great. The fish ball in Shanghai is so disappointing!! Apart from fish ball, I also had the curry crab, and a wonderful meal in a very authentic Cantonese restaurant called Wah Lok in the Carlton Hotel.

Here is another piece of learning from the same facilitator I mentioned in the last post. It is about how to wrap up a session before proceeding to another one. The common ways are like facilitator summarizing the key points, facilitators asking openly ‘What was covered in this session?’ or ‘Tell me one key learning point from this session’, etc.

I observed something different in the Singapore TTT. At the end of his session about Feedback, the facilitator asked ‘Now, each of you have to complete a sentence. And the sentence will start with “Feedback is….”. You got to complete the sentence. And each of you will share with us.’

I found it a great way to warp up the session. It is not so much about what the sentences turn out to be. It is about the learners are compelled to review the session as they are composing the session.

Simple, unconventional and light in preparation, but goal achieved!!

The photo on the right was the view from the training room we used for the TTT in Singapore. It points toward the direction of Pan Pacific hotel and Marina Square. I like the window with natural light. In particularly, it was amazing to watch the rain coming consistently at around 2pm everyday. It was an entertainment to me.

Let me share another piece of learning from the workshop. I learnt it from a fellow facilitator who was being TTT-ed there as well. He facilitated a session about Feedback. When he started a small group activity, he told how much time the learners would have, like what most other facilitators would do. But unlike others, he then asked, ‘So, do you think that 10 minutes will be enough?’ He took the time for the learners to nod their heads. Only then he sent the learners off to the small groups. This makes the learners own the process. This in turn gives you better class discipline and more engaged learners.

More observation here. During the small group activity, the participants sat on the floor and wrote down their discussion result onto the flipcharts. Instead of inviting the participants back to the chairs, the facilitators asked whether the learners are comfortable using the floor. He then joined the big group and sat on the floor to facilitate the debrief discussion. He followed the learners. He let the learners take the lead. Again, more engaged learners.

All along the session, he almost did not tell a thing. Instead, he asked a lot of questions to bring out learning point from the learners’ mouths. And when he asked, he never acted authoritative.

He is exploring rather than teaching!!

I attended a 6-day TTT course for a management course in Singapore last week. (The left is a photo of the lovely ‘Stress Toys’ taken in the TTT.) I learnt a lot from it. I wish I could have shared my learnings here earlier. But having been away from the office for a week, I have a lot to catch up and can only write now. Anyway, let me share with you the most amazing piece of learning first. It is a quote – ‘The knowledge is in the room.’

This quote was told by a master trainer to me ‘Being a facilitator, you got to have a faith that the knowledge is in the room. Whatever you do, bear this in mind. Nothing more, nothing less.’ Let me tell you my interpretation.

A good facilitator should ask a lot of questions instead of simply tell our answers. We should make the learners to have their own answers rather then take ours. Adult learns better this way. This is especially the case for experiental learning. However, we facilitators from time to time will face resistance from the learners. Though you ask from different angles, they may not come up with sensible answers, or even worse, they ask back, ‘Why don’t you just give us your thought?’ It is very tempting at these moments to simply tell rather than ask. If you have the faith that the knowledge is in the room, you will resist such temptation to tell. You will re-phrase your question, give them an example or simply give them a longer pause in order to better draw on the learners’ own thoughts.

I find this quote to be ultra-powerful!!

I guess the question then is whether I do believe that the knowledge is in the room. I think so for most of the soft skills training. Adult knows a lot before they enter your classroom. At the same time, they have a good common sense to derive their own knowledge. What you do is to draw the knowledge out, make them face with it and reconsider their behaviours.

I learned of the new Apple laptop yesterday – MacBook Air.   Very cool!   And shortly after the product announcement in MacWorld, I read a post on the Presentationzen site summarizing 6 pieces of presentation learning from Steve Jobs’ keynote.   A great post.    Thinking about the presentations in the banking industry, I find all these learnings to be very relevant.   This is particular the case for the one about numbers.   Garr said ‘It’s not about number, it’s about what the numbers mean.’    It is very often to attend presentation sessions in the bank which showed slides full of number.   Good presenters will make sense out of the numbers for the audience.   For example, we often tell the new-joiners that the bank now has over 20 branches and 4,000 employees in China.   This is not enough.   We got to tell (better, let them ‘feel’) what such figures mean to them.   One message could be that you can be proud of the organisation you just joined.  It is strong in China, and it is stronger than a lot of our competitors.   It all goes to the question of ‘WIIFM’ or ‘So what?’

These 6 learning points have a lot of relevance to training as well, especially the last one.  Garr said ‘Save the best for last….. People remember most the first part and the last part of your presentation….’     This point is especially important for training since normally a training is longer in duration than a presentation.   The Recency (and the Primacy) effect is stronger in training.   For the same reason, we always advocate not to end your class loosely e.g. just finishing the evaluation form and letting participants go on their own.   We should end our training with high energy and key points well emphasized!