Ask, Not Tell

Further to my last post, I was thinking to myself – how do we really learn from doing and from the others?  If these 2 categories account for majority of our learning, what exactly should we do in these categories?   After all, they are not as obvious as the ‘10%’ i.e. formal learning.

For me, learning from doing is largely about reviewing on past result.   Asking myself what I have done well so that I can repeat it.  Of course, I ask myself what I can do it differently.  In addition, it is also about doing stretched assignment.   Still remember the last time when you moved to a new role… and your new boss asked frequently for result.   Stretched assignment motivates us grealty to learn.  We become very focused and take up new skills or knowledge more quickly.

And how do we learn from the others?   For me, it is about observing and reviewing others in action.   And then I ask myself, ‘If I were him / her, what would I do?’   If it is different from what he / she did, I would ask myself why, and how their action is better.   I find out new ways or attitude of doing things.   It works very well for me.  I believe that I acquire most of my “soft” skills through this mean.

I was introduced the “70/20/10 Principle” a few months ago.   The Principle is being practiced by a lot of big corporations e.g. HP, Bank of America, Marsek, Mars….     Mars describes the principle as follows:

“……..Research [Footnote] shows that the best combination for learning to be most effective is in the ratio 70/20/10:

70% of all learning comes from doing
20% of learning comes from observing others
10% of learning comes from the formal process of being taught. Included in this are books, training courses, or lectures that you may listen to……..”

When I really think about it, I can appreciate how true it is.  Take myself as an example.   Think about the banking knowledge I have learnt in my life.  Not the theoretical knowledge, but the working knowledge which I need to perform the banking tasks e.g. lending.   Most comes from on-the-job experience e.g. lesson learnt.   Or I would say only a little comes from the training courses I attended.   I would say it is the case for most of my banking friends.

Then think about the training departments.   Most if not all are supposed to add value by making people learn the necssary skills, knowledge or attitude.   Interestingly, most focus just on formal learning i.e. the 10% piece!!   I can imagine some focus on the 10% because they are mandated to be in the beginning.  (They are called the training department… after all.)    But would it be too risky to the department?   Even if its training courses are extremely effective, it contributes to only 10% of the learning!!

It also makes me think about myself.   I love conducting training classes.   But am I doing something which is much less effective than ‘on-the-job learning’ and ‘learning from others’?

[Footnote] I have not yet found out the details on the supporting research.  In particular, I want to understand what 70% exactly means.  Literally, it seems to mean that 70% of what we know know comes from actually performing the tasks e.g. lesson learnt.   Or does it mean that we should put 70% of our resources (e.g. time) to ‘doing’ in order to be qualified as ‘best combination’?

I love the ‘Sound of Music’ movie.  Most do.  I have watched it a few times.   I learnt something new when I watched it, in particular the ‘Do Re Mi’ song, the last time.    The movie shows how to facilitate others to learn.    I was thinking to myself, ‘The kids in the movie learnt the music notes successfully.   How did it happen?   What skills did Marie apply?  Can we apply some of these into our corporate learning environment?’   I invite you to watch the following clip on the ‘Do Re Mi’ Song and think about the questions:

Here is my view – the clip gives a lively example of what a learning professional should do:

Associate- At the beginning of the clip, Marie lectured first but did not work.  The kids could not remember the notes simply by being told.   Marie then associated each note with a concrete concept e.g. ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer….’    The same applies to corporate training.   If you want your learners to learn a new abstract concept, you better give them an analogy.   For example, in my selling course when I introduce the concept of ‘Decision Criteria’, I first ask the girls how they choose their future husband.

Repeat – Marie did not teach each note once.    She repeated.   We got to do the same thing.

Break into parts – Whilst Marie’s ultimate goal was probably to teach the kids to sing, she started with the basics first and then built the learning up bit by bit.

Make it real - Marie did not leave the kids hanging with just concepts.    Marie applied the notes to make a lovely song.  She sang ‘When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything….’

Any other insight you have?  Do let me know.

I am thinking to use this short movie clip in my future Train-The-Trainer program.  Perhaps as an class opener!

I conducted a presentation class for 9 newly-joined management trainees in our firm.   They are mostly fresh undergraduates i.e. they are all at their early 20s.   It means that they were born at around 1989!!  At the time of Tianamen incident!!  They are really young!

Most of them presents well.  Above all, they are very good with their visual aid.   They draw great flipchart – colourful and of big fonts.  See an example below:

They also make engaging powerpoint – lot of pictures but very few words.   For example, one just shows a picture of a hiking trail crossroad.   He then engages the audience in discussing about how to plan for your career.   Well done.

What would then be their common challenge on presentation skills?   I would say it is the ‘reality’.   As I told them, the challenge is for them to maintain the same presentation quality even though when the ‘reality’ later hits them.   The ‘reality’ at work includes the unreasonably-limited preparation time, too much content with too little presentation time, content full of dry fact e.g. regulation… etc.

From the training perspective, it is about how to train someone to tackle challenges which they have not experienced before.  Thinking retrospectively, I should have made them feel the challenge concretely during the class.  For example, get them to present the latest anti-money laundering policies.   This will build more “accurate WIIFM”, and thus create more appropriate learning!