Today I attended my “first ever in years”, face-to-face workshop with an actual external facilitator!
I thought it was worthy to tweet first thing this morning while sipping my coffee…
Things like this don’t come up often in Learning and Development but in the words of a colleague in the training room today, “I’ll take any professional development whenever I can get it”.
Sad state of affairs really.
It’s as if Jane knew something was going to happen. How right she was!
Back in 2004, I worked for a company who had a HR Shared Services function. We had a Learning and Development department that had clear processes, tools, methodologies for working with clients; preferred supplier and vendor arrangements; a department of facilitators and a pool of qualified learning and development professionals. Every consultant had a business to look after.
Life was good.
People paid us to go on training courses.
Training courses had catering.
What more could you ask for?
The management of the day saw the need for Learning Consultants to develop skills as ‘Trusted Business Advisors” and we were all put through 2 day an intensive facilitator-led course that involved theory, practice with role plays; tests and reflection.
It was the one course that not only set me up to to work and relate to my internal clients; but it became critical in my next role when I consulted on all matters L&D to organisations as an external consultant.
So it was fitting today to be in a training room with windows that faced the building of the company that first introduced me to The Trusted Business Advisor!
But I had a different experience this time around. Much of it relates to the “learner experience” all of which was negative.
Discounting the content which I took no issue with, especially around the importance of earning trust, giving advice effectively and building relationships, the manner in which it was taught was less than ideal.
I received an invite to the course in our calendars and told that I was registered for this 3 hour workshop. There was no prior communication to us about this workshop, nor any context provided about who it was for, what it was about, why I needed it and how I was selected. I got the feeling that it was something you “just had to accept the meeting request”. So I accepted.
This morning admittedly I was looking forward to this training because I hadn’t been in a workshop for years. I wanted to see if there was anything new I could learn but also curious about how they managed to squeeze a 2 day course into 3 hours.
When I arrived at the training room, I entered a lecture style set up and immediately, my senses were on alert. “Hello,” I thought, ” how are we going to practice the content in a lecture format?” This program didn’t lend itself to a lecture format so I was perplexed and I saw others were talking about it too. So I took my seat and waited for the program to start.
The Powerpoint slide in Times New Roman said it all. “Trusted Business Advisor Awareness Program”
Awareness program?
Now I was really confused. Were we going to spend 3 hours in a room to be told that this is not the full course but just a teaser?
(And a full course that we may never attend anyway as there’s no budget?)
When the facilitator was introduced and then immediately commenced into his rapid pace of delivery, incessant pacing back and forth and overbearing style of lecturing, that’s when the dread set in.
I didn’t know if I could handle 3 hours of this and I was thinking of ways to make my escape during the morning coffee break.
I had to remind myself to stay focussed on his content – on the ‘what’ he was saying and mentally override all the other traits I found irritating. His manner, loud booming voice and examples he gave with an arrogant air did nothing for me.
But it was when he said, “We will talk about respecting hierarchies in the 2 day course,” I switched off entirely.
Despite his style and belligerent approach to delivery, what he had to say (in between trying to deciper whether he was joking or arrogant) made sense. He talked about stakeholder value, the varying degrees of contacts vs scope and diagnosis. For example, there are times that you will be called upon to be a ‘high touch’ service provider – someone who is expected to deliver a service but whose primary diagnosis has already been done by someone else; or an ‘expert’. However, the most value you would create would be if you were a Business Advisor – someone who focusses on the overall success of the stakeholder but does not resolve issues; someone who provides insight through a big idea or big question.
He also talked about why we behave the way we do by our paradigms and mentioned that he it’s easier to change behaviours than it is to change paradigms. Just to be sure, he told us that “if I knew your paradigm, I would tell you exactly how you would react in a workplace situation.”
By this stage, I was feeling uncomfortable with his delivery. I looked around the room to see other’s reactions but they seemed focussed, madly taking notes.
Maybe it was just me? Was I being too critical?
Throughout the session, he gave quick run downs of the content and then followed it up with, “there’s no time for this, it’s in the 2 day course if you do it”.
I had lost count of the times he said, “we don’t have time for this”.
There were a couple of lightning speed activities that we broke away in groups but told, “don’t discuss it at length, just come up with the answer, don’t talk about it, write it down then move on, we don’t have time”.
So what’s the point of this? Why are we doing these? I was unable to hide my frustration.
When the time came for the session to end, he promoted his one and two day courses. However, you could sense from the fidgety nature of the people in the room, they would be unable to attend either course due to a lack of budget.
I felt that this was the wrong approach to build learner expectations without opportunity to attend the full course or provide any type of contextual basis of what he was trying to teach us.
When we discussed our thoughts at a team meeting later on, we were advised to “not consider the manner in which he taught it but only focus on the content of what he was saying” and as a Learning and Development professional, I don’t agree with this at all.
Learner experience has to be considered.
We can’t discount it. If the learner takes some issue or offence with how the material is presented then simply, they’re not learning.
I left with more questions than I entered the room and so did many others, “where to from here?” “How do I use this information know?” “What am I expected to do with this?” and so we all returned to our desks without giving this training any further thought.
Unfortunately, this lecture was an unpleasant learning experience for me and one in which I don’t care to repeat.
Positive learning points from it was the importance of setting context and expectations, working with constraints and the importance of effective learning design for the performance you want to achieve.
Let’s not forget the learner. It’s not just about saving money.
Hi Helen
Sounds like you’d be better off with some resources, use cases and a community….
What a shame this experience was allowed to happen! You did pick out some positive points to remind us of: ‘ the importance of setting context and expectations, working with constraints and the importance of effective learning design for the performance you want to achieve.’
Cheers
Julian
“Respecting hierarchies?” Was he stopping off on his way to the conclave in Rome?
The tragicomedy here–well, one of many–is that this particular Stage Sage did bugger all in terms of becoming a trusted advisor to the businesspeople participating in the program.
“Awareness training.”
In terms of assessing on-the-job value, I’m a big fan of the heydad test:
“Hey, Dad! Watch me while I become aware…”
I’m afraid, though, that this is all too typical of the dosage approach to “learning,” which in practice (as you saw) means “shut up and listen.”
Wow! That’s my first reaction – second reaction, what a waste of money and time. Were you able to get a read on how the other participants felt once the session was over?
Helen, you appeared to have learned much, [not necessarily to do with the course content], and could share it with us. 🙂
hey Helen – I am sorry to say that I share your experience as a ‘learner’ in that session. I was sitting closer to the front and between his maniacal face gestures, derogatory comments about facilitators (insert eye roll) and him looking down my dress I left the awareness session feeling confused and exhausted. Immediately after the session I had a working lunch and then solid aftetnoon so I was unable to debrief with the wider team. Having now had some time to reflect I concur with your sentiment 100% – only I feel like I know have unanswered questions. ok his delivery method was poor (no one appreciates being lectured …. especially when thr presenter is cleary the smartest ‘man’ in the room) but he distilled volumes of social/cognitive/personality psychology theory into a few slides. I was frankly too intimidated to raise my hand and point out that paradigm interacts with behavior and only goes so far to predict it – knowing the calibre of professionals in the room I was keen to get their insights. I knew I would be shot down as there was clearly no time! crazy, crazy shit! as a learning professional I would have embarrassed if learners left my session with such a bad taste in their mouths – let alone feel justified in accepting such an enormous fee!! #outrageous
Thanks for your post Julian. Yes, when I did write it I was mindful of its negativity and in all honesty, I should have written what I could have done to present it differently.
I was really shocked at myself too for feeling so strongly about it. I questioned why this was. Was it that I am now used to other types of learning – more self directed? Was it that my attention span has decreased with all the technology we’re using of late? Was it that I couldn’t contribute in any conversations? Was it that I had other work to do and this was just a waste of my time? Was it because I didn’t choose to do this learning?
If I’m going through these questions, imagine in the near future when others will also do the same and these delivery media will be redundant and unacceptable…
Yes, I did ask around and the majority did feel the same way as myself. Strangely, one person from interstate (it was on video conference as well where our interstate colleagues had audio (but not visual) thought it was one of the best training courses she had been on. A few others liked the content and there were 4 others I spoke to in other parts of the business – not in L&D – who questioned why they were doing this if they couldn’t do the full course but they saw the content was relevant and got them thinking of how to move from a high touch service provider to a business adviser. So the content was fine – that wasn’t the issue. It was the delivery, the expectation setting and the context which was missing.
I put my designer hat on and started thinking of how I would have presented this differently. I think I would have wanted to work with the external vendor a bit more to see how flexible he was to deliver his content in different manners and maybe even getting senior managers involved in our learning plus some action plans for us to diagnose the times we are in different parts of the quadrant of service provision vs advisor…
Thanks Dave, “shut up and listen” – you’ve summed it up right there.
That’s exactly how I felt. Something’s got to be said when you’re sitting there in the second row, squirming in your seat…that’s not learning.
Disappointing really. However, on the plus side, I used the opportunity to think about how I would have designed this ‘awareness’ course – first thing, there wouldn’t have been a course.
Second thing, ‘awareness?!’
Phew, I wasn’t the only one. It’s a pity though. I’ve been through the Trusted Business Advisor workshop some years ago and got a lot out of it. I think the only time I was open to his content when he ‘humanised’ his story and I empathised with him. I think he did that well. When he said that, he calmed down and was like a different person!
There was feedback given but it was all mixed. One person thought that it was the best thing they’d been on and I jumped in and two of us mentioned we didn’t have the same experience. It turns out he runs his 1day and 2 day courses like this too!
However, due to time running out in our team meeting, no one else spoke up
Hi Helen, I find it interesting that some participants found the session useful, and/or found the content interesting and could see it applied to their work. Yet the delivery was poor, so how much better it could have been with an effective delivery – or even an alternative to a classroom approach. Curious, how would you present the content – would you use the same format [classroom]- or deliver it in another format? Just interested! Debbie 🙂
Thanks Debbie, I was thinking about how I would have designed it. It’s one to be negative about the delivery but I should have suggested an alternative in my post to make it into a positive – or at least, what I learned from it.
For me, if I was to learn what a Trusted Business Advisor was, I would have loved to have received some context first of all from the business clients – what do they expect from us? How do they want us to relate with them?
Then, I would have liked to receive some context from senior management. Why do they think TBA is the way to go? What do they see in the business that warrants this? What value will they and the business get?
Once the context is set, I would have liked to have been given the opportunity to ‘diagnose our day’ – basically tally all the activities we do in one day or one week to divide it up into high touch service provision, low touch service provision, expert or TBA – that is, to get a snapshot of where we spend most of our time (say a %)
Then to work on a business problem with a real client with a small team of my class colleagues who are all in the Support Services and doing the course (I’ll be the L&D lead, another will be the Research lead, another will be the Risk lead etc), this way we are kept in our department structure working with a real business client and being observed by either a senior manager/leader or this external vendor initially at least for a first activity.
Then, we may create action plans for how to start to move some of our low and high touch service providers to TBA, start to delegate or review our low touch activities to other means or solutions to free up more time for TBA activities.
I would have valued the opportunity to work with a small group of my colleagues from other parts of the department so that we could learn from each other and have either the senior leaders model this behaviour (as opposed to being told that this is what they expect from us).
Of course, in the end an opportunity to debrief the whole lot and reflect on my change in behaviours – and redo the activity of where we spend our time.
If we increased our TBA time and reduced the low touch service provision tasks I would have deemed it a good learning experience.
HI Helen, I like the idea of the small groups, which would provide you with an opportunity to network with colleagues and discuss the content, which likely could result in a built in follow-up plan that happens after the training! I agree with you also in getting information prior to the course – this is good advice for any educator for any setting really – preparing the learner. In Coursera I notice that each course I have enrolled in I get an email at least a week before the course beings.
In online courses that I have worked with faculty on, the announcement sent out before the course started, along with orientation activities really helped prepare the learner. Obviously in the context you speak of, orientation is not necessary but at least the info prior to the course would have been helpful.
Thanks for taking the time to share! Debbie
No worries Debbie, thanks for the reply. I agree, context is very important!
Good post Helen. I agree with most of the things you pointed out re this session, as you know I was one of the interstate people dialling in to the “training” via teleconference.
I agree it was very much lecture style and certainly not best practice, but think there were a couple of key things that made our experience different.
Perhaps not being IN the room provided a more “normal experience” (I say normal in relation to an average training session) i.e. less visuals enabled us to focus more on what may be valuable to apply in our role and to avoid non-verbal cues such as his mannerisms / body language/ perceived arrogance etc.
You hit the nail on the head regarding someone saying “It is SOME training to attend”. It is a sad state of affairs if we are supposed to be creating a true learning culture and leading by example as an L&D Team yet we are not afforded a “budget” to actually improve our own learning – or demonstrate leading by example (Internally offered). Perhaps my “perceived satisfaction” is directly influenced from a hunger to learn and finally being offered “something” in a number of years.
Value of content? Yes it was a 2 day course squeezed inappropriately into a couple of hours as a perceived goal for simply highlighting key points. Did this work? No not really, but I did have some take-aways I could use/apply in my role so I held a level of “some satisfaction” even small. An example is the key questions to ask your customer / stakeholder when interviewing their needs etc – we all agreed these could be valuable Could this example have been communicated via a team meeting or comms/email to the same effect, yes definitely.
Lecture Style, yes it was, I agree. However we were not in the room and I think the visual cues ruined the experience judging on the comments. For me as an adult online learner completing a psych degree I had no major issue with this style as I have adapted my learning style to this type of method and trained myself to decipher useful non useful and block out the rest. I personally liked the fast pace as I wasn’t in the room so it was a step up from drawling telecons that seem to be a lot of words and no message. I rely on my “other senses” more now than ever before as an online student and as a remote worker – sadly there is not much face to face contact existing anymore unless it is with meetings with stakeholders being situated in the business or the dreaded VC!
I think you are right in some respects although there seems to be a distinct difference between remote participants and face to face participants. Everyone in Brisbane took value from the session.
I think I can summarise it this way: the perception of any form of satisfaction from remote colleagues and myself attending could very much be based on “Gratitude” to some degree – as we often feel like the poor cousins. Being able to finally attend some form of training – ANY training and then perhaps mingle this with old school thinking that an org offering you training means they value you could have influenced our thoughts.
Secondly, I think we (remotes) are so used to inferior communication methods anyway – most meetings do not cater for the “minority” workers situated outside of the central hub, quite often “in room” jokes or visually based conversations exclude us without the knowledge of those IN the conversation – so an indirect / unintentional impact.
Lastly, as mentioned – the big difference I think, is there was no “noise” (non-verbal cues etc) interrupting our ability to focus and dissect certain content based on its value. In fact being remote allowed us the ability to tune out from yawning moments and “mute” the phone where required. This allowed us to then have our own “active” discussions on what was shared and to align this in real life scenarios. Maybe being in the room meant you were on show and therefore had no break from the relentless verbal avalanche hitting you.
So, the next “opportunity to learn” presents itself – a train the trainer. Am I required to go? I was excluded as apparently not needed and “costing” won’t cover “ALL Remote workers to be flown to the mother ship”. My response was to belittle myself and plead. Why? Because a) we NEED face to face contact, b) we don’t know our own team and c) hey its some training right?