Training: Can you get more out of your learning experience?
My daughter loves to bake. Not only to reap the rewards of mixing together ingredients for cakes and cookies, but she just enjoys doing it herself, thank you very much! Her process of learning to bake has been an interesting one. If I simply ask her to watch me run through a recipe, she’s antsy and distracted. But if I ask her to participate— and tell her next time she’s on her own, it’s a whole different ball game. She’s asking questions, demanding that she tries things out on her own, and pushing herself to think about learning in a more active, engaged way.
Information overload. Now let’s switch to work… and to be more specific, sitting in a training session for 1 hour or 1 day. I have a short attention span. (Ironic because I am known to spin a rather long, winding story). If I am sitting in an all-day workshop, there is probably really amazing information that is hidden behind PowerPoint slides and jargon— cut to me antsy and distracted. I’m not alone. Noah Zandan states: “Research suggests that the average adult attention span is now only 5 minutes, down from 12 minutes just a decade ago.”
The Boost. While most advice focuses on how the facilitator can grab more “attention-share” than 5 minutes, with tips and tactics for practitioners and speakers, in this post my focus and advice is for the learner sitting in the room. How you can stay engaged and walk away with real practical, relatable takeaways you can use with your teams? At the beginning of the course, I set an intention of how I will engage. I imagine I’m going to be the facilitator for the next session being run and this is my one shot to learn as much as I can. My heart races. My mind sharpens. And then I get serious about getting the most from my learning. Here’s how I do it.
In a nutshell. As I listen and take notes, I start a page called: “concepts and anchors”. I try to keep those key terms and measurements (or whatever) tracked on one page so I can have that place to return to as I figure things out. Sure I might do free form notes along the way, but during breaks I will summarize major concepts on this page. Another way to do this is with post it notes which I collect and organize on a page. Either way the end result is the same. I create an outline of the concepts with definitions and how I would train others in it.
Stories. A good workshop will have rich case studies and stories to drive home concepts and give practical, tactical applications. The thing is for me I am not great at telling other people’s stories. Since my goal is to walk away from the workshop able to get up and do my own version of credible training on the concept I just learned, I try to listen to the examples, then reflect on what stories or examples I have from my own experience that might apply. And of course as I’m going through this thought exercise, I am grappling with the concepts and making them my own and learning. I have a section in my notes called “key stories” which serves as a core process for how I incorporate my experience into the new concepts.
Learning Plan. Obviously there are pieces that I will need to dig into more. I always ask the instructor what to read, watch and listen to for more information. I note areas that I’m still unclear on. What am I lost on (and can dig deeper to learn more so I can explain it in my own words?). And more than that, I become disciplined afterward, creating an outline of my learning plan of gaps I need to fill so I can get smarter on the topic during and following the course. Then I continue researching and talking with others so I walk away filling in those gaps.
Spread the Word. Summarize your plan and share with others your key takeaways. Take ownership and not only get clear on concepts and definitions, but think about stories and case studies from your own experience you can use to teach others. I sit through it as if I am watching a dry run, and will be required to run the same session with the same learning objectives the following week. My notes become structured around what makes sense, and how would I explain it in my own way? And then I go ahead and share what I learned with others-sometimes formally, but often informally. The more I share and discuss and apply what I’ve learned, the more it becomes a powerful tool.
