Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Learning Experience Matters!

Let’s pretend I could magically place an educator into your organization that was focused completely on Making the Moment for your students.You wouldn’t need an awe-inspiring office or training center. Your employees would feel GREAT!

Students will ask where you found the new trainer. They will remember how good they felt, they will feel more engaged, they might even feel challenged to learn more or come back sooner.

Moreover, they will will remember the one person that turned an otherwise hum-drum training course into something meaningful through a genuine level of commitment, transparency, and honesty. And then, they will tell others and encourage them to interact with your organization. And next, they share that excitement with your customers.

You don’t necessarily need the latest tools to make learning great. You simply need people who are passionate, committed and open to creatively using the tools you have to the advantage of their students.


Sunday, January 03, 2010

Faces & Places

Your choices determine whether your employees learn faster, easier and more frequently.

We are wired to remember people and places. You can use those assets to your advantage. Most organizations can't afford to build their campus beside a beautiful mountain stream or tropical bay. But they can afford to hire, train and promote great people.

The quality of your facilitators does matter. For God's sake, don't transfer your worst sales rep into training where they can pollute all of your new hires! By replacing a ineffective teacher with a more talented one, you can turn a dull technical course into something more meaningful, memorable, and engaging.

Fundamental Fact #1

In order to survive, our ancestors needed to recall faces and places, not shopping lists. Our brain physiology developed accordingly. We respond eagerly to agreeable faces and interesting places. Humans that avoided bad people and bad places survived to share their story.

Fundamental Fact #2

The process of developing from child to adult (school years) is a time that is loaded with personal development and self-exploration. The courses we took inside the classrooms were often sidebars to the main event: surviving social traumas and learning how to cope, work with and love other people.

Fundamental Fact #3

We measure the quality of human interactions by how we feel, not simply what occurs. People quickly forget what we said, but will remember how we said those words – and how they felt working with us - for a long, long time.