I want to share a method for getting your ego out of the way and clear your path to becoming a servant leader. There are two sides of the human ego that can cause trouble. One is false pride—when you think more of yourself than you should. When this occurs, you spend most of your time looking for ways to promote yourself. The other is fear—when you think less of yourself than you should. In this case, you spend time constantly trying to protect yourself. I love to start meetings with an Egos Anonymous session. It is a simple but powerful opening activity with a format similar to one used in many 12-step programs. Individuals stand up, introduce themselves, and then share an example of how they have let their ego get in the way of being their best. For example, I would say, "Hi, I’m Ken, and I’m an egomaniac. The last time my ego got in the way was…" and then I might talk about when I took too long to apologize or when I was impatient with someone I care about. When you make this kind of admission in front of others it is an act of vulnerability that enables people to see you as you truly are, which builds trust and improves relationships. Try it yourself. Reflect on a recent situation where you reacted badly or in a way that was inconsistent with the person you want to be. If you are like most people, you’ll realize that your ego-driven episode was a result of either false pride or fear. You may have felt a need to win at the expense of others, or to be seen as smart, or to be accepted as part of a group. Both false pride and fear are damaging and can limit your effectiveness as a leader. The first step to changing your behavior is to identify the issue. Only when you realize you are operating out of false pride or fear will you be able to change. To keep your ego in check, I recommend that you ask yourself a couple of questions. First, ask "Am I here to serve or to be served?"  If you believe leadership is all about you—where you want to go and what you want to attain—your ego is probably causing problems in leadership situations. But if your leadership revolves around meeting the needs of the organization and the people working for it, you are acting as a servant leader. Next, ask "What am I doing on a daily basis to recalibrate who I want to be as a leader?" This could include how you enter your day, what you read, what you study—everything that contributes positively to who you are. Consider your daily habits and their impact on your life. Take time to explore who you are, who you want to be, and what steps you can take on a daily basis to get closer to becoming your best self. Let’s face it; at times we all have poor reactions to situations. We need to continually monitor our behaviors so that we can make improvements. Your leadership journey begins on the inside—but ultimately, it will have a tremendous impact on the people around you. Start now: "Hello, my name is…"

A client from the U.S. Department of State once told me:I have never looked at learning this way. In many ways, I am guilty of focusing on the content to impart to learners and missing the crux of the change in behavior, the ultimate goal of learning and training.Why does advancing experiences and telling their own stories help the agents behave as expected on the job?Neural Pathways, Flight and Alternate RealityThe chart above shows an event and incident which presents an experience to the learners. Going through this experience and seeing the consequences help intensify and generate more experience.Scientists tell us that even in imagined ways, our brains create neural pathways to record experiences even if we have not actually been through the event. From a psychological viewpoint, people are capable of flight. Only humans can travel in their minds. By doing so, they vividly see the alternate realities as shown in the consequences of their actions. We store the experiences in stories, and story questions retrieve and repeat the cycle.Essentially, our brains are constantly advancing experience. This is how we adapt and survive. Story Questions as EnablersStory questions act as enablers. The more we ask the questions the more we re-live and improve our stories and experience. Our experiences undergo a process of refinement.  Both our stories and experiences advance further.Application in Learning DesignIn the sequence of scenes below, the learner is drawn into the situation or incident. Story questions are asked. Pulling the learner into the story within the lesson helps advance the experience in multiple ways and assists the learner to mentally prepare in case the event or a similar situation occurs.Some ideas for considerationReflect on how you use advancing experience in your lesson design.Review your content and select an incident or event that can bring the learner into a story situation.Present the scenes of the event, incident or story.Question the leader's story questions to help them intensify the experience.Repeat the process a few times using different incidents relevant in real-life situations.ConclusionChange in behavior is one of the most important values for training people, not delivering content. Advancing the experience in the minds of the learners help them prepare to respond when faced with the actual situation.ReferencesHassabis et al. (2007). Using Imagination to Understand the Neural Basis of Episodic Memory. The Journal of Neuroscience.Buckner RL (2010). The role of the hippocampus in prediction and imagination. Annual Review of PsychologyTip#91 - 3 Story Sources for Deeper LearningTip#94 - How to Design Unobtrusive Test QuestionsTip#42 - Provoking Learners with Story QuestionsRay Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

The delivery medium (live, virtual, blended) used to teach does not change the way people learn. In fact, the way people learn will drive their preferred learning medium. Notice how your different friends find new knowledge - it's very diverse and personal. Here's a definition of blended from Insync Training: "Blended Learning is a learning program in which performance objectives are matched to the most appropriate medium to ensure that participants learn -- at least in part -- through facilitator-led delivery of content with some element of participant control over where, when, pace or path in the overall program sequence." ​ Memory research informs what we know about learning, and more research and discoveries are made every day. Over the years, beliefs about how the brain works have evolved and changed, which will continue to occur. Truths remain: ​ ​Learning is a social experience. Ikujiro Nonaka proved in his work on Knowledge Management, that knowledge is not used until it is exchanged and vetted with another person.  This dependence on social exchange changes the knowledge into application, and hopefully improves performance.  It doesn't have to be done in person, so it does not limit virtual learning. The Knowledge-Creating CompanyHoward Gardner's Multiple Intelligence continues to provide a strong rubric for auditing the flow and content of a learning experience.  Each of us are strongest in three to five of the Multiple Intelligences, and we can grow any whenever we want. Varying the delivery of learning across the original seven helps ensure that each learner receives the content in the way most meaningful to them.  Receiving learning in different ways increases neural connections, making retention easier.  Virtual learning is a bit more challenging,  and expect advanced technologies to make it easier to implement. Multiple Intelligences- The Theory in Practice Learning depends on feeling safe. If your leader has threatened your job as s/he sends you to training, learning cannot occur.  Due to the new research on Emotional Intelligence, we now know that fear and shame in a learning situation are disabling, blocking learning and retention. The traditional learning objectives from your School of Education days still are required to drive what is practiced in a learning experience.  Because there is a learning objective that says our learners will be able to build a Project Charter, our learners build one for one of their real projects during our time together. The learning objectives play a dual role as they development project objectives. Skip these at your peril.  Lecture as a Last Resort. Listening is not a strong skill.  From the article "Listening to People" by Ralph Nichols and Leonard Stevens in HBR, "Our own testing shows—and it has been substantiated by reports of research at Florida State University and Michigan State University—that two months after listening to a talk, the average listener will remember only about 25% of what was said. In fact, after we have barely learned something, we tend to forget from one-half to one-third of it within eight hours; it is startling to realize that frequently we forget more in this first short interval than we do in the next six months." Practice, Do, Reflect.  Repeat. Laughter and fun open the brain, create endorphins that link the memory to joy, and grow interest in future exposure to the topic. A positive learning environment drives positive application of learning to performance. Music (see Accelerated Learning Fieldbook above) creates a mood and can be very useful to manage energy and attention when used carefully. Quiet, major key, instrumental music has been found to help with lots of physical issues like stress, high blood pressure, anxiety, etc. In live and virtual classes, use it (legally, watch the copyright) to quiet the brain and drive focus.    ​