In late May, I wandered the caverns and halls of the Denver Convention Center with 10,000 of my peers from all over the world. It was overwhelming to see how the industry is changing. The changes at the annual ATD Conference included a large, growing international learning group, new buzz words, deeply meaningful keynotes, frank updates on the state of the organization, as well as multiple new vendors, and the conspicuous absence of some oldvendors. Everyone earned every step on their athletic armband with claims of seven + miles per day trekking to the activities. Brittney and I co-taught a concurrent session on implementing our two-dayLeadership Simulation using the Leadership Training book, updated in late 2015.I also had the privilege to teach a pre-conference Project Management for Learning Professionals workshop for 30 people from across the globe. Most interesting, less than five learners were building 'training'. The Learning and Development (L&D) field (now called Talent Development by ATD  is a diverse, somewhat undefined and talented group, who are implementing more complex projects than ever before. What they do is grow people. If they are really good, they also grow business performance. A company cannot be independent of the L&D staff working for them. In fact, L&D only works when the business is dependent on this innovative growth, specifically now, as all work evolves at the speed of technology.  Companies have various defined initiatives that include selling more, building more and making things more efficient. A critical role of Human Resources is to protect the company from its people. (This is called compliance.) The attendees at this conference are often the only people chartered with growing individuals within their organizations. We believe that this is sacred work.   As individuals, we continue to find new ways to quickly learn, usually online. Growing corporate human beings requires much more than a training course. Success depends on follow-up and follow-through. An independent training event disconnected from strategy is a waste of money and velocity. Alignment requires complexity, influence, depth of knowledge and resilience. The roles of L&D require highly technical competence (e-learning, simulations) as well.  Job descriptions and accountabilities, if they exist, vary greatly. To meet business goals and engage employees requires constant adaptation to new technology, processes, people and challenges. In other words, performance improvement of human beings drives the ROI of organizations.

​Each month we are going to publish a challenge. Send us an email explaining why you are the best at that challenge and how you solve it. If you win, we'll splash it all over social media, print it in the next newsletter and send you a $100 Amazon card. Email info@russellmartin.com June's Challenge: MetricsHow do you measure the success of your L&D programs? What are your metrics and how does it help you grow your department's contribution to your organization?  What do you still want to improve? ​

This equation shows the challenge: knowledge and skills, combined with a motivated learner, are required to grow performance. If a learner has no knowledge or skills, and is highly motivated, s/he can't learn. If the learner has all the knowledge and skill and is not motivated, s/he will not learn. In either case, if learning doesn't occur, performance does not change. To differentiate these terms:  Knowledge, skills and motivation can be acquired and discouraged in many ways in an organization. In most instances, this occurs outside the L&D function. All three must work in concert for learning to occur. For example, micro-learning is 2016's buzz word. We are motivated to use micro-learning ourselves, quickly looking things up in the moment on Google. Just-Enough and Just-In-Time are good solutions for knowledge, but less useful for skill and minimally influential for motivation. Clearly, micro-learning cannot be the only tool in the box for performance change. For example, you might be looking up how to change a tire on YouTube or Google. If you don't have the skills to change a tire (for example, enough upper body strength to get the lug nuts off) or you're afraid of putting your car up on a jack (motivation), the micro-learning won't create performance improvement. Skills and motivation are missing. A five-module online e-learning program on changing a tire would have the same barrier to success. Best solution? Your parent helps you practice in the garage, teaching  you to loosen the lug nuts when they are too tight. This is basically instructor led training (ILT) or coaching. It might even be more effective if one of those videos was watched first. Skills, knowledge and motivation combined create learning.  I love learning new things and most of them don't change my behavior much. In business, we must not stop at learning. To be clear: Training (any mode) does not guarantee learning, and learning does not guarantee performance.   Skills and knowledge are required to drive performance change but motivation is the hardest and largest influence. This is where metrics are extremely appropriate. Understanding the context of a learning intervention (the why?) helps, but the biggest motivator is a leader who prioritizes and models the time to learn; and aligns the expected performance with the need of the business through coaching, mentoring and specific feedback. This is hard and rare.  In the recent excellent e-book Report: The State of Learning and Development in 2016, by Jennifer Hofmann,Insync Training, and Brad Thurber, Mimeo, their well-written research shows that companies are not following through to drive performance. I have marked their research in yellow throughout this newsletter. Here is some of what they found in their research of 500+ companies earlier this year:  Face to face classroom learning is still the most popular mode of training, with 94% of L&D teams using it. Virtual training (instructor and self-led) is on the rise.The most overrated learning modalities are online games and face-to-face learning. (note: 94% are using these methods).Only 3% of L&D use solely virtual training methods.Only 9% of the successful L&D programs use standardized methods for measuring their success.  Imagine a leader coming to you and asking you to hold a half day workshop for a troubled team to help them get along better. Most of us would jump at this opportunity- all good L&D professionals have a big bag of facilitation tools ready for just this event. I'd pick doing some pre-work assessments and design customized facilitated interactions to grow awareness, authenticity and trust. The people would leave the meeting feeling like they really do know each other better, and MAYBE things can improve. It's not my job after the session ends, right?  In a meeting similar to this, I was putting my tools away and was privy to a side conversation between two of my more engaged learners. The discussion was work related and within minutes, both were screaming at each other with various words not printable here. Excuse me!? What just happened? We get what we accept.  Clearly, this was not the first time these two had spoken like this to each other. The next morning (another session, same team), I explained what I saw and asked them to write letters to every other person in the group with what they valued and needed. It was a tough morning, but the deep discussion influenced future performance. Notice that this moved deeply into motivation; knowledge and skills were not big parts of this problem.    The biggest influence, though, had little to do with me. In this case, the leader of this team was in the sessions and reinforced the promises made going forward. The team agreed to hold each other accountable for behaviors, and they self-regulated well. Here lies the dirty secret of training- performance will not change unless bosses and peers recognize, encourage, and demand the performance. If this does not occur, you’ve acquired another pile of skills and knowledge without purpose. There's the highest cost- the people in this team now know all too well that no one is serious at this company about performance change. They're all going to keep going through the motions, pretending that training helps and knowing that nothing will ever change. Guess what they'll put on their engagement survey? Successful learning that drives performance, supported by leadership, drives engagement. One-off training, disconnected from real problems and accountability kills engagement.     In our Project Management, Leadership, and Team learning interventions, we are careful to tell the terrible truth to our learners. We emphasize that it's likely that no one will ask them what they've learned or expect them to use any of the skills and knowledge they've practiced and acquired. In fact, often their leaders tell them "You know what, could you wait on doing that new leadership thing? We're just too busy now…" Our hope is that if we prepare our learners for this reality, they will still use the tools and processes all by themselves to make their life easier. Team adoption is awesome, but I want our learners to go alone if they must. 

​​Training / Learning and Development / Talent Development is immature and less effective than it must be. The rest of the company does not see our services as particularly valuable. In truth, most think they know exactly what we do (make PowerPoint slides) and don't believe it's very difficult.  From Hofmann and Thurber: L&D teams struggle the most with budgetary constraints, then getting executive buy-in. They struggle to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI). Clearly, if we can't even make up our minds about what we call ourselves, our brand is not strong. In truth, very little time is used making PowerPoint slides, of course. Why don't we push back and sell our services to our internal customers more effectively? How do we market the value of learning and the process to drive performance?   Here's how it usually plays out- a manager has a problem and it's gnarly. Not only does s/he not know what to do about it, but also doesn't have the capacity or time. Let's call Training! Throw the issue over the cubicle and make sure it lands on another scapegoat- Training is the perfect candidate. Best case, the training works. Worst case, we blame Training for not working.  Much like Charlie Brown kicking the football, Training gets the call and is excited to finally tackle a gnarly, important business problem. No one is available to talk about what the issues are, and the manager will not be able to attend the session. The trainer reluctantly builds a learning strategy from things that have worked before, still hopeful a breakthrough will occur. As the session begins, half the people don't show up on time, and some not at all. No one knows why they are there and all are fearful that they are in trouble for something. At the end, the talented, caring team members (motivated) thank the facilitator for some new thoughts and techniques for managing the problem and that's the last word ever heard from this team. No one asks the learners about the session, no one changes behavior and the leader moves on to the next crisis.

I've been often asked in my workshops:See more on must-learn and learn-on-need.Read more about references.Two Types of References: Must-Learn Support and DetailsThere are two types of references: (a) must-learn support and (b) detailed references. Must-learn support contains information that enhances the learning of the must-learn content. Since the goal of the must-learn lesson is to make it short, succinct and focused, inserting the must-learn support references may interrupt the succinctness of the must-learn lesson. So, we move it on top as an optional link.  An illustrationTopic - Toxic Waste Drum LabelingMust-Learn Lesson:John says:"I'm confused. This drum is intended for XXX waste. But I was told by Darren, that the content of the drum just came from YYY plant. Shouldn't we use the YYY label and not this drum for XXX waste? Mary responds:"You have done this before. You can figure it out."  Question to participant: "How should John proceed? How can he really be sure which label and drum to use? Should he find the exact label code to ensure that XXX waste matches the YYY drum.Must-Learn Support References:If you position a list of "Guide to Drum Labels" on top of the screen, what is the likelihood of the participant clicking this link to learn more about drum labels? The probability is definitely high. Why? Because we added a Story Question in the must-learn, that prompts the learner to go and seek the answers. Detailed References: The detailed references is more of an over-all type of reference that may contain a long list of labels, resources for labels, how to procure and find them, etc. The must-learn references may also be part of this detailed reference.Build Curiosity and Continuation of the Story Lesson In the Story-Based eLearning Design, we use stories to deliver the must-learn content. To make it natural and engaging for learners, the must-learn lesson and the must-learn support references should continue the flow of the story. What prompts the learner to open the references is the conflict and challenge to answer the questions posed in the story.Learners do not think of the references as readings. They look at the references as a continuation of the story.ReferencesCase Study- Reducing eLearning Cost to 50% by Using Must-Learn Lessons and Micro-Learning.Why Simple Rules Produce Instant Learning and Application.Provoking Learners with Story Questions. Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Do you find it arduous and very challenging to identify stories that produce engaging content?  Have you heard the saying, "the answer is just under your nose?" Believe me, stories abound.  Abundance of Facts, Scarcity of StoriesFactual and data content are easy to find. They are abundantly spoonfed to us by SMEs (subject matter experts) or expert technical teams.  We are never short of data. There is an abundance of these. Remember the slide decks that our SMEs provided us? (Phew!). Unfortunately, many designers and writers find it gruelling to pinpoint thought-provoking stories to accompany the data or factual content. They say "they are scarce." Not at all! The answer is really right under our noses.  Where do data and fact originate?Data does not come from thin air. It does not come from computers churning them out into great infographics. I once saw this placard from a science lab: Most content, if not all, come from events in our lives - nature, laboratories, situations - in or from living things. So any form of data, information or statistics reflect what is happening or what we observed in our environments.  I also call these organic items. One might also argue that content is the form while stories are their substance. Taking a closer look at your factual or data content, you’d be pleasantly surprised to find stories which are built-in or inseparable elements of said content. Stories are native and innate in the content. How to Extract the StoriesTo extricate the stories, we need to use "extraction tools" or "refining tools." The tools are called Story Questions.From the data on hand, you may derive real-life events, situations, narratives, stories, characters, emotions, conflicts, resolutions, anecdotes - the elements of the story. Statistical anomalies: "What’s the cause of the anomalies? What brought about the incidents? What is the impact, negatively or positively? How is the anomaly easily described? Deviations from targets: "What drove the deviations? Who and how was this received? How are people adjusting the strategies or actions to address deviations?  Disconnect in assumptions: "What are the differences in assumptions and their origins? What are the sentiments and feelings about the differences? How are these likely resolved and what happens if they are unresolved?Fatal flaws: "What is the accident or error? What are the consequences? What was missed or omitted? What costs or benefits were derived? Exemplar results: "Why was this unexpected? How was this inspiring others? What was the contrasting, below-par results and what was the value realized? Who benefited?  Go Beyond the Numbers I learned this thought from a Harvard professor:  ReferencesRemove the Sting of Compliance Courses: Make Them Short, Succinct, Easy to LearnProvoking Learners with Story QuestionsEmploying Story Structure and Dynamics to Engage Different LearnersRay Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Learners learn by trial and error.Which is better - trial and error or scientific learning? Why?Have you experienced learning quickly by committing an error or mistake? View the recording session to shed more insights on learning through trial and error.Click here to download the PDF handout.Tips:Start objectives by asking them what they hope to learn within the confines of the topics.Ask what errors they experienced and discovered, and what have they learned from them.Encourage them to share how they would handle a difficult situation.Request them to search in company records the cases and incidents that taught people the lessons.Cite current practices that were introduced because of a complaint or incident.An example : In one company, all meetings now start with a few minutes on safety policies and procedures in case of fire or related accident.Focus on highest value, errors, workarounds and solution.Use workarounds as a learning approach. Translated positively this means problem solving, troubleshooting, tricks, maneuvers, shortcuts, best solutions, etc.Identify high impact work and business performance areas.Simplify content: deliberate reduction.Discover immediately useful content to solve problems. Teach learners to ask 5 questions. Select a topic then ask:     a. What/why do I want?  - Objectives     b. What do I know now? - Draw out experience and knowledge     c. What is fun to discover? -  Find the fun part     d. What do I want to try? - Encourage exploration/adventure     e. How do I feel? - Appeal to emotionsFacilitate learning by introducing hints.People learn best by trial error and not following organized content. They are more inclined to explore and discover. They get excited as they learn from their own insights.So... always leave room for trial and error, even if you have pretty good-looking  lessons created as your labor of love.  Don't clip your learners' wings, cut off their imagination or frustrate their need to play.  Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Why do we snooze when we are lectured at and why do we perk up when we are watching a story unfold?  In the previous installments we talked about the different learner types as well as the elements of an effective interactive story that positively impact each kind of learner. We now have a clearer picture of how to structure our stories to make our lessons come alive. This time, we take a look at the science behind the story-learner relationship.  What happens to the brain when it's exposed to an effective interactive story experience? How can we use this to our benefit? Human Nature and Stories Look at these commercials. What attracts you to them?   Quick: Pick a memorable TV commercial from the last five years that made you really want to buy a product. Chances are, you'll pick a commercial that made you feel something: it might have made you laugh, or touched your heart, or made you think.Advertisers know that to make a brand or product memorable, you have to tell a story. In 30 seconds, a well-crafted commercial can inspire a variety of emotions that really grab the viewer. These emotions and ideas are now positively associated with their brand, and makes the brand more appealing. Voila! Recognition + Emotional Connection = Brand loyalty. This philosophy works because as we learned about Positive Stories, touching the emotional core of people increases their sense of involvement, memory, and makes them more receptive to ideas and learning.Cause and Effect: The Story in a Nutshell Brains light up and get pumped up when we tell or listen to good stories. Researchers in Spain found out that compared to a plain, straight-laced, bullet-point presentation, using a story in presentations activates more areas of the brain. Multiple sections of the subjects' brains were lighting up as though they were experiencing the story in real life!  Lauren Silbert, Greg Stephens, Uri Hasson How is this applicable and useful to our Learner Types? According to Leo Widrich, whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences.The insula is the part of the brain which we use when we are trying to relate to something or to find similarities between our experiences and those of others. It allows us to empathize and to connect through shared life stories. The insula allows us to create links between causes and effects, and to remember those connections.This is the part of the brain that we aim for when creating our interactive stories. In the diagram above, we see what is called the Neural Coupling Model. The two brains in the diagram are individual items, each one with its own unique set of memories, knowledge, thoughts and so on. Simply defined, neural pertains to the brain, and coupling means "the pairing of two items". This phenomenon happens when a speaker is able to create similar brain response patterns in another person, creating a connection between them through the story or information being shared.This connection makes the listener more open, empathetic, and understanding. In turn, this makes for better learners.In eLearning where the verbal communication between speaker and listener is absent, the emotion and vividness of our story are even more important. Furthermore, to encourage the "coupling" of lessons and learner, we encourage the use of Story Questions - questions that bring in the learner to interact with the story.Hard-hitting Stories that Make an ImpactBut of course, we are not scientists or neurobiologists. Knowing how the brain reacts to stories is great; now how do we use this in practical terms?1.   Study learner types. Use or create stories that will touch each kind of learner and have a universal appeal.   2.   Simplify. Our Instant Learning tips tell us to keep things short, precise and concise. Don't skimp on the details, but avoid unnecessary length as well. A balance is what we are looking for to be effective. 3.   Keep it fresh. Most of your learners will be adult-aged, and are likely to have undergone other trainings before. Avoid clichéd stories and overused words or phrases to avoid loss of impact. In one study, scientists found out that common phrases like "rough day" didn't even register with listeners anymore. 4.   Keep it real. Aim for real-life experiences that people can relate to. Use your own stories! If that does not apply, do more research and get stories from real-life people and case studies to make the learning more authentic.SummaryWhile there are a variety of learner types, the human brain and human nature work pretty much the same way for most people you will encounter. An understanding of how the brain works with regards to interactive stories can give you a powerful teaching tool that will add a new and more engaging dimension to your courses.Related linksWorkshop Tip 10: How to Teach Very Complex Ideas with Story-Based eLearning ScenariosWorkshop Tip 38: Making Learning Styles Come Alive in Interactive Stories Workshop Tip 39: Employing Story Structure and Dynamics to Engage Different LearnersYour Brain on FictionRay Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

   In the workshops that I conducted on Story-based eLearning Design, participants constantly ask: How do we implement Story-Based Learning in our entire company or in various forms of our learning?  There is no one sure-fire answer to accomplish this. However, there are concerted strategies that help your organization apply the Story-Based Learning Design. Reputation of Stories and StorytellingAn advantage is that most employees and leaders are very familiar with the concept of stories and storytelling. The use of stories is fun, engaging and entertaining -- not boring. The downside is that there is an inertia in most organizations to push "telling" and "data dump" as a method of learning. This is linear design which is a huge hurdle. Fighting the Momentum of Linear Design The power and thrust of linear design is so strong, that sometimes, it seems so difficult to make a change.Over the past few years I have been meeting clients, both large and small-size companies, wanting to inject, energize or revitalize their learning and training programs using principles from the Story-Based Design. Some of these companies want all their designers to embrace and always include some form of story and story-design and context design into their programs.This is well and good, but how do we implement the ideas? Always follow up by asking the participants certain questions.What is Story-Based Learning? The focus of the Story-Based Learning is getting learners involved with the stories and experiences related with the content. The immediate thrust is adding context, helping learners find meaning and applications of the content. Story-Based Learning is not a specific method and technique. Many methods we use today are Story-Based  though we use different labels. Examples are: discovery, troubleshooting, problem solving, critical incidents, case studies, scenarios, branching, social conversations and sharing, diagnostics, and many others. The Starting Point is Content DeliveryMost of the opportunities when making a change in Learning Design is through delivery of content. Hence, this is where we focus our strategies. Other types of learning thrusts may need other strategies.Implementation Tips Small Lesson Changes - Easier to ImplementUsing a small or micro Story-Based Lesson  like the "My Declined Credit Card", provide opportunities to change small sections of your content. There is a temptation amongst learning specialists and leaders to be carried away by their enthusiasm. When they find a new model, like Story-based Learning, they want to immediately make a total change to the courses and projects. Resist this temptation. Be conservative. Focus on small nuggets and snippets that you can redesign to use the Story-Based lesson.  Showcase Your New Lessons to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)Seeing is believing and buying a concept by seeing a product is more compelling than telling about the product.Help your SMEs to understand the new design by seeing and feeling and having an experience. The theory becomes useful when seen in action.Over time, develop your own library of models, like these models I created. Show Proof that Stories Impact LearningTo prove that stories and real-life events impact learning positively, do a simple exercise and show it: Select and compare two small lessons.One with purely static and factual data and the other one with some stories to relate the value of the data. Conduct a small test and obtain the results.More Inexpensive ApproachesIn constructing lessons, you may borrow (adhere to Creative Commons policy- link to http://creativecommons.org/policies) some stories from the web sources like YouTube stories. The goal is to find a story and use this as the heart of your Story-Based lesson.Use videos for your Story-Based lessons. But don't just show the videos. Have an "experience-sharing" discussion about the ideas from the videos. See how we borrowed the Values.com video on "First Date" and add interaction to the video.Even Easier to Implement - Story ConversationsAn Interactive story is unlike storytelling. Interactive stories may be applied in all types of learning. It can be applied in social learning, presentations like Chalk Talk, face to face classes, and even in webinars.It's About the Learners' StoriesThe thing to remember is that Story-Based Learning is not a tool, a technology, or a process. It is a belief system and value system that's says: ConclusionFighting the momentum of linear design can be difficult. You will certainly meet all kinds of resistance. But if you implement the tips presented here and slowly but surely embed Story-Based learning in your content design, you will eventually see gradual acceptance. If you believe that learners should take center stage rather than the trainer, then  Story-Based learning is the best way to move forward. Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

  More often than not, compliance courses have received a bad rap and reputation. The main complaint is that compliance courses are just "clicking boxes to meet lawyers' needs." As the perception persists, part of the blame is caused by designers, trainers and leaders abandoning the "learning side" of compliance. Consequently, these courses have been relegated to the category of being necessary evils. I am not giving up on compliance courses. From what I know of compliance courses, the intent is to protect peoples' lives, reduce costs, avoid fraudulence, keep our environments safe and many others. Without good compliance courses, we are all at risk.  Recently, I spoke at the  ATD (Association of Talent Development) Conference in Las Vegas on the topic Micro-Compliance Learning. My goal was to share how to remove the sting of compliance courses by making them short and easier to learn.  Live Demos of Micro-Compliance Lessons Please play a couple of examples of a micro-lesson. These demos are prototypes only. They address a small but significant section of a large compliance course.  Code Pink - Hospital ComplianceStash the Cash - Banking on Money LaunderingWhy and How Micro-Compliance WorksThe key principles are:Shorten compliance courses by focusing on the most important lesson.The average time of a lesson is 2-3 minutes.Relegate readings of policies and procedures as reference links. You can still track these readings by using a tracking device when learners scroll the page.Invest in the lesson story and not in a series of long slideshows about the policies with just text.Deliver the micro-lessons in smaller bits and pieces, weekly, daily or spaced over time.Insights Invaluable to Successful Implementation of Micro-Lessons"What if it is required that learners must read pages?"The cheaper way is not to put lengthy policies and government rules in long, narrated slideshows. Keep them in PDFs or text that learners could scroll through and still track if learners have done so. "Is it enough to focus on the story and some important parts of the lessons?" Overloading learners will likely bring results, although, records show they simply clicked through all pages in typically long, very long lessons. "But our lessons must be learned in 2 hours. Lawyers require this."Let learners focus on key ideas, like the examples, then let them do additional activity and readings to consume the hours. By doing this, you are not boring the learners."We are required to test for knowledge retention and compliance."In most cases this works. However, oftentimes, this encourages the learners "to game" or "cheat" the system. True or false and multiple choice types of tests are clicked repeatedly for a trial and error approach just to complete the test. Asking learners to write something may also help them to reflect their understanding of the lesson. There are authoring ways to provide feedback to learners without having someone track all the answers. How can you deliver by spacing out lessons?Learners are busy and would welcome receiving maybe once a day or once a week, a 2-3-minute micro-compliance lesson. Most compliance courses are repeated once a year and to avoid the yearly end rush, advance spaced out lessons are usually convenient.Conclusion Compliance courses are often the first line of defense to keep companies compliant. It does not mean, however, we relegate these courses to data dumps and verification of scanning pages. They can be made engaging, short and help learners learn important contributions of compliance courses. Related LinksCreating Big Lessons By Using Small DataKill Boring eLearning with Story-Based Lessons Anti-Bullying - How to combine story with a compliance lesson?Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning