The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey - Besides the fact that my name is in the acknowledgments (blush, blush), this seminal book legitimized inside-out learning and personal, interpersonal, and team development as necessary elements of effective leadership. Principles and paradigms become the building blocks instead of style and technique. Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader - This almost forgotten, but still incredible, book is about changing the car industry’s and the world’s notion of corporate accountability and the value of human life. Studying the motivations and strategies of this very successful Influencer can help inspire us all to understand how doing our work not only changes minds, but improves and saves lives as well. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge - Peter’s book pushes past simple answers and insufficient techniques to explain five disciplines used to lead and improve organizations. I especially value his explanation of "systems thinking" and "the learning organization" as both foundational concepts and tools.   Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers - I keep thinking we’ve moved past his pioneering work, but his research is an absolute necessity for current leaders and Influencers. Who would have thought that getting innovation adopted and change in general is a social process? Related posts: Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Joseph’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Ron’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Al’s Reading

It’s been a busy year, with a lot of things happening. New technologies have come, and gone. So have new methodologies. I’ve learned a lot, forgotten even more probably, but I’ve met a lot of great people who have inspired me to do and write a lot of great things. I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I’ve learned this year, and think about where I need to go next year. It’s been the first year that I’ve consistently posted on my blog, and it has given me an excellent forum for reflecting on my learning, documenting it, and then building upon that knowledge with every idea I have and post I make. Twitter Inspiration This has also been the first year I have been consistently highly active on Twitter, and for the past few months have participated in Twitter chats. Twitter chats and posting in my blog have gone hand in hand as they fuel each other with inspiring moments and ideas I can take to the company I work at and hopefully give something back to the community that has given me so much. Every Twitter chat sparks a new idea, and they’re oddly not always related to the topic of the chat. I’ve been consistently participating in #chat2lrn of which I’ve only missed a few in the past seven months. I look at Twitter chats as taking an hour of my time, but giving back to me infinite inspiration. I’d go as far as saying that one hour pays for itself a million times over. A quick (Vizify) run-down of my year on Twitter 2013: Of course I must mention again my golden followers, those I interacted with the most throughout the year. Thanks to @rjacquez who has provided me with endless conversation about everything mobile, plus just a great person to know in general. Thanks @eGeeking for being my go-to #DevLearn inside person, wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much out of the back-channel if it weren’t for you! And last but certainly not least @LearnKotch who I’ve not only learned so much from, but you’re of course my favorite sharer of #LrnToday. #LrnToday While I find Twitter chats to be an excellent source of inspiration, it got me thinking how that inspiration and information share could be carried on outside the chat time. I also saw a lot of people Tweeting about what they learned, or that they try to learn something new each day. I wrote a post about documenting  what you learned using the hashtag #LrnToday. It’s not only a source of documenting what you learned, but also reflecting on it further which would better cement that learning into your brain. What did I learn? Looking back at the things I’ve learned this past year, I’ve really fine tuned a lot of my knowledge. I’ve been learning better every day how to best take advantage of mobile in learning. There are so many ways to do it and every problem requires a different solution. Social learning has also presented a great challenges, solutions I’ve heard work for some organizations have flat-out failed for others. There is no one solution fits all. One specific technology that I learned about without ever having previous knowledge is Adobe After Effects. I took an entire After Effects course on Udemy which was an experience in itself, my first full class online. I also learned all about MOOCs this year first by reading about them. Gamification was my first course and I think it was the perfect way to get my feet wet in the MOOC ocean. While I’m still not too positive on the way MOOCs are formatted, I think they still serve a much needed segment of education. This year was my first big introduction to the backchannel also. I have previously provided Tweets for the backchannel of the Gamification conference in 2012 although very lightly not knowing the value it created for those unable to attend. I heavily attending #DevLearn 2013 only from the backchannel, I was fortunate to know some great people who were live Tweeting. Even the conversation was amazing, without even being there. Next time I’m at a conference, I’ll definitely be providing live Tweets not just for others, but to document my learning. Two Biggest Changes I had to take a moment to mention my two huge changes for 2013 before I wrap up this post. It was fairly business as usual for most of the year but of course in the holiday rush also came another rush. In early November I started a new job as a Senior Instructional Designer, a big step in my career of always seeking to give the best knowledge to as many people as possible. In mid-November I became a home-owner for the first time, no longer an apartment dweller shoveling money into someone else’s pocket. These were some huge changes and in them alone have learned so much (like how much work owning a home really is!) On To 2014 Next year I’m sure will prove to be an even more productive year than this. My ideas for writing in my blog have not rested and I’m already working my way to how I can really affect the learning in an even larger way for even more people. I look forward to another year of blog posts and growing my audience, thoughts, and contributions to the Learning & Development community. You might also enjoy: Share What You’ve Learned Today: #LrnToday Following the Backchannel of #DevLearn Tweet Your Way to Conference Success

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via MP3 Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes "Captain Newton wants to speak to you," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "The captain?" I thought to myself. I’d only been out of training for a couple of months and already I’d done something wrong! Why else would the boss of the entire base be calling me, a lowly ensign? I was soon to find out. "This is Captain Newton speaking. You know that large dumpster that sits in front of the supply building?" Oh no. Nothing good could come from a dumpster. It stinks. It blocks his view. He hates it. "Yes sir," I responded. "I think it’s a Dempsey version, if I’m not mistaken." "Well," the captain continued, "I’ve noticed the past few days that it’s been filled with scrap wood. If nobody else wants it, I was wondering if it would be okay if I fished out a few pieces for my home fireplace—on my way home. That is, if nobody else wants it." "I’ll check with supply ASAP and see how to make it happen," I eagerly responded, taking pride in the fact that I had employed the military expressions "ASAP" and "make it happen" in the same breath. Next, I dialed the chief warrant officer in charge of supply and explained to him the captain’s request for the scrap wood—taking care to include the captain’s proviso, "if nobody else wants it." The supply officer said he’d take care of it and get back to me. Two hours later, when my phone finally rang it wasn’t the supply officer getting back to me. Instead, it was the captain’s wife. She thanked me profusely for the lovely wood for her fireplace. I graciously accepted her words of appreciation and then headed out to learn why the captain’s wife was so excited about a few pieces of scrap wood. Before I could track down the supply officer, I overheard the following conversation at the water cooler. "You can’t believe the old man. He calls us and demands that we cut up beautiful new boards so he can burn them in his fireplace. We go out to his home, measure the fireplace, cut expensive oak to fit it, band the wood, and deliver it so he can burn it! We’re reusing our typewriter ribbons in order to save money, and he’s burning oak." Soon the entire base was abuzz over "The Captain’s Fireplace." To find out how the original request had become so twisted, I talked to each of the people between me and the seaman apprentice who actually delivered the newly cut wood. It turns out that each person in the chain of command had faithfully passed on the request to the person below him, while making slight changes in the wording. This was much like the "telephone" game we played as kids where you whisper something in someone’s ear, that person whispers the same to the next in line (distorting it ever so slightly), and so on until the original expression, "Mrs. Whipple has a pimple," comes out the other end as, "Whip the purple carburetor." In this version of the "telephone" game, the chief warrant officer explained that he had called the chief petty officer and passed on that the "old man" wanted the wood in the dumpster. Note the term had switched from "captain" to "old man," and from what I thought was a tentative request ("If nobody else wants it"), to a mandate. The next person explained that he had told his direct report that the old man wanted new wood for his fireplace. He figured they’d better not use scraps filled with nails and jagged edges and run afoul of the captain. The next fellow thought to avoid getting in trouble they ought to measure the fireplace so it would fit. It wasn’t long until it was new oak that was being measured, cut, banded, and delivered to the captain’s home. Unlike the "telephone" game where the original expression follows a random path, the captain’s request followed a predictable one. The original request was altered to fit the story people were carrying in their heads about the captain—and all other senior leaders who ever abused their authority. Rumors always follow this route. In order for tales to be shared, first they must be plausible. If you suggest that a person everyone respects did something ghastly, typically the first person hearing the rumor stops it, checks the facts, and otherwise refuses to besmirch the good name of someone they like. The rumor never gets off the ground. In the case of The Captain’s Fireplace, if one person had thought, "The captain wouldn’t want us to cut up expensive lumber. Let me go check . . ." the problem would have been averted. For an unflattering story to be told, and then retold and twisted into something as bad as the wanton abuse of government property, the listener must have it in his or her head that the bizarre actions contained in the story are just the kind of thing the person in question would do. And the next person has to believe the same. It gets worse. In this instance, the story that was passed down the chain of command was not about this particular captain, but about everyone’s notion of a typical captain, and as such was infused with the characteristics of every abusive leader who came before him. Captain Newton suffered from a prejudice just as pernicious as if it had been based on his race or creed. He was "one of them" (a senior leader) and we all know how they behave. They abuse their authority, jerk people around, and get what they want. Tainted by this mental set, Captain Newton’s innocent request was eventually twisted into a ridiculous demand for personal gain. Given this proclivity to please the boss, coupled with the willingness to think the worst of others, leaders need to take care to ensure that their rough ideas or mere suggestions aren’t reframed by overzealous subordinates into rigid and foolish orders. Leaders must track their ideas as they flow through the organization. When a pile of scrap wood turns into a bundle of banded oak, take heed. This is not a feel-good story. This is a bad sign. As crazy requests come our way, we all have a responsibility to get to the root of the matter rather than simply pass on the ludicrous demand with a disgusted eye roll. For example, while I was meeting with a grad student a few years back, he took a call from his boss. The student was on educational leave from a company in The Netherlands, taking a masters course 5,000 miles away from his family, and working nearly every waking hour to finish his degree a full semester early. On top of all this, his boss back at headquarters was now asking him to take on a new task that would consume all of his time for the next month. This, of course, would flunk him out of school and cause him, his family, and the organization innumerable problems. The student explained the situation to his boss who responded, "A VP made the request. Do you understand? A VP wants you to do it and he wants you to do it within the next thirty days!" That was it. "Watch this," the student said. He then picked up the phone, called the VP, politely described his predicament, and ended by explaining that he would do whatever was best. The VP immediately backed off the request and explained that perhaps the young man could take up the task after he returned from his educational leave. They’d talk later. "I knew the VP wouldn’t want to cause me such grief," the student explained. So, he stopped, assumed the best of the person in authority, went back to the source, gathered the facts, shared his view, and together they made the right decision. Rather than piling one more story onto the stack of tales about selfish and thoughtless bosses, he now tells the tale of the thoughtful VP who cared about his family enough to put off a job until it better fit the young man’s circumstances. Granted, people do crazy things, make insane demands, and appear to be operating with less than a full deck far more often than we’d like to admit. And, like it or not, leaders aren’t exempt. Nevertheless, there’s no need to make matters worse by twisting ideas to fit our own worst image of others. Instead, we need to confront senseless ideas and absurd requests as they come our way. Start with your strongest tool. Assume others are rational—most people are most of the time. Search for the facts. Refuse to implement misguided ideas or commands until you’ve tracked down the original request and informed people about the potential consequences. In short, eliminate creating your own version of The Captain’s Fireplace. There are far better ways to warm your toes. Related posts: Kerrying On: Dealing with Deference Kerrying On: When Is Coercion an Acceptable Tactic? Kerrying On: A Christmas Gift

First post of 2014 and I’m feeling motivated to keep going with every two weeks a new post #ResolutionNow*. I’ve made that my goal for the past seven or eight months and it’s worked out close to that, 22 posts last year I think. Now for the post I’ve had on the list for several months, even had some ideas down but never completed the post. It’s all about the second screen revolution. Second screens have been around for some time now. I, along with a lot of others I’m sure, find it difficult to do one thing at a time. My work and play consist of constantly switching back and forth between two computer screens, a cell phone, TV, etc. Not many people sit and stare at one screen, there are so many things competing for our attention. At conferences people aren’t simply staring at the speaker, there’s the distraction of the big screens and small screens. It’s difficult to really capture a message of a speaker simply listening attentively, it requires another level of activity to really cement the information for later, we’re just discovering that. The second screen is extremely valuable in doing this, we’re instantly digesting the information, interpreting it, and spitting it out to others. Dealing With Distraction The big question is always "how do you deal with the distraction of the second screen?" You can’t simply ban it, it’s often out of our power to even do so. Even if it were in our power, that would be a big mistake. It’s important to find a way to work with that second screen to get your message across; whether you’re presenting at a conference, performing a webinar, or creating an eLearning course where we have no idea what else the user might be doing. The only way to control the distraction of the second screen is to use it, make it an indispensable part of the experience you’re creating for the user. Assume they are going to have that distraction, and work with it and not against it. Who knows, it could also help keep the user from non-technology distractions. In eLearning, the tradition method of delivery is to pushing a message to the user. By thinking that way, you’ve instantly lost their interest. You can make the experience a combination of push and pull, the pull part is extremely important in capturing the attention of that second screen. Can you think of ways to make the user need to use their second screen to get the message? Please Comply Compliance training is one of those things that everybody loves to hate, but we can’t live without it, they’re important whether we like to admit or not. Compliance is often presented in a push format, even to the point we’re forced (pushed) to take it. If you can capture the users attention from the beginning with a shocking scenario, one that evokes emotion, you’ve probably got them interested in the message, until their phone buzzes. Wouldn’t it be great if the message they just received is part of the story and piques their interest even more? If they’re anything like me, I’d be interested in learning more. Make it Easy I know a bit of a challenge is a good thing, but not when you have no interest in the first place. If you know there might be some participants with little or no interest, you need to fight to make it as easy as possible for them. Start with a call to action, make it important to them, make it interesting. If you can tie in the second screen then you are way ahead, there’s less chance they will become distracted. "Because it’s required" is not a good enough reason for someone do something. Gain their attention, tell them why they should be there (earn their time), give them a call to action, present this with minimal effort, and provide more resources if they wish. Your goal should always be to make it worth the users time, they must come away with something. How does this tie into the second screen? If you can’t tie the second screen into it to capture their attention, you need to at least make it worth their time so that second screen doesn’t become a beckoning distraction. Your Feedback Hopefully your second screen didn’t distract you from reading this, I had some distractions while writing it, though not a screen. Can you come up with some ways to capture your audience’s attention using the second screen? Spend some time to think about what distractions your user might experience while learning. Can you help your users stay motivated and away from these distractions? Let me leave you with this: If you don’t use it (2nd screen) then you lose it (learners attention).   * I’ve been under the assumption for several years that New Year’s resolutions are a horrible thing to make. I recently read an article about what you can do instead, this reaffirmed what I was already doing, making small achievable goals throughout the year. After reading the article, I came up with the hashtag #ResolutionNow which simply means create your resolution constantly throughout the year with a shorter timeframe, I do them in day to week increments, but I’m sure month would work okay also. You might also enjoy: Learning Experience As a User Experience Touchscreen Toddler Stop Trying To Predict Mobile Users Needs

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Al Switzler is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I feel very shy when speaking at a public place, whether in front of family members or colleagues, or in team meetings. Even if I have talking points, I struggle to share my thoughts. This is creating problems in my career as well as in my social life. Can you share some tips for overcoming my fear of public speaking? Overcoming Fear  Dear Overcoming Fear, You are certainly not alone concerning this fear—in fact, it ranks as many people’s number one fear. Perhaps, you’ve heard the joke by Jerry Seinfeld: "I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing—number two was death! That means to the average person if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy." This bit of humor doesn’t downplay the seriousness of people’s fear to speak in public. As I address this issue with some advice, I take confidence in the conclusion we uncovered when researching our book, Change Anything—people can and do change all the time. I’ll also share some of the principles and tactics from that research as well as my own personal experience. Learn some lessons from snakes. We’ve been fortunate to associate with world-renowned psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura for decades. He has done foundational research on behavior change. One of his early studies dealt with people who had a serious snake phobia. So serious in fact that their fears kept them from work, from outings with their friends and family, and even from going out to dinner or seeing a movie. And most lived with this paralyzing condition for many years despite trying various "cures." Dr. Bandura put a small ad in a paper inviting people with this problem to come to the basement of the psychology department at Stanford. What did he do? Or more importantly, what did he not do? He didn’t lecture. He didn’t rely on verbal persuasion. As you probably know, others speaking to you endlessly about the fact that many people feel shy and scared or that those in the audience want you to succeed isn’t motivating enough to get you over your fear. Lectures don’t produce results. Dr. Bandura didn’t lecture, instead he used vicarious experience. Vicarious experience works by allowing people to safely watch others do the behaviors that lead to the desired outcome. He asked the people with a phobia of snakes to watch the therapist handle a snake in order to see what happened. Small step by small step, the subjects saw someone model a safe way to handle a snake in a way that also appeared doable. And, after three hours of this observation, the subjects sat with a boa in their laps. Their fear dissipated because they had a vicarious experience that taught them that they could deal with snakes safely. The advice: don’t rely on your personal thoughts or the verbal persuasion of others. Rely on your own experience. The next tip deals with how you might do that. Create an opportunity for safe, deliberate practice. I’m suggesting a number of doses of vicarious experience for you. Can you set up a situation where you see others practice some of the small steps of speaking in public? You don’t want to start by giving a talk and getting feedback. That’s what you fear. You want to watch others read short segments and have other people tell the speaker what they liked. Then step by step, you can watch, respond, try, try again, increase the length and difficulty of the speech, and repeat until speaking becomes more natural. Such deliberate practice in a supportive and safe environment will give your brain evidence that you need not fear. One option is Toastmasters. Their model: "A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing workshop in which participants hone their speaking and leadership skills in a no-pressure atmosphere." They have a process that can at least get you started. And I’m sure there are other groups and online resources that will allow you to start. Nothing that I can advise is more important than encouraging you to find a way to have safe, deliberate practice. First work on your competence and that will build your confidence. This is true for overcoming fear of snakes, fear of public speaking, and all sorts of other fears. And now a word on shyness generally. Over the years, I’ve chatted in depth with a number of people who are sad, lonely, or disappointed in ways that they attribute ultimately to their shyness. Now I’m not saying that introversion is better or worse than extroversion. I’m talking about a group of people who claim to be shy and claim that their shyness is a cause of their misery. To this group, I also advise small, safe steps in a way that helps with deliberate practice. As I’ve observed and coached some of these folks, I’ve noticed that they have a problem with initiating and reciprocating. When someone smiles at them, they don’t smile back. When someone greets them and asks, "How are you doing?" they say "Fine" and don’t greet and inquire in response. Also they don’t initiate smiles, greetings, or inquiries. This pattern is true in other interpersonal encounters. They don’t invite people to lunch. They don’t invite others at the water cooler to have small talk. And they don’t reciprocate when someone invites them. Because of this lack of reaching out to others, sooner or later, it seems, others quit initiating the smiles, greetings, inquiries, and invitations. The consequence is that the "shy" person feels left out, unhappy, or lonely. In your question, you mention that you are very shy and that it is affecting your personal and professional life. I address this larger issue, because you may want to use the same advice to create for yourself opportunities for safe, deliberate practice. Find several friends with whom you can practice smiling, greeting, making eye contact, shaking hands, small talk, and invitations. Then ask the friends to coach you privately when you are trying your new skills in other settings. Too many people justify the less-than-desired results they have by saying, "That’s just the way I am." I believe that by working carefully and safely to increase our skills and competence, we can change for good. I wish you well,Al Related posts: Overcoming Career-Limiting Habits Overcoming Procrastination Change Anything: Overcoming Addiction-Part Two

We’d like to create an e-book on how to best communicate online. The first step requires getting your input. For example, how often do you turn to social networking sites to handle crucial conversations? Do you primarily witness social media communication masters or disasters? Help us find out by taking this 3-minute survey. Those who complete the survey will receive the e-book once we’re done compiling the data as well as a free MP3 download from our Crucial Conversations Audio Companion. Listen as author Joseph Grenny shares how adding input to the pool of shared meaning increases our capacity to take unified action. Thank you for your help! Related posts: How to Change Social Norms at the Office Facing a Crucial Conversation? How do you hold a crucial conversation via e-mail?

What are some of the things that make you a successful learner? Reflecting on what you learn should be on that list of what makes you successful. One that might not be on your list is working out loud. Working out loud is showing others (whether in your organization or the public) what you’re working on, getting feedback, and not hiding your process, transparency is the goal. One of the easiest ways to work out loud is to share what you’re doing to the community, or in this case, the Twitter community. Conferences are one event where people go to learn new things, to hear what’s been going on in their industry. If you rely on your memory at a conference, you’re more than likely going to capture only 10% or less of what’s actually going on making the conference experience near useless. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not recording and reflecting on your experiences as you go. Share Your Experience, Record Your Learning Here’s how to be more successful at a conference and take home more knowledge from the conference and instantly share it with everyone you know. Tweet your experience. Not only will you document everything you’ve learned for later, you’ll instantly be digesting the information and interpreting it with your own personal spin. For those of you who’ve been sent to the conference by a company, you’ll also be sharing your experience with coworkers so they can instantly benefit from the conference. Coworkers will no longer have to wait until the following week (sometimes longer) for you to synthesize your experience. What they get after that process is such a brief overview, it’s almost useless. In the time since you took notes, interpreted them, and shared back to coworkers, your knowledge has become watered down and muddied, sometimes not even understood by yourself. Double Time If there are two of you attending a conference, cover twice the ground with Twitter and immediately share back to others. Haven’t Used Twitter? There’s never been a better time to learn than a few weeks before the conference. There are plenty of resources out there to learn how to best prepare yourself for Tweeting a conference. One of those resources is from David Kelly who gives some great pointers on getting signed up, figuring it all out, and learning how to best use it for a conference. It was written specifically for #DevLearn but can be used for any conference: How to Participate in the #DevLearn Conference Backchannel. Required Sharing The benefits of using Twitter to document and share your experience are so great, I’ll go as far as saying any employee sent to a conference should be required to live Tweet the event for coworkers. Not only will coworkers benefit, but the world will benefit and the company will gain instant ROI for sending that employee to the conference. The ROI will even span an entire department or company. Doesn’t It Distract You? Some people argue that Tweeting during the conference is distracting. They aren’t benefiting from the speaker because they’re staring at their mobile device. I would agree only in one circumstance; if you are Tweeting between sessions and not fully engaging in the networking conferences provide. Taking notes is not a distraction, it’s important. Tweeting takes note-taking one step further, you immediately interpret and document in your own words the speakers message. Notes often end up looking a bit kooky, difficult to interpret at a later date even by the author. I’ve experienced it, notes I’ve taken are often impossible to interpret at a later date. Tweets immediately go out to others, therefore you make a conscious effort to make them as legible as possible, immediately interpreting the information and making sense out of it for yourself. Don’t Converse If you get into back and forth with others on Twitter during a conference, you’re doing it wrong. This is a big distraction. No matter how tempted you may be, don’t get into back and forth, your attention will get pulled away from the speaker and you will miss important messages. Make sure your attention stays on the speaker, use Twitter to process and write what you interpret from the speaker. It’s always possible to go back later and have those conversations with others, they’ll be waiting for you. Join the Backchannel! Hopefully you’re convinced that joining the backchannel is important not only to you, it’s important to your coworkers and those relying on the backchannel for conference material. Some simple rules you should follow when you do Tweet a conference: Always use the conference or session hashtag (if you switch to a session hashtag, make it known with at least one Tweet using both hashtags). Share with your coworkers your Twitter handle and the hashtags you used. Have fun being a valuable resource to others, people are relying on you. You might also enjoy: Following the Backchannel of #DevLearn Reflecting on the National eXtension Conference (#nexconf) Reflecting On The Year - 2013

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Nelson is a VitalSmarts Master Trainer. READ MORE How do I handle participants who are quiet or who don’t participate? Healthy class participation can be a function of the students, the facilitator, or sometimes both! Since we can’t control the students (no matter how badly we’d love to), the solution starts with you. Examine Your MotivesMaking sure our motives are "right" is one of the first things we should do when dealing with a quiet class. Ask yourself: What is your desired outcome for the participants in the class? Do you want the class to participate for your own self-aggrandizement, to keep the class interesting, or because you believe it enhances learning? Do you want them to think you’re a great facilitator, tell others about the course, or simply enjoy their class experience? Examine Your MethodsHere are a couple of specific mechanics you can use to invite healthier participation: Point & assign: Point to a quieter table/group before asking the question, "I’d like to ask this table what they think about . . ." Break it into small parts: If the class doesn’t seem to talk a lot as a large group, ask them to discuss the answer in their table group or with a neighbor. Often, if they are a quiet class, they are more likely to participate one-on-one rather than in a large group. Work the crowd: Establishing a better relationship with participants during breaks and during group work can drastically change participation. Improving your individual relationship with class members can collective increase safety and change their perspective of you. Related posts: How do I respond to participants’ concerns about participating in training? What are some ways I can further participants’ learning after the training? How can I help participants who are creating their own change plan in Influencer Training create an actual results statement?

ABOUT THE EXPERT Steve Willis is a Master Trainer and Vice President of Professional Services at VitalSmarts. READ MORE My sons hate practice—piano, soccer, math—you name it. If it’s the least bit related to practice, they hate it on principle. They even started hating other words that sound like or rhyme with practice. For example, last year we hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. In preparation for the four-day trek, we decided to do a number of practice hikes. Now, my boys enjoy hiking—until I inserted the word "practice" in front of it. "We know how to hike. Why do we need to practice something we already know?!?!??" After many years, I’ve now come to expect this from teenage boys. Fast forward to a recent executive development session I conducted. The mere mention of practice stirred the group into a frenzy: "We understand the concept—why do we need to practice?!??!" In that moment I caught a glimpse of my whiny boys’ future. And while I expect it from my teenagers, I was surprised to hear this from execs. It was like they forgot that development was the key component in executive development. So why do we practice? To torture teenagers and executives? To experience the higher pitches of their vocal ranges? No. Why, then? Ethna Reid, a master educator from the Exemplary Center for Reading Improvement, provides a definitive answer to this question, "If you want to know if you’re changing behavior you have to see it immediately." Our goal is to change behavior, and for that to happen, practice is required. So here are a few tips to make practice more effective. Allot enough time to practice. So many trainers, when running short on time, skip and/or drastically cut practice time. If you can’t practice it, don’t train it. Practice until they get it correct. Participants who attempt a new skill and fall short should be praised for their effort. And they should also be coached and allowed the chance to do it correctly before moving on. Make it observable. If you can’t observe their practice, you have no idea the degree to which their behavior is changing, if at all. Have participants write it out, say it out loud, or otherwise demonstrate the skill so you can evaluate their progress and give feedback (both positive and negative). This doesn’t mean a person has to stand up and share in front of the whole class—practice is often best done in smaller groups. So when you are working in smaller groups, be careful to float from group to group so you can observe the participant group progress as a whole. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure helps. Related posts: From the Road: Just What the Doctor Ordered From the Road: "Bueller . . . Bueller . . ." From the Road: Do You Know Where Your Participants Are?

Estimated reading time:  less than 4 minutes What have you done lately to simplify someone’s life? Everyone’s life is complex. Everyone’s busy in their own way. If you can simplify it, then you’re providing a good return on investment. What Learning & Development is all about is simplifying the lives of others by giving them better tools to deal with the world. We call that tool we improve knowledge. Whether we deliver that knowledge through formal or informal paths is irrelevant, as long as the end result is a better equipped person. I’ve been thinking about how to simplify someone’s life, one solution I come back to often is mobile performance support. Help when the user needs it, without requiring them to go out of their way to receive it. Even extra time entering a username and password can be enough of a barrier and non-simplification to make somebody second guess using a resource. I’ve been there. I’ve seen a login screen and immediately stopped going that route, writing it off as a failure, too much hassle. What’s the least resistance you’ve seen in performance support? There are a lot of different types of mobile performance support out there. From mobile friendly job aids to Googling something on a mobile, it’s all mobile performance support. Have you ever opened a new app you just downloaded and it presented you with one of those annoying transparent overlays telling you what to do? I only say annoying because I enjoy fumbling my way through an app so I immediately close them. For most though, those overlays may be what they were looking for to help them use the app. The best example of immediate and barrier free mobile performance support. Transparent overlays is an example of the best executed performance support on a mobile device I’ve seen. Not all are bullet-proof though. I’ve seen them executed poorly, a solution thought of at the last moment, thrown into an app and not thought through. These sorts of performance support solutions I believe are just the types of things Learning & Development should be looking at in the mobile era. Quick bites of information at the users fingertips without requiring a second thought or tap. What Should We Do? Here are some of the things I think we can do to achieve better performance support on mobile devices: Minimize Resistance - Make it easy, without thought. The user shouldn’t have to try for mobile performance support, it needs to be right there at a tap. If a user has to pinch and zoom then they’re forced to work harder than they need to, this immediately takes away from the support aspect of what you’re trying to do. If you’ve ever heard the term cognitive load theory, you’re overburdening a users cognitive abilities if they have to think too hard about how to find support. If you haven’t heard of cognitive load theory, my friend Matthew Guyan wrote a quick overview of it here, you should start there. Remove Categories - Categories just don’t belong in mobile performance support. For one they introduce a whole branch of taps and confusion that could end up taking 5+ taps and too many minutes. You should be able to access mobile performance support by one simple, prominent, easy to tap search box that is effective and accurate. Search drives the world today, if you want to find something to learn almost everybody’s beginning point is Google. Take a look at their home page, it’s one huge prominent search box. Simplify Life - Where I started this post, simplify. In everything you do make sure it simplifies someone’s life. Take that question and ask it every time you make even the smallest decision. Is this simplifying someone’s life? If it’s not, then you need to reroute your project until you can answer yes to that question. Don’t make the user work, they already have enough of that in their life. Don’t add to it, make their life easier with performance support that’s where they need it, without them thinking about it. Simplified Hopefully I made the simplification of simple things even simpler for you to put in place. In the end this is what it’s all about. Make the simple things in life just that, simple, so people can put their thought and energy into more important things that benefit everybody. Mobile is based off of simplicity and having things available at the tip of your finger. Learning & Development should be in a constant battle with IT and other departments to stop with the features and work on making the current features "tip of the finger simple." You might also enjoy: Stop Trying To Predict Mobile Users Needs Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise