Brian Washburn breaks down how to decide which training delivery methods to use depending on your budget, learner population, and training objectives.
Transcript
Welcome! You made it to the Secret Society of
Tom Moriarty:Success! In this not-so-secret podcast, we interview L&D
Tom Moriarty:changemakers about how they approach the evolving corporate
Tom Moriarty:environment and cultivate their own careers. We hope that from
Tom Moriarty:their stories, you find lessons and inspirations to make
Tom Moriarty:yourself, your people and your organization's more successful.
Tom Moriarty:In this first season, we're exploring the topic of hybrid
learning:what that means at different organizations, why it
learning:is increasingly important, and how L&D leaders can invest in
learning:the right resources to best leverage it. Today, we're going
learning:to talk about how to decide what the right mix of hybrid learning
learning:is for your strategy. To do this, we've invited Brian
learning:Washburn to talk this through. Brian is a co founder of
learning:Endurance Learning, author of What's Your Formula?, and host
learning:of the podcast Train Like You Listen. Welcome, Brian. Thanks
learning:for joining us.
Brian Washburn:Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be
Brian Washburn:here.
Tom Moriarty:Brian, you know, we shared a little bit about
Tom Moriarty:your background in the intro. But why don't you share a little
Tom Moriarty:bit about your background and L&D and the philosophy behind
Tom Moriarty:Endurance Learning?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, so I think my start in the world of
Brian Washburn:training might even be traced back to my freshman year at the
Brian Washburn:end of my freshman year of college at the George Washington
Brian Washburn:University, when I tried out to be the mascot at the school. And
Brian Washburn:that was an opportunity for me to really tap into my creative
Brian Washburn:side and figure out, you know, kind of the sky was the limit to
Brian Washburn:engage people. And so if you fast forward a little bit more,
Brian Washburn:I actually began doing training of people about 25 years ago as
Brian Washburn:a Peace Corps volunteer. And in the time since I've mostly
Brian Washburn:worked in the nonprofit space, I started as a GED instructor at a
Brian Washburn:youth center in Washington, DC, I've led training teams at
Brian Washburn:organizations that focus on foster care, or eye banking. And
Brian Washburn:then the idea for Endurance Learning came along at some
Brian Washburn:point. And our vision is really that every learning experience
Brian Washburn:can be engaging and lead to change. And so you combine the
Brian Washburn:mascot in with work in Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer and
Brian Washburn:work in nonprofits that oftentimes have to run on a
Brian Washburn:shoestring budget, and kind of combine all of that. And that's
Brian Washburn:really where the philosophy of Endurance Learning came along.
Brian Washburn:But beyond all of that experience, I had the
Brian Washburn:opportunity to write a book that was released last year, and you
Brian Washburn:mentioned it called What's Your formula?: Combined Learning
Brian Washburn:Elements for Impactful Training. And that really revolves around
Brian Washburn:a Periodic Table of Elements of Effective and Engaging training.
Brian Washburn:And so when we think of all the different ways that people can
Brian Washburn:learn, I love that we're talking here about a hybrid approach,
Brian Washburn:because at the end of the day, while the book is called, What's
Brian Washburn:your formula? And while we're talking here about some
Brian Washburn:different contexts, for the hybrid may work, the fact of the
Brian Washburn:matter is that there's no one right answer to a formula. The
Brian Washburn:key is to find the right formula that works for each
Brian Washburn:organization, or each team with which we're working.
Tom Moriarty:Yeah. That's great. I appreciate you sharing
Tom Moriarty:the background. And I love that concept. I think that's when
Tom Moriarty:we're going to spend a lot of time during this conversation
Tom Moriarty:unpacking, which is, you know, not that there's not there's
Tom Moriarty:never one right answer, it's the right answer for you. And how do
Tom Moriarty:you help figure out what that is? Right? What are the steps to
Tom Moriarty:take to actually decide what that right answer is, in the
Tom Moriarty:context of your organization, to level set the conversation,
Tom Moriarty:Brian, I'd love it, if you could, from your perspective,
Tom Moriarty:define for us. What does hybrid learning mean to you?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, I love the fact that we're going to set the
Brian Washburn:level here as we get started, because there are so many terms
Brian Washburn:that we toss out that people just assume we're talking about
Brian Washburn:the same thing, because we're using the same word. And it's
Brian Washburn:not necessarily the case. Like I drive a hybrid vehicle. Now, I
Brian Washburn:have driven gas powered vehicles, I had a Nissan LEAF
Brian Washburn:for a while, and it was all electric. And now my Honda CRV
Brian Washburn:is hybrid. So it mixes gas and battery. And that's two things.
Brian Washburn:And so a lot of times when people think hybrid, they think
Brian Washburn:two things. And when I use that term, I think hybrid can have
Brian Washburn:all sorts of things, right? It's but basically, the key there is
Brian Washburn:that there's some sort of mix, but it doesn't have to be just
Brian Washburn:two things. Post pandemic, I've heard a lot of people use the
Brian Washburn:term hybrid to describe a mix of virtual - which is what we all
Brian Washburn:had to do during the lockdown - and in-person, you know, we're
Brian Washburn:returning to in person, but I would broaden that definition a
Brian Washburn:bit simply to mean you know, when I'm thinking of hybrid or
Brian Washburn:when I'm using that term here, it's a mix of more than one
Brian Washburn:learning In delivery methods, so it could include in person, it
Brian Washburn:could include virtual, both of those are live instructor led,
Brian Washburn:it could include elearning, which is oftentimes self guided,
Brian Washburn:it could be self directed learning paths, informal
Brian Washburn:learning, as part of an overall learning strategy. So a lot of
Brian Washburn:those things, I think can be blended into some sort of hybrid
Brian Washburn:approach.
Tom Moriarty:if you will, is really what hybrid is. So I
Tom Moriarty:think where we really want to focus this discussion is, what's
Tom Moriarty:the right mix for me?
Brian Washburn:Yep.
Tom Moriarty:You hit on it perfectly earlier, Brian, when
Tom Moriarty:you said, you know, there's not one right answer. And I love
Tom Moriarty:that philosophy. It's a philosophy I've applied and in
Tom Moriarty:my profession with my teams and a sales organization, because I
Tom Moriarty:completely agree with you. So let's actually unpack the
Tom Moriarty:specifics like what are the variables that might influence
Tom Moriarty:how you determine what the right formula of hybrid would be in
Tom Moriarty:the context of your organization? So I've got a
Tom Moriarty:bunch of terms here that you and I prepped before, let's just
Tom Moriarty:start going down each of those and say, Okay, well, how do you
Tom Moriarty:make the decision based on factor A, or factor B, or factor
Tom Moriarty:C? And hopefully, give the audience a lot of fun stuff to
Tom Moriarty:take away? Sound? Good?
Brian Washburn:That sounds great. I love it. Awesome.
Tom Moriarty:So let's start with budget. That's always a big
Tom Moriarty:question, right? Well, how do you use budget as a factor to
Tom Moriarty:consider what the right delivery method is?
Brian Washburn:Yeah. So and I think this is a really good one
Brian Washburn:to start with, because oftentimes, it's the first thing
Brian Washburn:that is put in front of us, right. And so when budgets a
Brian Washburn:consideration, a lot of times it can be cost prohibitive to allow
Brian Washburn:people to travel, which oftentimes is a big
Brian Washburn:consideration, especially with dispersed teams. And so this,
Brian Washburn:this, this could be a situation in which you turn to virtual
Brian Washburn:training. So perhaps one element to that hybrid approach could be
Brian Washburn:making sure that things are virtual, so that no matter where
Brian Washburn:you are in the world, you can take advantage of the technology
Brian Washburn:and still have something that's facilitated and advantage to a
Brian Washburn:facilitated experience, whether you're in person or virtual. But
Brian Washburn:when we're talking about budget, you know, sometimes we have to
Brian Washburn:go virtual, a big advantage of that is that you can have live
Brian Washburn:discussions. And you can have activities with real time
Brian Washburn:feedback. And the reason I mentioned this is because I was
Brian Washburn:working on a project just last week, and I was reviewing an
Brian Washburn:elearning, a self directed elearning project with a
Brian Washburn:customer and the subject matter experts, when we're going over
Brian Washburn:an assessment question. One of them said, you know, I'd choose
Brian Washburn:choice A, and the other one said, Actually, I'd choose
Brian Washburn:choice B. And so we realized, wow, that would be a great
Brian Washburn:question, for facilitated situation. But because we were
Brian Washburn:creating elearning, we had to be much more specific and much more
Brian Washburn:kind of dogmatic in terms of what we allowed people to
Brian Washburn:answer, how we allowed people to answer. So I think that even
Brian Washburn:when budget is a concern, I love having some sort of live element
Brian Washburn:as an opportunity to learn, because you can have that
Brian Washburn:facilitated discussion, you can throw things out where there is
Brian Washburn:gray area, and you're able to kind of engage with that gray
Brian Washburn:area. Some disadvantages to virtual training include the
Brian Washburn:fact that presenters or participants who aren't
Brian Washburn:comfortable with the technology, and believe it or not, two plus
Brian Washburn:years after we all started to go to zoom or teams or whatever.
Brian Washburn:There are still some people, both presenters and participants
Brian Washburn:who aren't comfortable with that technology of going into
Brian Washburn:breakout rooms, some people will still leave a session, when you
Brian Washburn:put breakout rooms up. Or some some presenters don't love
Brian Washburn:having to or maybe can't... don't have the cognitive
Brian Washburn:bandwidth to be facilitating a session and if they don't have a
Brian Washburn:producer to use some of the the tools that really make virtual,
Brian Washburn:a much more engaging experience. Another issue that comes with
Brian Washburn:any sort of virtual experience, especially with dispersed teams,
Brian Washburn:again, is timezone differences and allowing for timezone
Brian Washburn:differences and having to repeat the same session multiple times.
Brian Washburn:Another one that you always need to be mindful of, especially
Brian Washburn:with virtual, is the propensity of people to want to multitask.
Brian Washburn:So there's tons of advantages to virtual but then there are some
Brian Washburn:things you need to be kind of aware of too. Another piece that
Brian Washburn:goes into considering for budget would be self directed
Brian Washburn:elearning. I think that that can be a really, really important
Brian Washburn:piece. Again, if we're talking about dispersed teams and budget
Brian Washburn:impacting any sort of travel possibilities, self directed
Brian Washburn:elearning it can be pricey sometimes depending on what you
Brian Washburn:want to do. But it's also scalable, right. And so when you
Brian Washburn:think of the cost of per per learner, or the cost over a
Brian Washburn:series of time, you can start to really make the case for that
Brian Washburn:every learner will get a consistent experience. So it
Brian Washburn:doesn't depend on the facilitator, it can be used as
Brian Washburn:follow up to a facilitated session, if you're if you are
Brian Washburn:doing using a hybrid mix, or it can be used as as a prerequisite
Brian Washburn:to a facilitated session so that people get some content. And
Brian Washburn:then when they come, virtually, you can, or even in person, you
Brian Washburn:can actually have people, you can make them smaller sessions,
Brian Washburn:and people can can engage a little bit more like a flipped
Brian Washburn:classroom type of approach. If you know you're going to have a
Brian Washburn:facilitated session after an elearning course, then the
Brian Washburn:elearning course doesn't need branching scenarios, which can
Brian Washburn:sometimes be more expensive to develop. And so when you start
Brian Washburn:to mix some some different delivery strategies, you can
Brian Washburn:take the best of both worlds, without needing to go all in
Brian Washburn:with your budget on one or the other. Of course, all of this
Brian Washburn:assumes that formal training would be a solution in the first
Brian Washburn:place. And even if it is informal learning pieces can
Brian Washburn:also help with budgets and issues. So that could include
Brian Washburn:things just as simple as job aids, right? So if if, if budget
Brian Washburn:is a consideration, you know, is training even the answer? Or,
Brian Washburn:you know, can you use job aids or mixed job aids in with some
Brian Washburn:of the other things that you're doing, that can be posted on the
Brian Washburn:Internet, or YouTube or podcasts or Google, book clubs, you know,
Brian Washburn:mentoring, all of those things can can really be part of a mix
Brian Washburn:when budget, especially as a concern.
Tom Moriarty:I love that I love some of those takeaways,
Tom Moriarty:specifically as it relates to that concept of, you know, when
Tom Moriarty:do I need to use live? I wrote that down as we're talking and I
Tom Moriarty:think the idea of do you need to engage in gray area? Right?
Tom Moriarty:That's kind of a simple, yes, no question you can work with, you
Tom Moriarty:know, the stakeholders that you have, or the audience you're
Tom Moriarty:delivering training for, to achieve some sort of business
Tom Moriarty:outcome and say, Okay, well, is there is there nuance to this?
Tom Moriarty:Is there a gray area? If yes, we're probably going to need to
Tom Moriarty:factor some sort of live component to this budget,
Tom Moriarty:because it'd be really complicated for us to do
Tom Moriarty:effective training. Without that live interaction, I think that's
Tom Moriarty:a really interesting and straightforward way to just
Tom Moriarty:decide, hey, is this a tool that I need for this scenario?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, yep. And, and when you think of, you know,
Brian Washburn:anything that is going to be done via kind of elearning, it's
Brian Washburn:documented, it's in writing, it's there. And sometimes it
Brian Washburn:makes people really uncomfortable, right? So and,
Brian Washburn:and honestly, when it comes to some policies, when you think of
Brian Washburn:HR policies, or there's all there, there is gray area, but
Brian Washburn:you don't necessarily want to have that in writing. And so
Brian Washburn:that's another opportunity to think about, you know, what role
Brian Washburn:does live instructor led have? Where, as you know, it may not
Brian Washburn:be as appropriate to do it in some sort of job aid, or
Brian Washburn:eLearning module or things like that. Right?
Tom Moriarty:That could be a good segue, let's talk about how
Tom Moriarty:the audience impacts these decisions, specifically, who the
Tom Moriarty:audience is. So you know, the people within the organization
Tom Moriarty:who you're delivering training for, how might that impact your
Tom Moriarty:decisions? In terms of the delivery methods you choose?
Brian Washburn:I think that's a great question. And so the
Brian Washburn:audience is really important piece of that analysis, you
Brian Washburn:know, who are we delivering this to? If it is executive level or
Brian Washburn:senior level folks, they don't always have time to sit through
Brian Washburn:a class, or sit through a 30 minute eLearning module, nor
Brian Washburn:will they have the attention span. And so if you're thinking
Brian Washburn:executive level, you need to really think through what's what
Brian Washburn:do they what is absolutely crucial, and how do we deliver
Brian Washburn:that? That could simply be a one pager that talks about some
Brian Washburn:differences. It could be, you know, some sort of micro
Brian Washburn:learning that you want to put in there. You know, if it's
Brian Washburn:something that the entire organization needs to go through
Brian Washburn:for compliance reasons or things like that, again, you want to
Brian Washburn:kind of figure out what's that going to be that sweet spot. And
Brian Washburn:we haven't even talked about micro learning very much here.
Brian Washburn:It wasn't even something that I put into my notes, but it is
Brian Washburn:something that we'll want to keep in mind when when
Brian Washburn:considering an audience that may be super, super busy. Now, if
Brian Washburn:we're thinking of rule specific training, or even training that
Brian Washburn:everybody needs to take, but different people in different
Brian Washburn:roles or with different responsibilities throughout the
Brian Washburn:organization. You know, I love the idea of having elearning as
Brian Washburn:a piece to that, because with elearning, you can design it to
Brian Washburn:ask what somebody's role is from a drop down menu. And then you
Brian Washburn:can skip over certain points if it's not relevant for them, you
Brian Washburn:know, the relevance is an important important piece to any
Brian Washburn:sort of learning strategy. And so finding ways for people to
Brian Washburn:either to test out, or to skip over certain information that's
Brian Washburn:not relevant to their role, I think is pretty important. When
Brian Washburn:you have differentiated self directed learning, you know, and
Brian Washburn:I'm just reading the book Map It by Cathy Moore, and she gives
Brian Washburn:this great example of, you know, kind of a compliance training
Brian Washburn:that somebody at a hospital wanted, right, they wanted to do
Brian Washburn:a training about how to dispose of sharps. Now, the person
Brian Washburn:handling a scalpel to a surgeon might need certain information,
Brian Washburn:the nurse who administers injections might need certain
Brian Washburn:information, accountants or janitorial staff, might, a lot
Brian Washburn:of it might not be relevant to them, right. So but if everybody
Brian Washburn:needs to know, at least where to find the job aids, or where the
Brian Washburn:other things are, where things are posted, where the sharps
Brian Washburn:disposal is, then, you know, expose them to that information,
Brian Washburn:but you don't have to expose them to everything. So role,
Brian Washburn:role based learning, I think, is something to really consider.
Brian Washburn:And there are some different ways to do it, you know, self
Brian Washburn:directed elearning, as I mentioned, but you know, simply
Brian Washburn:leaving things to a quick job aid or micro learning, and can
Brian Washburn:also be really helpful in that in that regard.
Tom Moriarty:That's great. I like that. I think those are
Tom Moriarty:very, two very specific and actionable takeaways, right? If
Tom Moriarty:you if you are getting really narrow focus, or if there's
Tom Moriarty:something that's broad, but has narrow nuance, depending on the
Tom Moriarty:roles in the organization, I think thinking about, you know,
Tom Moriarty:job specific elearning is a really valuable, specific way to
Tom Moriarty:think about that. So I think that's, you know, obviously that
Tom Moriarty:reminder, with the, with the executive audience of be
Tom Moriarty:thoughtful of their time. What they need, and probably nothing
Tom Moriarty:else, right, is definitely a good one. And it's a good one,
Tom Moriarty:to probably have you in the audience takeaway. A good way to
Tom Moriarty:keep them in your corner as well. What related to audience
Tom Moriarty:not the not the who, but maybe how big? Yeah, does that
Tom Moriarty:influence what you're going to decide to do?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, one of the trickiest things, that the
Brian Washburn:biggest challenges that I'm ever faced with is when people say,
Brian Washburn:you know, we need to develop a one-to-one training, which is
Brian Washburn:like, well, I'm wired to do classroom, and classroom doesn't
Brian Washburn:work with one-on-one. And so what do you do when you need to
Brian Washburn:just kind of train individuals because of hiring cycles,
Brian Washburn:because it's a small organization, because they're
Brian Washburn:specialized roles, you know, one to one, it doesn't make sense to
Brian Washburn:do a ton of formal classroom training or even, you know,
Brian Washburn:virtual training, but some hybrid strategies that could
Brian Washburn:work with one to one include, you know, I've talked about
Brian Washburn:micro learning, self directed learning, job shadowing,
Brian Washburn:independent study, and journaling, regular mentoring,
Brian Washburn:have some sort of learning path, that people that individuals are
Brian Washburn:able to go through, maybe it's checklist with their supervisor,
Brian Washburn:things like that, you know, sometimes you have a lot of
Brian Washburn:people. So going from one extreme to the other, from
Brian Washburn:individual training, to training a ton of people. And if they're
Brian Washburn:all in the same place, you know, classroom training can be a
Brian Washburn:really important element. Again, it's an opportunity for
Brian Washburn:elearning to be either something that's pre work or to introduce
Brian Washburn:the topic or post training, follow up. If they're dispersed,
Brian Washburn:you may want to combine things like virtual sessions, or self
Brian Washburn:paced elearning, maybe even break people up into cohorts
Brian Washburn:where there can be some social learning as well, people have an
Brian Washburn:opportunity to make relationships a little bit
Brian Washburn:better when the groups are smaller. And then, you know,
Brian Washburn:even a multi week online course, something that you might find
Brian Washburn:similar to the way that universities run these days, or
Brian Washburn:things like that. So it could be a facilitated online course as
Brian Washburn:well. So you can have a couple of different extremes. I think
Brian Washburn:that a lot of people kind of find a natural sweet spot in
Brian Washburn:training people, groups, as small as six to is, you know,
Brian Washburn:30-40 people. But when you have one on one, that's a different
Brian Washburn:set of kind of learning activities or learning
Brian Washburn:strategies might want to take. And when you have a really large
Brian Washburn:group, that might be something different as well.
Tom Moriarty:Yeah, that's great. Brian, I love the fact
Tom Moriarty:that you focused on the outliers, I think, because like
Tom Moriarty:you said, I think the audience is familiar with the deck group
Tom Moriarty:size of six to 30. Right? That's, that's the sweet spot
Tom Moriarty:that everyone's familiar with. But the takeaway is of job
Tom Moriarty:shadowing, mentoring and micro learning for one on one group is
Tom Moriarty:great, I might borrow some of those. We're in the process of
Tom Moriarty:hiring a class of one right now on one of my teams because of
Tom Moriarty:the way it works sometimes. And then also the big audience. I
Tom Moriarty:love that idea of the cohorting to drive you know, kind of more
Tom Moriarty:of a social learning, right? Like if you're even if you have
Tom Moriarty:a course over multiple weeks. You know, the idea of putting
Tom Moriarty:cohorts together that might be cross functions that could just
Tom Moriarty:have a social element to that learning experience where they
Tom Moriarty:can share and learn from one another. I love that. That's a
Tom Moriarty:really awesome takeaway.
Brian Washburn:Yeah. And just to go back really quick to the
Brian Washburn:one on one. One of the most powerful tools I think with with
Brian Washburn:small groups, or one on one is a checklist, right? So that person
Brian Washburn:knows what to expect, what the order should be, you know, where
Brian Washburn:some certain resources are, their supervisor can kind of who
Brian Washburn:may have 50 other things happening, but is responsible
Brian Washburn:for their development as well can kind of see where their
Brian Washburn:progress is. And so that is another piece to just keeping it
Brian Washburn:organized. But also, I think that's part of the strategy.
Tom Moriarty:Yeah, that's great, simple tools, right? It
Tom Moriarty:doesn't have to be doesn't have to be complicated, just use the
Tom Moriarty:right tool for the right job. I think which is really kind of
Tom Moriarty:the whole the whole major takeaway from this discussion.
Tom Moriarty:So you mentioned it earlier, you know, in spite of the fact that
Tom Moriarty:we've all been living on Zoom for the better part of the last
Tom Moriarty:48 months or so, your digital literacy is still a thing in
Tom Moriarty:many organizations, right? Or we all get the dreaded system
Tom Moriarty:reboot, or software update that comes on a Friday, right before
Tom Moriarty:a training session. And then then all bets are really
Tom Moriarty:awesome. How does that factor come into consideration as
Tom Moriarty:you're trying to plan for the right delivery method?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, so honestly, ideally, when you're
Brian Washburn:addressing some sort of digital literacy issue, in-person
Brian Washburn:instruction can can be helpful, right? I, I rarely have issues
Brian Washburn:with with people with digital literacy, when I'm doing an in
Brian Washburn:person, instructor led training. Now, sometimes that's not
Brian Washburn:possible. And so other pieces that are really, really
Brian Washburn:important whether people are ...anytime that technology is
Brian Washburn:part of that hybrid approach, things like job aids that just
Brian Washburn:help people log in or trying to take advantage of technologies
Brian Washburn:that people are familiar with, right? So email, you can send a
Brian Washburn:diagram of how to log in and how to kind of proceed through a
Brian Washburn:certain thing, or if you're going to send somebody you know,
Brian Washburn:a podcast that they should be listening to, you know, kind of
Brian Washburn:give them a visual aid in terms of step by step instructions. Or
Brian Washburn:if they have to download something to your computer,
Brian Washburn:giving people visual aids in terms of step by step
Brian Washburn:instructions, in order to access it, I think is going to be
Brian Washburn:really important. Sometimes is not just digital literacy, I've
Brian Washburn:worked with some groups where literacy itself is an issue,
Brian Washburn:especially when we when we do some work in the developing
Brian Washburn:world. And we need to really rely on job aids. They have very
Brian Washburn:little text. We have to really kind of also, again, not lose
Brian Washburn:sight of the power of things like mentoring, or just
Brian Washburn:relationships in those areas. When it goes beyond digital
Brian Washburn:literacy, and while we're talking about different
Brian Washburn:settings, whether it's rural areas here, or even my my home
Brian Washburn:office, right, so sometimes home offices, even if you're in the
Brian Washburn:most advanced parts of the world, Seattle, home of Amazon
Brian Washburn:and Microsoft. And yet, I still struggle with bandwidth issues.
Brian Washburn:And so sometimes bandwidth is another challenge where we need
Brian Washburn:to come up with one or more ways of delivering, learning. And so
Brian Washburn:when it comes to low bandwidth areas, for internet, sometimes
Brian Washburn:you can, you know, have people rely on on their smartphones and
Brian Washburn:using data, you can still run a Zoom meeting or deliver
Brian Washburn:elearning to a mobile device. And then when you start talking
Brian Washburn:about mobile devices, you're going to need to take into
Brian Washburn:account how are we designing that training? Are people going
Brian Washburn:to be taking this on their laptops or on their phone or on
Brian Washburn:a tablet, than if they're taking it on tablet? Should we say you
Brian Washburn:know, click on because you're not clicking on anything. When
Brian Washburn:you have your phone, right, you're tapping. And so the words
Brian Washburn:that we use in instructions suddenly become important, the
Brian Washburn:types of activities that we put into any sort of digital
Brian Washburn:training, if it's going to be elearning, you know, do drag and
Brian Washburn:drop activities work as well on a phone. Do slider activities
Brian Washburn:work as well in a phone. And so you do need to also take some of
Brian Washburn:the design considerations into account when you're designing
Brian Washburn:for low bandwidth or, you know, people who struggle with digital
Brian Washburn:literacy.
Tom Moriarty:Yeah, I would imagine that that could also
Tom Moriarty:impact, you know, tool selection as well, right? If you have
Tom Moriarty:tools that you need, you know, you know, you're going to need
Tom Moriarty:to deliver whether it is microlearning, a virtual
Tom Moriarty:instructor led session, right? There are tools out there, some
Tom Moriarty:of which give you the ability for some offline connectivity
Tom Moriarty:now, it'll always require a download at some point, so
Tom Moriarty:you'll have to have bandwidth at some point. But you know,
Tom Moriarty:considering your audience and their bandwidth and their
Tom Moriarty:connectivity. You know, that's another factor I would imagine
Tom Moriarty:the audience should probably be considering when they're trying
Tom Moriarty:to put together the right formula for their, their
Tom Moriarty:business.
Brian Washburn:Yep.
Tom Moriarty:How does...How does the objective of the
Tom Moriarty:course... at the end of the day, this is the most important
Tom Moriarty:question, right? You're designing, learning to achieve
Tom Moriarty:something to achieve some outcomes a behavior change? How
Tom Moriarty:does the scope of that objective influence the way that you might
Tom Moriarty:pick your right delivery pieces or your formula?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, I think this is a really, really
Brian Washburn:important question. So you know, a lot of times you you need to
Brian Washburn:define your learning objectives before you figure out, you know,
Brian Washburn:how am I going to deliver this? Right? So? So you're thinking,
Brian Washburn:Okay, what is it that people need to be able to do? And then
Brian Washburn:you're thinking, who's my audience? And how can they best
Brian Washburn:digest this? But I do think there's something to a hierarchy
Brian Washburn:of learning objectives. And I know that there is there's a
Brian Washburn:number of conversations, if you take a look at LinkedIn or
Brian Washburn:Twitter, in the really super nerdy l&d space, people get
Brian Washburn:really upset about Bloom's Taxonomy and some of the things
Brian Washburn:but when you think of what somebody needs to be able to do,
Brian Washburn:when that's the learning objectives, right, so what is it
Brian Washburn:somebody needs to be able to do newer, differently, or better as
Brian Washburn:a result of this training session, sometimes it's
Brian Washburn:awareness. And sometimes, you know, when I worked for an eye
Brian Washburn:bank, so cornea transplants, we would train nurses on the
Brian Washburn:procedures or the steps they would need to do in order to
Brian Washburn:make sure that the corneas were preserved until somebody could,
Brian Washburn:could arrive and recover the corneas. And so for that
Brian Washburn:training, the nurses basically needed to list three steps, and
Brian Washburn:we had an acronym for it. So we do a training and say, you know,
Brian Washburn:expose people, these are the three steps, we would also leave
Brian Washburn:behind a job aid, you know, a little wallet size card that
Brian Washburn:people could take with them that said, these are the three steps
Brian Washburn:and that was it, right? So that's, they need to be aware of
Brian Washburn:the steps. And then if they needed to actually do the steps,
Brian Washburn:they had a job aid to take care of it. However, if the learning
Brian Washburn:objective goes beyond that, and somebody actually needs to be
Brian Washburn:able to perform something, right, they need to be able to
Brian Washburn:coach, they need to be able to coach their employees, or they
Brian Washburn:need to be able to engage people in sales conversations. It's one
Brian Washburn:thing to expose people to that through an elearning or through
Brian Washburn:an instructor led class. But it's another thing to follow
Brian Washburn:that up, make sure that that behavior is changed, and how do
Brian Washburn:we do that? So having things like checklists for supervisors
Brian Washburn:to observe afterwards, or, you know, a follow up email to
Brian Washburn:people that says, hey, you know, just reminding you that we went
Brian Washburn:through this course. And these are three steps to the sales or
Brian Washburn:whatever it might be, to figure out what's the best way to
Brian Washburn:follow up, follow this up a week, a month down the road,
Brian Washburn:because people do forget what it is that they learned, when they
Brian Washburn:end that, that learning experience. And until people can
Brian Washburn:practice it enough, until people get feedback until people you
Brian Washburn:know, kind of do it enough to change that behavior, then that
Brian Washburn:learning objective isn't accomplished. And so when we
Brian Washburn:think of learning objectives, and truly what the ultimate
Brian Washburn:success of a session or training initiative might be, then I do
Brian Washburn:think that we need to figure out, you know, at what level do
Brian Washburn:people need to master this. And if they need to really have a
Brian Washburn:deep mastery of A and B and change their behavior, there
Brian Washburn:needs to be more elements to that learning experience. If
Brian Washburn:it's simply awareness, and then knowing where to find
Brian Washburn:information. You know, maybe, maybe you don't need to blend
Brian Washburn:it, maybe you don't need the hybrid approach. Maybe one thing
Brian Washburn:is enough.
Tom Moriarty:I think that's great. I think that's a very
Tom Moriarty:specific, actionable takeaway. And I love the idea of, you
Tom Moriarty:know, I think everyone, like you said, you know, depending on
Tom Moriarty:where you spend your time on LinkedIn or not, you know, there
Tom Moriarty:might be different opinions on things. But I, you know, for me
Tom Moriarty:for being a leader of an organization who, who genuinely
Tom Moriarty:wants to develop everybody in my team all the time, and just get
Tom Moriarty:them from where they are to 5% better. Like, that's a very
Tom Moriarty:simple framework, right? Like, is it an awareness to a skill to
Tom Moriarty:an activity? Or is it actually performing the function if those
Tom Moriarty:things, you know, depending on what that is, you know, maybe
Tom Moriarty:you need to change the delivery method to make sure that you're
Tom Moriarty:meeting that it's, I'll share a story I use something similar. I
Tom Moriarty:had an old boss, who was a fantastic sales leader and sales
Tom Moriarty:professional, but he always talked about this, a specific
Tom Moriarty:competency model where you would move from unconsciously
Tom Moriarty:incompetent to consciously incompetent to consciously
Tom Moriarty:competent, to unconsciously competent, and I use that all
Tom Moriarty:the time. Honestly, it's like one of the best little acronyms
Tom Moriarty:or models and my leaders and I talk about out are people and
Tom Moriarty:where they are uncertain skills in that context, because in
Tom Moriarty:practical terms, what you need to do to move somebody from
Tom Moriarty:unconsciously incompetent, meaning I don't even know that I
Tom Moriarty:don't know, to the next step is completely different than what I
Tom Moriarty:need to do to take somebody from consciously competent to
Tom Moriarty:unconsciously competent, where they can just do it in their
Tom Moriarty:sleep without thinking. And those are completely different
Tom Moriarty:parts of a skill development and learning journey, at least in
Tom Moriarty:the context of, you know, a salesperson or revenue owner.
Tom Moriarty:And I think that you're, you're a little hierarchy there, you
Tom Moriarty:know, that resonates a lot with me. I agree. That's a great
Tom Moriarty:takeaway.
Brian Washburn:Yeah, it's been a while since I've thought of
Brian Washburn:that model. And and I was exposed to that model when I was
Brian Washburn:going to grad school and organizational development and
Brian Washburn:the idea of moving from unconscious incompetence to
Brian Washburn:unconscious competence. You know, it's a journey. And do you
Brian Washburn:need to be unconsciously competent about everything? And
Brian Washburn:sometimes the answer is, yes, like pilots, yes. I want them to
Brian Washburn:be unconsciously competent, about everything. But you know,
Brian Washburn:is, you know, for a salesperson or for, you know, an
Brian Washburn:administrative assistant or for a department head, you know,
Brian Washburn:what is it that they need to be able to do day to day without
Brian Washburn:thinking? And what is it that you need to be aware of and know
Brian Washburn:where to find, you know, some some resources when they when
Brian Washburn:they when a situation comes up?
Tom Moriarty:Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think
Tom Moriarty:there's some really, really great takeaways there. There.
Tom Moriarty:Brian, there's some that I wrote down, I put like a bunch of red
Tom Moriarty:stars against and I wanted to get back to we said early in the
Tom Moriarty:conversation, you know, you mentioned at one point, that
Tom Moriarty:there are tools, I think, during the budget conversation, that
Tom Moriarty:there are tools that you can use to make every virtual experience
Tom Moriarty:engaging. And we kept going on that conversation. But I'd like
Tom Moriarty:to go back to that, because I think that like the concept of
Tom Moriarty:hybrid learning. We've defined it very clearly, it's a mix of
Tom Moriarty:delivery methods. I think a lot of you in the audience in the
Tom Moriarty:last 48 months, that's meant, I've got to add more zoom to my
Tom Moriarty:life, and there's got to be more virtual stuff. So I'd love to
Tom Moriarty:give the team out in the audience,some takeaways about,
Tom Moriarty:you know, what are those tools that they can use to make every
Tom Moriarty:virtual experience as engaging as possible?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, and I'll preface this by saying there are
Brian Washburn:some people in the field that are way more knowledgeable than
Brian Washburn:I am, when it comes to virtual, you know, Kassy LaBorie comes to
Brian Washburn:mind, Cindy Huggett. And they have, they've literally written
Brian Washburn:books about this. And so I'll try to give a quick answer to
Brian Washburn:this. When it comes to virtual engagement. I think one of the
Brian Washburn:key rules of thumb is to get people interacting and engaging
Brian Washburn:as early as possible and starting to explore any sort of
Brian Washburn:tools that we're going to be able to, we're going to be
Brian Washburn:using, from the get go. And so if we're going to be using
Brian Washburn:polling, if we're going to be using Breakout Rooms, if we're
Brian Washburn:going to be using on screen annotation, try to build that
Brian Washburn:into any of the introduction activities that we're doing. So
Brian Washburn:that sort of tone is set. And people are familiar with it with
Brian Washburn:the technologies and the features that we'll be using in
Brian Washburn:low stakes conversations first, because if somebody doesn't
Brian Washburn:really know how to, you know, kind of get into breakout room
Brian Washburn:or write on the screen, it's better to figure that out when
Brian Washburn:you're asking people to put a little star on the map of the
Brian Washburn:country where they're calling in from, as opposed to later in the
Brian Washburn:session when you only have a minute or two for an activity
Brian Washburn:and people are like Well, where's the, you know, where's
Brian Washburn:the onscreen annotation?" Right, so being able to, so that's one
Brian Washburn:of the really important first rules of thumb is if you're
Brian Washburn:going to be using some engagement strategies later on,
Brian Washburn:try to introduce those as early as possible. The other thing
Brian Washburn:that I think is really important is that different platforms
Brian Washburn:offer different things. So you have the polling feature, you
Brian Washburn:have the onscreen annotation, you have the breakout rooms,
Brian Washburn:those are a lot of times that you have the chat, right, so
Brian Washburn:those are oftentimes, you know, for the most common ways that
Brian Washburn:people can interact and engage in a virtual setting. And then
Brian Washburn:there are some things that you can do outside of the
Brian Washburn:environment. So you can play a game of Kahoot for example, or
Brian Washburn:you can put other you know, there's there's mural is another
Brian Washburn:technology where people can kind of use sticky notes in everybody
Brian Washburn:and the group can start to like you would in person, sometimes
Brian Washburn:you have people write things down and sticky notes and bring
Brian Washburn:them up to the flip chart and move things around. You can do
Brian Washburn:that virtually as well. And so I think that it's also really
Brian Washburn:helpful for people to think outside of the platform when it
Brian Washburn:comes to engagement strategies because in the spirit and... and
Brian Washburn:take a look at what K 12 teachers have done over the past
Brian Washburn:two years, because they were masters at figuring out what are
Brian Washburn:some different technologies that I can have my students who are
Brian Washburn:second graders, doing in order to engage, pick it up quickly
Brian Washburn:and engage. And there's lots of other little tools out there,
Brian Washburn:that K 12 teachers were using early on in the pandemic, that I
Brian Washburn:think would really behoove those of us in corporate learning to
Brian Washburn:really take a page out of their book. All that said, obviously,
Brian Washburn:it also goes back to the learning objectives, right? So
Brian Washburn:what is it the people should be able to do, and then making sure
Brian Washburn:that you're selecting the right activities in order to get
Brian Washburn:people to engage, but don't don't say that just because it's
Brian Washburn:virtual, and you don't have physically people in front of
Brian Washburn:you that you can rely on PowerPoint to go through an hour
Brian Washburn:session, because that's, that's not the case. Right? It's, it's
Brian Washburn:boring, you know, in person, it's gonna be boring virtually
Brian Washburn:as well.
Tom Moriarty:I really love the idea of takeaways to go, go poll
Tom Moriarty:K through 12 teacher that can that you know, that experiences,
Tom Moriarty:that's another great outside resource that our corporate
Tom Moriarty:learning and development professionals here in the
Tom Moriarty:audience can really take away, because that's a great point,
Tom Moriarty:right at the end of the day that the audience they need to engage
Tom Moriarty:with, has a completely different context. So there can be some
Tom Moriarty:really cool tools and resources they can find there. Brian, I
Tom Moriarty:have to thank you again, this has been fantastic. Before we
Tom Moriarty:wrap, you know, if there's any way that the audience wants to
Tom Moriarty:continue to hear about what you're doing, what Endurance is
Tom Moriarty:doing, where can they find you?
Brian Washburn:Yeah, so there's a couple of things, I'll put out
Brian Washburn:a shameless plug for a website that we have, it's free for
Brian Washburn:people to go to it's called 51 elements of learning.com. So if
Brian Washburn:you want to think of, you know, what could be the array of, of
Brian Washburn:learning elements that we could bring into a hybrid program,
Brian Washburn:then that is a kind of, it's an interactive website that has a
Brian Washburn:periodic table, you click on the different elements and explains
Brian Washburn:more about each of the elements. And what which other elements
Brian Washburn:you might want to combine your elements with. So that's one
Brian Washburn:kind of cool way for people to think through a hybrid learning
Brian Washburn:approach. And then if people want to get in touch with me,
Brian Washburn:they can always drop me an email at Brian at endurance
Brian Washburn:training.com I'm always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn
Brian Washburn:too and have virtual coffee. And so if you if you are listening
Brian Washburn:to this, you decide, oh, I want to connect with Brian Washburn
Brian Washburn:at Endurance Learning, go on LinkedIn, find me, connect with
Brian Washburn:me, but don't just add the connection. drop me a note
Brian Washburn:saying, Hey, I heard you on the podcast, and it'd be fun to grab
Brian Washburn:virtual coffee sometime. And I'd love to chat.
Tom Moriarty:That's great. Thank you, Brian, I really
Tom Moriarty:appreciate you share the website to that's a great resource.
Tom Moriarty:We'll we'll grab a link to that and leave that in the show notes
Tom Moriarty:so that the audience here can grab that and go engage. That's
Tom Moriarty:a... That's an awesome resource. Thank you again, Brian. This has
Tom Moriarty:been a great conversation. I know there's a ton of actionable
Tom Moriarty:takeaways that I have for the for the training
Tom Moriarty:responsibilities I have here for my teams. And I know our
Tom Moriarty:audience will really appreciate this as well. So thank you so
Tom Moriarty:much for your time.
Brian Washburn:Thanks for having me.
Tom Moriarty:The Secret Society of Success is hosted by Mimeo,
Tom Moriarty:the better way to print. Check out our sister podcast, Talk of
Tom Moriarty:the Trade, for tips and tricks for sales and marketing leaders.
Tom Moriarty:Visit www.mimeo.com for more information
