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Hybrid Learning: How to Know When to Use It

Brian Washburn breaks down how to decide which training delivery methods to use depending on your budget, learner population, and training objectives. TranscriptTom Moriarty: 00:00:01 Welcome! You made it to the Secret Society of Tom Moriarty: 00:00:03 Success! In this not-so-secret podcast, we interview L&D Tom Moriarty: 00:00:07 changemakers about how they approach the evolving […]

Brian Washburn breaks down how to decide which training delivery methods to use depending on your budget, learner population, and training objectives.

Transcript
Tom Moriarty:

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:

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