Preparing to Deliver
From Initial Idea to Moment of Delivery
A learning experience should be as transformative for the instructor as it is for the participant.
—Pat Wagner, Management Consultant and Trainer
When learning happens in libraries and nonprofit organizations, it often appears akin to magic. The process of developing effective learning, on the other hand, is far from inexplicable, as conversations with workplace learning and performance leaders show. The collaborations, the behind-the-scenes efforts, the planning, unplanning, and replanning can be condensed into amazingly short periods of time or can expand to fill months or even years of available time. What is consistent is that there is a vision to be implemented, and the best among us know how to bring their dreams and visions to fruition.
“I’m a doer and not much of a planner,” Gwinnett County Public Library training manager Jay Turner admits without reservation. “After I determine what the learning outcomes should be, I often dive right into constructing the learning experience, and then … tinker, tweak, or even get rid of ideas as I flesh out the content. People hate to see my work process, but they are usually satisfied with the end result.”
In spite of his caveats about doing rather than planning, Turner, in conversation, proves to be as well organized and as thoughtful about the learning process as everyone else interviewed for this book. As he prepares for a new classroom-based or online learning session, he begins by identifying what he expects from learners after they have left the physical or virtual classroom, then writes course objectives and begins preparing a formal lesson plan. He determines the mode of delivery, then chooses a teaching technique along with strategies to use during the formal presentation. He also considers the location and room arrangements for the session based on discussions with colleagues and on the session activities he is planning.
“If I decide online delivery is better, I then determine if it will be synchronous or asynchronous, at which point I’m back to rethinking my teaching delivery,” he notes. “I don’t keep a hard and fast template but, rather, follow this process mentally. I do have a couple of checklists to help me handle logistics before I go live.”
Some of the best workplace learning and performance leaders we have seen appear to view leadership as involving listening as much as initiating actions. During their first weeks or months on the job, they work to meet immediate needs while also visiting staff in the various facilities throughout the organizations they serve; become active on committees that are directly or indirectly involved in the delivery of learning opportunities; spend as much time outside their offices as they do inside them so they can hear what colleagues value, need, and want from the learning and performance program; and attend some of the organization’s current offerings to see how they are delivered, received, and meeting the overall mission, vision, and value statements adopted by the organizations they now are serving. They also contact colleagues in other local or regional library systems or nonprofit organizations to determine what is being done elsewhere, and many become active participants in online synchronous and asynchronous discussion groups to keep track of available resources, developing trends, and opportunities for collaboration beyond the walls of their own buildings—a topic explored in greater depth in the final chapter of this book.
When Turner became the training manager at Gwinnett County Public Library, he spent much of his first year “just learning the managerial aspect of the position and not straying too far from the status quo.” “Now,” he recalls, “after having soaked it all in, I have developed a yearly training plan based on a needs analysis and will focus on categories of need by the quarter.”
Peter Bromberg, while working for the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, was equally goal driven in that agency, which offered approximately fifty workshops per year before closing due to budget cuts in 2010. “My end goal [was] that if anyone walks into any library in the southern seven counties of New Jersey or accesses any services remotely, they have the best possible experience. Great service. Great resources. Great environment. Great experience,” he said. “I then work[ed] backwards and ask[ed] myself, and the libraries, ‘What skills, abilities, and resources do the library staff need to deliver that experience?’”
Bromberg follows a process similar to that described by Turner, including working with instructors to develop workshops effectively, and also becomes involved in marketing efforts to be sure that offerings and learners are matched. Part of his leadership involved watching for topics that had not yet been requested but clearly met a need in the cooperative. “These classes tend to be on the edge of awareness,” he notes. “No one ever asked for those classes, but once they’re scheduled, they fill immediately and people ask for more. …That comes from just paying attention to what’s going on in the world and listening to conversations over lunch about what challenges and frustrations library staff are experiencing, or even simply what they’re curious about.”
Other sources of information for Bromberg include blogs such as the ALA Learning Round Table’s ALA Learning, Michelle Martin’s The Bamboo Project, and the Library Garden blog to which Bromberg contributed through August 2010.1
Many workplace learning and performance professionals themselves note that developing procedures, checklists, and templates is far from a one-time task. At the Pioneer Library System, training coordinator Louise Whitaker was updating everything when we spoke during summer 2009: “We’re in the process of moving toward developing online tutorials for our databases and technical skills, our soft skills, and we’re going to be using WebEx for synchronous trainings,” she noted. “In developing these new trainings, we’re looking at our training objectives, the WebJunction core competencies, and using templates so that the trainings will cover the same components.”
The introduction of online learning opportunities actually led her to create standardized procedures where none had existed: “We had training objectives for each course; we’re trying to be more intentional as we take this next step. Also, I am working with a training advisory group with people from other branches. Their input into the training program is important because it brings a different perspective.”
Denver Public Library learning and development manager Sandra Smith, like her colleagues, uses formal and informal checklists to complete needs assessments when she begins the planning process. This helps her identify outcomes and measure and evaluate the results of what is offered to staff within the library system. “I always keep those in mind as I do the most important thing, which is to talk to the stakeholders and learn what they need and how we might make it happen together in planning. … I have eighty-plus staff people who are willing to share their expertise and passion and do this with limited time.”
Her leadership role in this process has included making colleagues aware of the library’s long-standing commitment to training, which dates back to the days when John Cotton Dana was director. “In finding out this wonderful history, I realized that one of my biggest accomplishments has been to renew and recharge staff’s awareness and appreciation of the importance and relevance of our being skilled and knowledgeable. We are newly upholding the great learning tradition of the staff at DPL.”
Pat Wagner, who has been consulting and providing learning opportunities for the staffs of libraries throughout the United States for more than three decades, has also drawn from old and new educational models:
There are over fifty major theories of how people learn. During and since college, I have studied many of them. Having [also] been a college instructor at five different universities and colleges over a decade really taught me a lot about adult education. … one measure I always make of a successful class is [that] I should be learning every time I step into a classroom or do online training. A learning experience should be as transformative for the instructor as it is for the participant.
Determining what needs to be offered in training begins early in the planning process through the simple act of asking specific questions, Wagner says: “How will learners’ workplace behavior differ as a result of what they learn, and what concrete (rather than abstract) nouns will describe the behavior of those who attend learning sessions?” She also tries to determine whether what is needed is even something that can be accomplished through training, or whether the issue is more one of an employee or group of employees in need of more effective supervision. “What will be the physical evidence that my program has been successful? What will you see and hear that makes you glad someone went to that session? You would be surprised how many times a client can’t answer that question,” she notes.
In assessing the need for any particular learning opportunity, workplace learning and performance professionals need to gather information in a variety of ways and from a variety of sources, Wagner maintains: “What people tell you on a survey online is different than what they say if their boss is in the room. … I had six cancellations last month despite the director asking and people saying, ‘yes, we need this.’ They were still cancelled because of low enrollment. Conducting proper assessments is no guarantee. In effect, there is no guarantee, and that’s something that people have to understand.”
“Trainers are asked to solve problems that are not training problems,” she also notes. “The majority of training issues could be solved if supervisors did their jobs”—a point that leads her to suggest that “most training should be done by supervisors.” Trying to resolve supervisory issues with inappropriate training, she continues, can actually be demoralizing and lead to wasted time—particularly if an organization mandates training for all employees when the issue to be resolved involves a much smaller group.
“Supervisors need to be good at this [managing performance and employee evaluations]; it is not optional,” Contra Costa County Library deputy county librarian Janet Hildebrand agreed in a separate interview. “The supervisor isn’t always the one who does the training, but the supervisor must recognize that training is always part of the plan for developing performance, for taking great employees to the next level, for giving poorer employees the possibility for reaching success, and for dealing with employees who won’t improve.” Because the supervisors’ role in workplace learning and performance is considered so important at Contra Costa, system administrators have designed one of the most comprehensive training programs for community library managers that we have seen. Among the nearly two dozen topics included in the orientation plan are staff training and staff development; the strategic plan and role of community libraries; separate sessions on the relationship with the city, with Friends organizations, and with the library commission and city library commissioner; staffing; the volunteer program; collection development; performance evaluations; and the hiring process.
The Contra Costa new employee training program is also among the most rigorous we have encountered. Continuing over a four-week period with more than fifteen peer trainers involved, it integrates classroom training and hands-on practice; provides orientations to all departments and service programs; includes background on the governance, history, and operations of the library; instills an understanding of library policies; and emphasizes excellent customer service.
“Leaders lead by offering a learning hand to the staff who will take it and run, and there are always staff to be found in that category,” Hildebrand maintains. “Even if in the beginning they are in the minority, we invest our energy and our emotions on those and don’t focus our attention on the most resistant and negative.” Those who do not pass the four-week new staff orientation are simply not hired, she notes.
ADDIE and ARDDIE
One much discussed instructional design tool is the ADDIE model—an acronym for “analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation”—which provides structure from start to finish for face-to-face as well as online learning opportunities. It clearly reflects much of what workplace learning and development leaders tell us as they discuss their own approaches to the work they do, and it is a model heavily promoted by ASTD.
As if to support what Louise Whitaker and others say about the need to adapt new tools to match changing workplace learning and performance circumstances, ASTD has been introducing an updated version—ARDDIE—which adds research into the mix.2 The suggestion that evidence-based research should be an integral part of the planning process for learning opportunities may be news to many current practitioners, but students currently earning their MLS/MLIS degrees are leaving school firmly rooted in that process since their instructors so often stress the need for that level of work as students move out of school and into the library workplace. As these new graduates—many of whom already have experience working in libraries before earning their degrees—assume increasing amounts of leadership opportunities and as training becomes part of their day-to-day work with colleagues as well as with library members and guests, we may see an increased use of research that supports effective learning and relies more on results that can be documented rather than on anecdotes that may or may not be leading instructors to provide learning opportunities that produce long-term, sustainable, and verifiable results. In the meantime, leaders in library and nonprofit workplace learning and performance programs continue working at the large level of coordinating annual training plans that produce effective and continually evolving individual learning opportunities.
The Training Plan
Like Contra Costa County Library’s training programs for new employees and community library managers, the overall training plan for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library aims to be comprehensive, and employees who do not complete the program face repercussions, including lower performance evaluation ratings (see the appendix to this volume). Designed to help all staff members develop their existing skills and talents and to provide them with a well-outlined path for their professional development, it includes courses that assist in the development and strengthening of several core competencies: customer service, communication, safety and security, programming, readers’ advisory, technology skills, and use of the organization’s integrated library system. Courses are offered through a variety of sources including the library’s human resources department and the Mecklenburg County Learning Services Department. It projects a combination of face-to-face, online, and blended learning opportunities.
The program continues, during employees’ first three months at the library, with short introductions on how to take advantage of the library’s learning and development program and how to learn online; a variety of offerings about how to use workplace digital tools and more integrated library system coursework; separate sessions on how to work with children and how to work with teens; and two-hour courses on how to locate events happening throughout the library system and how to register library members and guests for those events.
By the time employees have been with the library for six months, they are also expected to have completed separate readers’ advisory sessions concentrating on basics, then youth, then adults; and sessions on reference skills, including how to conduct effective reference interviews.
The remaining months of the employees’ first year on the job include coursework on how to market the library’s collections effectively; how to work with library volunteers; preventing sexual harassment in the workplace; and nonviolent crisis intervention. Supplemental courses include basics of training design and presentation skills.
Training plans within other organizations vary in their design and complexity. For example, the San Francisco Public Library system, over a decade-long period, went from having no formal staff training program to an interim step of having one with offerings from a few different providers on a limited number of topics and with a goal of training everyone on specific issues before considering that training completed and moving on to other equally large topics. The program continued to evolve. It combined previous elements by drawing from an increasingly varied number of providers to facilitate training on an as-needed basis and occasionally focusing on system-wide issues such as the need for ergonomic training for those who used computer equipment or who were involved in heavy lifting and bending, or system-wide training as a new integrated library system replaced what had been used. The largest shift occurred when those one-time system-wide efforts began including follow-up courses at two levels: courses for newly hired staff who missed the one-time system-wide offerings, and ongoing courses for those in need of updates or for specialized offerings.
The result was an organized program that provided approximately fifty learning opportunities face-to-face or online every quarter, publicized through a formal printed catalog distributed throughout the main library and each of the twenty-seven branch libraries and also posted online on the staff intranet. New offerings took the place of sessions that were no longer needed through a process that created a program responsive to current needs. The planning process itself was deliberately simple: an Excel spreadsheet listed courses by category including general, supervisory, computer-based, and health and safety; the spreadsheet was updated at the end of each quarter so that there was always a yearlong plan in place that could easily be altered to meet unexpected needs.
More comprehensive software is also in use, as Catherine Vaughn and her colleagues in the Lee County Library system show through their use of Compliance Suite. Following the same basic pattern used in San Francisco, Vaughn reviews and updates the library training plan throughout the year; works with her supervisor, branch managers, and other key staff to remain cognizant of newly developing needs; and tracks what is happening through the software.
Each employee has a log-in so they can schedule, unschedule, and check the calendar for upcoming classes. It takes the burden off me because I used to schedule everyone for every session staff members attended. … The exception to this system is our library cooperative classes. Staff register themselves and then report their attendance to me in a monthly report so it is recorded in the database for an accurate education history. Staff can also check their history to make sure something isn’t missing. Supervisors can log in to see all of the staff who report to them to aid in the evaluation process.
The result clearly is the creation and support of a community of learners where everyone takes part in the organization’s continuing education needs.
Sandra Smith uses similar procedures with a less automated system at Denver Public:
The DPL training calendar and TRACKS (Training Resources and Continuing Knowledge for Staff) newsletter are published three times a year. Over seventy sessions are offered to staff in each, ranging from technical to soft skills to workplace awareness and coping to new customer needs. TRACKS has brief articles on what’s new, what’s up in learning, my perspective on what’s affecting staff at the moment, and anything else that might motivate or be interesting to staff to get them thinking about learning.
This system also obviously serves as part of a continually evolving annual plan that combines core, repeating courses with new offerings scheduled as quickly as they can be designed and produced. “The calendar is an online product, but not yet an LMS,” she adds. “And by the way, our volunteers, docents, and substitute staff are welcome to attend classes.”
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has moved away from newsletter formats for keeping staff up-to-date in learning news and instead relies heavily on the staff news portion of its Drupal-based intranet. The ability to use blogs and other media where anyone can create and post online content has revolutionized the world of information. These new tools do, however, have ironic consequences. Where once we could not get information out fast enough, we are now in a position where members of staff are receiving too much information, so much so that requests are coming in to trainers around the country on how to keep up with news and information.
I’m OK, You’re Stressed Out
Among the elements workplace learning and performance leaders consistently examine is the overall environment in which learning opportunities are delivered. They recognize, for good reason, that a less than accommodating setting and set of circumstances in which to learn produce less than stellar results, and if anything about the delivery of the lesson induces stress, they know they might as well dismiss the class and take a very long lunch break. Since personal involvement goes a long way in producing memorable and effective learning experiences, let’s take a look at an extreme example of how learning can go wrong in a far from ideal situation.
A group of us who were enrolled in an introductory leadership course had less than a week to coalesce as highly functioning collaborative units, tackle an ill-defined project together, and produce a tangible product. We were, early in that first week together, broken into three teams, given broad project descriptions, and then given a few days to struggle with team dynamics, the challenge of mastering complex new material, and the need to determine exactly what needed to be learned and what needed to be done. Since no one was at any point very clear on what the final product should be, each team struggled with the challenge and the accompanying stress, with different results: one team completely divorced itself from the other two and worked on its own throughout the week whenever we were not together in the shared classroom; a second team attempted to interact with members of the other teams whenever possible inside and outside the classroom setting; and the third team was so overwhelmed by the stress of the assignment that one member actually walked out on colleagues in tears for nearly an hour during one group meeting and, upon returning, worked independently of the others or solely with one other member and repeatedly missed deadlines. The team that attempted to interact with others finished their project by 8 p.m. the night before the assignment was due; the team that worked completely away from the other two also finished its work that evening. The team that was overcome by the stress of the ambiguous assignment was still working to complete the assignment at midnight that night, and final copies for their completed project were printed off just a few hours before the deadline.
When the 9 a.m. deadline arrived, there was no time to rest on laurels or celebrate successes—a key component of successful team building, as Joan Giesecke and Beth McNeil write: “Celebrate the unit’s completion of tasks and projects in order to thank staff for their hard work and to reinforce the benefits of planning.”3 Having submitted the completed projects, members of each of the three teams were already facing the challenge of having an hour-long seminar ready for presentation to their instructors and colleagues four days later.
There was, however, an unexpectedly great learning opportunity provided by the instructors at the end of the first week. Asking how we had reacted to the initial assignment and what we had learned, they were greeted by an hour-long, no-holds-barred discussion of what was good and what was not good about the initial experience of completing a massive project within newly formed teams of students/leaders-in-training under extremely stressful circumstances. We were very direct in expressing deep concerns over how the project was handled and the overall way material was presented; to their credit, the instructors listened rather than reacted during the initial part of this discussion, and they did all they apparently could do for the remainder of the three-week program to respond creatively and positively to what they heard. This did not resolve all of the issues raised during that in-class discussion, but it did provide a level of support that helped members of at least one of the teams function better within the continuing constraints and stress created and imposed by the structure of that leadership course.
What was true at that moment and remained true throughout the course was that those students who fell into the trap of skipping meals, sleeping only a few hours each night, and failing to carve out time to reflect upon lessons learned and lessons to be learned were more prone to withdraw from collaborative efforts than those who established schedules that included time for breaks, meals, reflection, and longer amounts of sleep. They expressed frustration with their own work and with their teammates, repeatedly complained of the high stress levels they were experiencing, and, in extreme cases, yelled at colleagues and again broke down in tears.
These demonstrations of low-quality work-group-level efforts as opposed to high-performance-team results served as evidence of what research by Charlotte Shelton, Mindi McKenna, and John Darling suggests: “Stress and urgency … inhibit the functioning of the neo-cortex. Creative breakthroughs rarely occur during periods of high anxiety. Therefore, leaders who wish to become quantum [creatively effective] thinkers first must learn to manage stress.”4
Warren Bennis notes that it “is the individual, operating at the peak of his creative and moral powers, who will revive our organizations, by reinventing himself and them.” He also writes, “Because reflection is vital—at every level, in every organization—and because burnout is a very real threat in today’s hectic atmosphere, all executives should practice the new three Rs: retreat, renewal, and return.”5
Malcolm Knowles, Elwood Holton III, and Richard Swanson have written at great length about the importance of a supportive learning environment in which adult learners have clearly defined assignments and low levels of stress. In one key section, they offer the following summary of evidence-based research:
Cognitive theorists stress the importance of a psychological climate of orderliness, clearly defined goals, careful explanation of expectations and opportunities, openness of the system to inspection and questioning, and honest and objective feedback. … Personality theorists … emphasize the importance of a climate in which … anxiety levels are appropriately controlled (enough to motivate but not so much as to block). … They prescribe a “mentally healthful” climate.6
John Dirkx provides an overview worth quoting at length for anyone still in doubt about what is needed for successful adult learning to occur:
The literature underscores the importance of attending to emotions and feelings in contexts, interactions, and relationships that characterize adult learning (Boud, Cohen, and Walker, 1993; Brookfield, 1993; Daloz, 1986; Postle, 1993; Robertson, 1996; Tennant, 1997). A growing body of research, however, suggests that emotions and feelings are more than merely a motivational concern in learning. Postle (1993) argues that affective, emotional dimensions provide the foundation on which practical, conceptual, and imaginal modes of learning rest. “Brain-based” theories (Damasio, 1994, 1999) and the concept of “emotional intelligence” (Goleman, 1995) suggest that emotion and feelings are deeply interrelated with perceiving and processing information from our external environments, storing and retrieving information in memory, reasoning, and the embodiment of learning (Merriam and Caffarella, 1999; Taylor, 1996). Recent studies of transformative learning reveal extrarational aspects, such as emotion, intuition, soul, spirituality, and the body, as integral to processes of deep, significant change (Clark, 1997; Dirkx, 1997; Nelson, 1997; Scott, 1997).7
All of this points out a terrible and still unresolved problem in the way that leadership course was delivered:
• If the leaders-in-training within the classrooms are intentionally subjected to intense stress (which inhibits learning) right at the moment when they should be learning how to control their stress, and
• if everything we know from research, peer-reviewed journals, well respected writers’ books, and our own experience about what is necessary for successful learning—and, by extension, successful team-building—shows that stress inhibits learning,
• then what sort of leader does a program like that produce? And how many potentially great leaders will be diverted to other pursuits because they left the program and the field as a result of what they experienced through that course?
Setting the Stage
We were lucky, in the course of conducting interviews for this book, to find workplace learning and performance professionals who repeatedly emphasized the importance of creating supportive, creative, and inviting environments for those who turned to them for help. It was not uncommon for us, during our conversations, to talk about the importance of providing a comfortable classroom for onsite learning and support to online learners who were new to e-learning.
Setting the virtual or face-to-face stage is a critically important element in producing learning opportunities that produce positive effects, we agreed during those conversations. Whenever we have control over the spaces in which we and other instructors work, we become the architects who create spaces we ourselves would love to inhabit because we know those are the spaces that produce training-teaching-learning capable of delivering what it promises: positive change benefiting individuals and the organizations and customers they serve.
The importance of being attentive to detail was not lost during those conversations. We know that how we set up the chairs within a room or how the virtual learning environment appears in e-learning creates an immediate impression that contributes to or alleviates stress. If a classroom or workshop setting does not look right when we walk in—preferably 30–45 minutes before the session is scheduled to begin—we seek help or actually rearrange the room ourselves to do whatever is possible to improve the setup.
A basic question tends to be posed at every possible moment: what can be done to make the setting and the lesson engaging? We remember that in our earliest learning experiences, in preschool or kindergarten settings, learning was fun, and then it started to become a little more serious and competitive, and fun somehow seemed to disappear from the equation. We note that, although we are used to thinking of training and learning centers as having plenty of ergonomically correct chairs placed in carefully measured rows in front of state-of-the-art computer screens, we are encouraged to see some of our favorite trainer-teacher-learners managing to capture a little of the fun so many others have left behind; they have playful objects that encourage interaction and creativity—the keys to building even short-term communities of learning—on tables during workplace learning and performance activities so that participants can remain engaged yet not lose track of what presenters are offering.
We know that making learners comfortable from the moment they enter the workshop setting makes them allies instead of adversaries, so we do everything we can to show them that we care enough about them to think about how they feel, to lay the groundwork for a level of engagement that takes them to the next level of coalescing into learning groups. We are prepared to greet them at the door and chat informally to gather information about what they expect to learn and what has motivated them to arrive for that particular learning session. Whenever we have the budget to do so, we provide simple beverages and food; we recognize that we need not produce anything elaborate, but we also recognize that it is worth fighting for a refreshment budget if we are involved in a workplace learning and performance setting where colleagues return for sessions and see each other often enough actually to develop that all-important community of learners we are seeking to nurture and sustain.
The room temperature where the learning opportunity is offered is also important. This sometimes is the hardest element for us to control since so many buildings have automated or building-wide temperature control units. It is what we could call the Goldilocks’ Porridge Syndrome: one is too hot, one is too cold, and one is just right. If we, or those who control the settings, fail to keep things comfortable, we cannot be too surprised if we find ourselves facing a somewhat bearlike audience. Something to consider when we have any level of control over the heating or cooling system within a room: it is worth asking how those sitting around us or in front of us are feeling, and seeing if we can reach someone to adjust the temperature as needed. And remember that we are likely to be much warmer than they are because we are moving around a bit—or a lot. Seeing people wearing parkas or wrapping scarves around their necks might be an early warning sign.
A final consideration for workplace learning and performance leaders involves the quality of sound in the room where sessions are offered. This is more than just checking the volume on the microphone. If we have a partner or an early arrival who is willing to assist, we can test the microphone—using it ourselves and then walking around the room to gauge the sound when someone else is using it—and then walk around to see how sound carries throughout the room even without amplification. And it is well worth listening for dead zones—areas where sound suddenly drops off because it is absorbed by some sort of overhang or other acoustical obstacle within the room. There is not much we can do about some of the sound problems, but being aware of them allows us to warn audience members ahead of time and gives us the ability to compensate for those problems we cannot fix.
All of these elements lead us to a somewhat obvious if unexpected conclusion: presentation is about the senses and how we use them. If we take those senses into consideration as we plan our presentations and set the stage, and if we make ourselves aware of how our own senses are in use as we check out the setting we are about to use, we are giving ourselves another wonderful tool to provide our audience with memorable experiences, and we are doing everything possible to reduce the stress that can ruin the effectiveness of the best-prepared lessons.
Preparation, Rehearsal, and Dress Rehearsal
As we consider all that goes into preparation for the day of delivering a learning opportunity, we cannot avoid the importance of rehearsal. The North Carolina Certified Training Specialist program provided to government workers by the North Carolina Office of State Personnel teaches participants to “choose when you are going to sweat”—you can sweat before a training session with hard work and preparation, or you can sweat during a training session as you discover the consequences of being unprepared.
“So much of what’s important—most of it, I’d argue—is done before the actual training—the planning, the prep work, the thinking through, the instructional design,” Peter Bromberg notes. “By the time I get to the actual training, that’s mostly cake!”
Part of the preparation for a training session, whether face-to-face or online, should be one or more informal practice sessions or formal rehearsals either in private or as a pilot session with a small group of participants who can provide constructive criticism. The importance of run-throughs in front of a small audience cannot be emphasized enough. Often we become so immersed in the finer details of creating the training that we miss the bigger picture of providing a context for our learners or using analogies to tie pieces together.
Furthermore, because public speaking is “the No. 1 fear reported by people in the U.S.” and that fear may actually be an innate trait, a 2006 communications study by Paul L. Witt suggests, preparation and rehearsal can be among the best tools we have for managing that fear.8
A dress rehearsal for a trainer means running through the presentation using the same equipment in the same location in which the training will be delivered. This helps us avoid credibility-draining experiences such as arriving to deliver a class on Web 2.0 technology and discovering, in those final moments before the session is scheduled to begin, that wireless Internet access is turned off for the day because the building is closed to the public.
“I practice, practice, practice, practice, practice—however many times you want to print that word out—so I can effectively deliver the material,” Pat Wagner says. “For every hour I stand in front of a class, I practice one hundred hours.” She also prepares a script before delivering a presentation for the first time, although she never reads from it during the class. “That doesn’t mean I memorize every word, but it means I’m prepared to deliver the lesson,” she says.
Maurice Coleman, in an ALA Learning blog post, discusses his “BGIMD [Bald Geek in Maryland] Basic Training Technology Survival Kit,” which contains things such as a network cable, extension cord, batteries, even a change of clothes.9
Another way of dealing with that fear—in essence, stage fright—is to remember that the learners, in normal circumstances, are collaborators, not adversaries. If we attempt to exert too much control in a classroom—what one colleague refers to as forbidding “solo hiking” by those who want to explore learning paths that might not be in an instructor’s lesson plan or overall repertoire—or if we avoid responding to unanticipated questions and concerns learners raise, we may actually limit rather than enhance the chance for success in learning.
“When you are the instructor for a session, you can change the learning climate,” Catherine Vaughn says. “You are also seen as the authority on the topic you are delivering. Be ready for all kinds of questions, and never let them see you become unnerved.” She continues:
I was teaching a class on Business Etiquette—this class has given me the best experiences for handling all types of challenges—and we were discussing dress guidelines. Since undergarments were not listed as proper attire, I had a young woman ask in class, “Is it required to wear a bra to work, since it is not on the list?”
Well, I have to say I was not ready for that question, and by the looks of the stunned faces of other attendees, they were not expecting it, either. I did, though, reply, looking directly at her and said, “That is a good question. I would answer that by looking at this from the professional standpoint. If I did not wear a bra to work, would I look and/or feel professional? If the answer is no, than I would say, yes, a bra or some support undergarment for women is required to give you the professional look we are striving for.”
Leaders Dreaming
What is also obvious from conversations with our colleagues is that planning never stops. Whether it involves lunchtime conversations, reading blogs, or talking with and especially listening to coworkers, the best workplace learning and performance leaders are always open to ideas for the next learning opportunity they need to oversee, and they work hard to avoid being hindered by obstacles.
Jay Turner, for example, faced the challenge of wanting to continue an on-again off-again tradition of providing an annual staff development day at Gwinnett County Public Library even though budgetary constraints were threatening his ability to proceed. His solution was to use the library learning management system to host an abbreviated (30-minute) virtual presentation created with tools including Adobe Articulate and Captivate. “It included a state of the library podcast/slideshow from the executive director and various awards presentations delivered by video. I concluded with a virtual raffle ticket system to give out door prizes that were delivered by courier to the branches,” he explained.
Asked to dream about how he would create an entire day of online offerings for a staff development day if he had unlimited resources, he quickly outlined a presentation that would take place in a 3-D virtual world “delivered via thin client—no software download—where each staff member has an avatar.” The staff development day world would comprise a series of rooms, including “a lounge where everyone can hang out and chat. The lounge is a hub that joins together all the other rooms.” Separate virtual rooms would provide settings for breakout sessions or presentations supporting the theme of that particular staff development day. “Staff day would be a week-long event that people could visit at their leisure and hop in and out as they saw fit. I’d have discussion boards enabled in the LMS for staff members to continue conversations about the presentation/breakout sessions.”
When we teasingly suggested that he pursue a grant to fund that dream project, Turner offered an unorthodox response that goes to the heart of his leadership and creative talents: “A grant would be good, but I’m sure I could make a go of it with just some free time. I have a knack for creating products with free resources.”
Notes
1. ALA Learning, http://alalearning.org/; Michelle Martin, The Bamboo Project, http://michelemartin.typepad.com/; Library Garden, http://librarygarden.net/.
2. Benjamin Ruark, “Year 2013: ARDDIE Is In, ADDIE Is Out, T+D 62, no. 7 (July 2008): 44–49, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_200807/ai_n27996027/.
3. Joan Giesecke and Beth McNeil, Fundamentals of Library Supervision (Chicago: American Library Association, 2005), 112.
4. Charlotte Shelton, Mindi McKenna, and John Darling, “Leading in the Age of Paradox: Optimizing Behavioral Style, Job Fit and Cultural Cohesion, Leadership and Organization Development Journal 23, no. 7 (2002): 372–379.
5. Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1989), 102, 187.
6. Malcolm Knowles, Elwood Holton, and Richard Swanson, The Adult Learner, 6th ed. (Burlington, Vt.: Elsevier, 2005), 120.
7. John Dirkx, “The Power of Feelings: Emotion, Imagination, and the Construction of Meaning in Adult Learning,” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education: The New Update on Adult Learning Theory 89 (2001): 68.
8. This according to Daniel DeNoon, “Fear of Public Speaking Hardwired,” WebMD, April 20, 2006, www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/20061101/fear-public-speaking.
9. Maurice Coleman, “5 Tips for Trainers to Prevent TechFail,” ALA Learning, http://alalearning.org/2010/02/04/5-tips-for-trainers-to-prevent-techfail/.