WHAT’S
WRONG WITH TRAINING?
It’s
just like school.
That is, most school isn’t about learning,
it’s about short-term memorization, not about
helping people acquire practical skills.
The
GOOD news is that most organizations harbor experts
who possess priceless knowledge.
The task is how to teach it to others.
RULE:
When
learning isn’t fun, it’s not learning.
THE
ANSWER: SIMULATIONS
“Learning-by-doing
is easier said than done. John Dewey recognized this
way back in 1916 when he noted that schools insist on
telling students what they need to learn despite
research clearly demonstrating that learning by
telling doesn’t work and learning by doing does.”
p.15
THE
THREE BIG TRAINING FEARS (I.E., WHY DON’T MORE
PEOPLE TRAIN WITH SIMULATIONS?)
1)
It will take too long and cost too much: the old way
has had time to be quantified; new ways are uncertain.
2)
Its not effective (conventional training, that is):
many training departments are second-class citizens
whose people aren’t respected, and CEOs sacrifice
long-term knowledge gains for short-term profits.
3)
It can’t be measured: compared with
the old school-based testing system, real-world
learning is harder to measure.
FAILURE
IS GOOD
Schank
believes failure has gotten a bad rap.
He pooh-poohs
the ideas that people shouldn’t fail or that
training programs shouldn’t include failure.
He says “real thinking never starts until the
learner fails.”
However, people hate public, humiliating
failure. We
should strive to let them fail in private or create an
atmosphere where temporary failures are accepted.
BUT
SO IS SUPPORT
In
using the computer-based training that Schank
advocates, chances are, trainees will fail at least
some of the time.
When they do, there should be:
SCHANK’S
RULES FOR TRAINING
1.
People remember what they feel the most: use
games, simulations and other techniques that engender
emotion.
2.
Dumb employees aren’t born; they’re made:
by bureaucracies that give them lockstep training but
don’t give them simulations or training on what to
do when confronted with novel situations.
3.
Deliver training just in time (or when a
learner has just failed and really needs help): in
other words, use EPSS.
4.
You can fail to learn just about anything:
training is full of silly fads.
To learn to be a better executive, you don’t
need wilderness survival training, you need practice
making tough executive decisions.
5.
Learners will teach themselves better than the
world’s best trainer or highest-paid motivational
speaker. Give
people simulations and let them make mistakes, find
and diagnose mistakes, and pick better courses of
action. Teachers
aren’t as important to the learning process in
corporations as they’d like to think.
6.
Memorizing without corresponding experience is
worthless: if you stress memorization, back it up
with practice.
7.
When a company buys a learning system, it should
come with options:
Schank doesn’t believe people have different
learning styles, but does believe they have different
personalities; therefore, training systems should have
options that appeal to different personalities.
8.
Training should open with a bang: before the
“what you’ll learn” part, GRAB ‘em!
9.
Trainees should be learning from the world’s best:
capture the performance of experts and construct
simulations.
10.
It’s better to train the many than the few
(Bob’s note: it’s like the 80/20 rule---get the
most bang for the buck by improving performance on the
20% of tasks that make up 80% of everyone’s
workday).
AN
EXAMPLE: SOFTWARE TRAINING FOR CONSULTANTS
SEGMENT
ONE: ZED’S DINER
This
is a software program designed to teach consultants to
improve by using “requirements analysis modeling”.
It uses the fictitious example of an alien who
wants to set up an earth-style restaurant in his own
galaxy. Consultants
write the rules for waitresses, then view video that
implements their rules.
But since people almost always leave out
important details, the video will be wrong!
It takes several iterations to get it right.
Why
does this work? It’s
immediately involving, failure is inevitable, and the
result motivates people to learn.
SEGMENT
TWO: S&O CLIENT MEETING
An
introductory video segment presents a client
describing S&O’s problem.
In this simulated consultant project, 90% of
the work has been done---but the remaining 10%
contains 17 different problems (ranging from easy to
difficult) to solve.
Consultants have two days to complete the
exercise.
SEGMENT
THREE: STOCK TRACKING SYSTEM
This
one is closest to reality:
you’re working in pairs on a client’s stock
tracking system.
If it breaks, you get a tongue-lashing from the
client. The
client’s workplace is full of emotion and the video
clips show that not everyone is willing or able to
help you. Trainees
probably WILL crash the system the first time, because
a critical piece of information isn’t mentioned in
the simulation.
OTHER
EXAMPLES: TARGET AND BENNIGANS
Their
training for Target Customer Service personnel and
Bennigan’s bartenders is full of “real-world”
interactions with videotaped “customers”.
Besides teaching correct procedures, they can
also spur employees to gain new knowledge.
For example, Bennigan’s video “customers”
ask questions about their 300+ beers (e.g, “what is
a pilsner?”) that bartenders can’t answer, and the
failure motivates them to know the answer next time.
STEPS
IN CREATING SIMULATIONS
1)
Meet with prospective client
2)
Obtain client buy-in
3)
Pick a skill
4)
Conduct interviews
a)
be specific
b)
get into the other person’s “indexing scheme”
(how they store and label stories); use their
language.
c)
acquire some domain knowledge before the interview
d)
relate questions to likely failures
e)
throw in a question that compares apples to oranges.
f)
help them to relax
5)
Script the simulation
