Increase Engagement in Learning Solutions by Respecting Learner Characteristics Maybe you’ve seen the Salesforce commercial: Matthew McConaughey, dressed as an astronaut but piloting a hot air balloon, tells us “It’s not time to escape, it’s time to engage!” A very thinly veiled poke at certain billionaire tech giants, it asserts that we don’t need to […]
Read MoreCategory: Instructional Design
Yes, You Can Do Both!
Be Responsive and Effective Can you have short, breezy learning opportunities that your learners take whenever and wherever they want that won’t make the training gods cringe? Now more than ever, learners don’t want to spend hours sitting through synchronous learning. They also don’t want to read volumes of text or sit through a lengthy […]
Read MoreLearning at the Great Oasis
Relevant, Meaningful Content Creates Great Learning Experiences According to a Gallup Global Emotions survey, people are experiencing a record amount of stress in their lives with 40 percent saying that they experience stress during most of their day. You can say that it’s because of the pandemic or that it’s the result of social polarization, […]
Read MorePerformance Objective Pitfall
The Danger of Describe If you’ve worked with me recently and turned in performance or learning objectives starting with “Describe…” you’ve most definitely gotten feedback from me questioning your choice. If you work with me sometime soon, you’ll know this is one of my pet peeves and be prepared for the questions! Yes, I do […]
Read MoreNatural Learning — Exploring and Discovering; Connecting and Doing
Eight Components to Cultivate a Robust Learning Experience It’s gardening season where I live, one of my favorite times of the year. Waiting for perennials to come up, watching for buds and leaves to appear, moving plants to more favorable locations in the yard, deciding what vegetables to plant where, all bring me joy. I’m […]
Read MoreFour-in-One!
Tips to design Role-Specific Systems Training Picture this — you’re meeting with a business services client who wants to develop a custom-learning course to walk learners through the functionality of a time sheet system. You think to yourself, sure, we can do that! But then the client adds that this training must cover the requirements […]
Read MoreThe Learning Experience Evolution
From Relationship Managers to Business Consultants Many Moons Ago… …I began working with a great team at Amway on transitioning its global sales account managers from administrative/relationship-building roles to strategic, business consultants or trusted advisors. This revolutionary change in position and perspective prompted the global sales learning and development team to also radically evolve its […]
Read MoreWhy Is It Important to Know What Learners are Thinking and Feeling?
Using Empathy to Create Impactful Learning At the end of 2020, a colleague and I were recapping the year’s experiences and the abrupt shift that had to occur in learning for many companies. In particular, we’d both noticed how often the word “empathy” had come up in client conversations, and in industry articles, blogs, and […]
Read MoreAudience… Objectives… Chunk It Up!
Three Simple Steps to Create a Blended Learning Solution I think we’d all agree that 2020 forced a lot of change to training solutions in a very quick and reactionary manner. Did anyone not convert hundreds of instructor-led training (ILT) to virtual ILT on the fly? It’s now more important than ever to create and […]
Read MoreDeveloping Leaders From a Distance
Leadership Workshops Evolve From the Classroom It’s interesting how change is sometimes thrust upon us. Innovation flourishes when disruption forces us to abandon the status quo and approach leader development without the quintessential leadership workshop. It had been widely accepted that leader skills require full-contact engagement. After all, leaders interact with people constantly. So, it […]
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