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Sticky Learning Lunches #27: Making Learning Stick & Making a Difference
Today’s topic, After Training Courses and They Nothing Different Part 1. Discover 7 ways to help your people to achieve behavioural change, and make learning stick after a training course.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
There we are. Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches. Just given it the last minute for people to arrive. Got a couple of minutes before we start. Good afternoon people. Hello, Susan. Good to see you. Hello, Matt. Love to see you. Hi. Hello, Hailey. Sorry. New faces, new names. Good to see you again. Colin, thank you very much for being here. Benjamin, back again. I see you just waiting for the last few people to arrive. Good to see you. Tim. Colin’s reminding me to go full screen. Not yet, Colin. Just making sure everyone knows they’re in the right room before we switch the, to the, to the main camera. Wonderful people arriving.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s make sure we set you all up for success right now. Just as the last few people turning up. Let’s make sure we’ve got all the phones on flight mode. So let’s see the phones. Hold ’em high, put ’em on flight mode, zero out the distraction, as I always say, zero out the distraction and get a hundred percent attention on you, your development and this moment right now. Super important that we do this. If you’ve got email open, et cetera, get that closed down. Get your social media closed. Get yourself back into this room
Nathan Simmonds:
With me. Let’s make sure that, yeah, I’ve got my email closed. We are good to go. Also, make sure you’ve got a drink available. Keep yourselves hydrated. Let’s do this. There might be a few more people arriving. Good afternoon, Karen. Good to see you again. Make sure I can see everybody. Let’s do this.
Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to today’s Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. These sticky lu lunches are all about giving you great content in short bursts that are gonna help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now. Whether you are at home or preparing to return back to the office.
Nathan Simmonds:
I wanna give you some skills and some ideas that are gonna really push your thinking and help you to create a bigger impact in what you do on a day-to-Day basis. Today we’re talking about how we make learning Stick, which is the USP, the unique superpower of making business matter. That’s what we do when we deliver content. When I’m teaching, when I’m sharing, when I’m coaching, it’s all about making sure that this stuff up here that I have is gifted to you in a way that makes sure that you’ve got it in there or you take hold of it, you put it in here and you’re also making use of it.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it’s really vital for us and you know, it’s a, a key passion for me in the nicest possible way. I’m not gonna stand in front of a classroom and just blow off hot air and, and, and content if it’s not gonna be made use of, you know, it is vital. These things that I’ve learned from my experiences from training courses, from the work that I’ve done, from the epic failures and the huge successes I’ve had, I wanna share those with people and make sure that those people do something with it.
Nathan Simmonds:
Go and create impact on their own terms with that content in the best way for them. These two days is, as you’ve learned from me over the last few weeks, some of it’s about mindset and the way that we approach this, some nuances in the things that we do, and also some technicalities of how I and we at MBM make sure that we put those mindsets and nuances in place so people can pick it up and run with it.
Nathan Simmonds:
A little bit of, it’s gonna be a little bit of a behind the scenes look into what goes on in, in my head as well as Darren’s and Andy’s and the team from MBM and giving you some of those inside techniques and tools and tricks that are gonna help you to be able to do that for yourself when you are watching them and, and taking part in the training with us, and also how you deliver conversations to people in the future. That’s what we’re gonna deal with. So today we’re gonna look at, I’ve got three key points I wanna talk about, key concepts around how we approach certain things that are gonna help you make that impact right now as the people are still just arriving as a couple more coming into the room right now.
Nathan Simmonds:
If we are looking at how we make learning stick, how you get people in your meetings, in your training sessions to take action on what you are saying and to make sure they embed their learning. What would you like to get out of today and tomorrow’s training sessions? What would your personal goal be to out of these two sessions to help you get your learners and your teams to make sure they take action and they learn what you are sharing with them in the question box. Let me know what you would like to get, what are your goals for these two days?
Nathan Simmonds:
How to move from training to practice. Nice. Thank you very much, Christopher. Good to see you again. What are the goals? Have you got? What goals have people got from today’s session and tomorrow’s session to help you make learning stick and turn words into action? How many key learning topics or topics are too many for one session? We’ll come into that as well. So finding out for yourself for, for your learning objectives. We’re gonna look at some more technicalities tomorrow.
Nathan Simmonds:
How we structure certainly certain things when we’re delivering content. Primarily we look for one, we look for a single learning objective, literally that making it stick. Karen, we’re gonna help you with that. Haley, what have we got here? Easy ways to find out the impact the learning has had. We can look at that, some of the technicalities in that as well. For me personally, it’s more, it’s that return on expectation rather than the return on investment.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s the emotional buy-in. It’s the tangibility of seeing certain things happening and seeing that relationships shift between leaders and team and, and departments. Making sure that they’re able to remember and use what we discussed. Absolutely good today. Mindset, nuances and, and, and some approaches. We’re gonna get. We’re gonna feed into some of these goals and then tomorrow we’re gonna look at some of the technical details and the strategies and tactics that we use to make sure that when we’re delivering those things are picked up and made use of.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s do this. So we’ve got about 15 minutes. The first thing is, is more of a pitfall and it’s a, a common mistake that we make as leaders and as trainers, and also as HR professionals when we’re setting up training for people. This is one of the key reasons why learning doesn’t stick with him. Who here knows what fin stands for? Let’s light up the questions box. What does with them stand for?
Nathan Simmonds:
What’s in it for me? Colin’s on fire. Ba bam, bam. In good. What’s one of the first things they teach in influencing skills? What’s in it for me? What they say is, put yourself in the other person’s shoes and ask yourself, what’s in it for me? Has it yes or no? Have people experienced this? Has everyone heard this one liner in their influencing skills? Yes. Good, good, good, good. I’m not surprised, but the problem is with, with them is with food. Good. We’re gonna, we’re gonna touch on a shift in that as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
What we, the challenge that we have in influencing skills is we go into the training course and they teach us, yes, remember what’s in it for me? Put yourself in their shoes and what, what’s in it for me? So we leave the training room, we go, oh yeah. So the thing that I picked up is what’s in it for me? And we walk into that into the next conversation, or the next project or the next session or whatever it is. And we still have that in our head. What’s in it for me?
Nathan Simmonds:
And due to kind of human nature and behavior, we tend to be naturally selfish in the way that we approach certain things. And the what’s in it for me just reinforces the behavior. So what happens is, is when we start to design learning and development programs, and we’re going into this, what’s in it for me? What I’m concerned about is, okay, what does the bottom line look like? If I put these people on a training course, what’s in it for me? What results do I get? How does it affect my performance? If we don’t do this, do I look good or bad? So we get stuck in the fin.
Nathan Simmonds:
The way that we adjust this and the way that we change this and we nuance this in ourselves, it’s the best acronym I could come up with was wtt and what’s in it for them. If we make them number one, first and foremost, we’re gonna change the way the conversation happens. And you may have learned this from me over the last few weeks, and if it’s the first time you’re here, one of the key things I ask people when I’m teaching how to give feedback or doing coaching or leadership skills is, who is the most important person in the conversation? If you are giving feedback or you are doing coaching, who is the most important person in the conversation? Who do you think it is?
Nathan Simmonds:
It is always gonna be them. And this is the most important part that we seem to miss, is when we’re designing a program, when we’re designing a conversation, when we’re wanting to create impact or changes in our business, is we need to take it away from me and make it about them. We, we change the me to we, we make the conversation, the content about them. What’s important to them, what content do they need? What support can I give this person? How can I make sure that the development content we’re providing makes them or is has them at the heart of every decision we’re making?
Nathan Simmonds:
‘Cause The challenge is that if we do this, what happens is people feel like it’s being done to them. And when we’re doing this, as we learned with Jeff, that one quote that I’m gonna carry with me for the rest of my life, a change inflicted is a change resisted. And if people don’t feel like that training is at, with has them at the heart of it is to their benefit and is focused on them being the best version of them, they’re gonna feel like that content is being inflicted upon them. Therefore they’re going to resist it. And even if they do come to the room, are they gonna fully engage with it?
Nathan Simmonds:
Not likely. One of the key things that we do at MBM is make sure that when we are preparing and designing that content, we’re speaking to our clients, we’re speaking to the l and d professional, the HR professional, we’re having that conversation with them. And at the same time, you know, we’re finding the, the, the needs and the best course of action. And at the same time, talking to the people on the floor as as well and having that conversation with them. How do they feel about it? What do they need?
Nathan Simmonds:
And aligning the the wants and needs with the desires to create content that engages people. Why? Because it’s always about what’s in it for them. Yes, I know this content is helpful in the way that I deliver it, but if it’s about me, they’re never gonna listen. Number two, it’s all about the leaders engaging. ’cause If they’re not engaged, they are not gonna help you to embed the learning to start with, to sow the seeds before you get there. And they’re not gonna support the ongoing nurturing of those skills and the development of ideas and, and seeing how those, how those fruits are gonna develop and, and, and be and, and come to maturity.
Nathan Simmonds:
The leaders have got to engage. The first thing they’ve gotta engage though is themselves. If any of your leaders or whatever level in the business are not engaged in their own, in themselves, in their own development, they will not be able to give it to other people. I’ve said here before, and I’ll say it again, you know, you cannot give more to others than you have yourself. Therefore, if a leader is not engaged in their own personal development, the people in their teams won’t engage with their own development.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, often as parents, you hear the line, you know, do as I say, not as I do. What do the kids do? They do exactly as you do. They don’t do, as you say. So the first thing that we need to do is making sure that all our leaders are engaging them with themselves. And then once they do that, they’re engaged with their teams. When you in, let me ask you a different question. Who here likes being told what to do? Who here today likes being told what to do? Speedy silence.
Nathan Simmonds:
Who here today likes being told what to do? Nope. Nope. Good. Am I, I thought there was a delay. I thought it wasn’t a trick question. I wasn’t sure if there was a delay on my wifi had gone down then normally no. But sometimes I just need instructions. Absolutely. That’s slightly different. But the truth is that nobody likes being told what to do unless it’s them telling themselves.
Nathan Simmonds:
So if we just have leaders telling their teams what to do, these people again, they feel like this is content is being inflicted upon them and forced on them. They’re being told they have to go into a classroom, but they don’t understand what’s in it for themselves. We have no right to tell anybody what to do as leaders, as business professionals. We, we can only do two things. That’s be the example and be the invitation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And through that demonstration and role modeling of these behaviors, people in our teams will start to understand for themselves actually what the benefit in this content is. When our leaders here, you know, in leading up teams and departments can then come back and say, I went on this training and I got this and I learned this and I wanna share this with you. And we, they start to teach that content, which is another thing that I encourage people to do because as Einstein said, if you don’t understand it yourself, sorry, if you can’t explain it to a 6-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when I’m teaching the content, I’m encouraging these leaders to go and share and teach that stuff back into their teams to support career development and individuals in succession planning. Then as they start to do this, the people in their teams will want to be on that training as well. Questionnaire, can you clarify what you mean by be the example? Absolutely. Live and breathe absolutely everything or your values that you believe in. Does the video and the audio sync up? Ah, be the invitation. Thank you very much Max. Matt, be the invitation
Nathan Simmonds:
Is be open to have the conversation with people by being the example and role modeling the, the, the, the tools, the ideas and the concepts and being available to have conversations with people about it. When they say, ah, where did you learn that? What did you do? How did you do that? You are inviting people to come to your world because they’re starting to see how beneficial it is for you as their leader, as the head of department. And you start to inspire other people’s actions by taking these concepts and taking yourself up another level.
Nathan Simmonds:
And people say, oh, oh, he’s doing so and so. Oh, he’s working on his personal development plan. Oh, he’s learned some coaching skills. Oh, he’s, they start to feel it and they will not. They people will be drawn to it ’cause they can see the benefits that you are creating for yourself with that content. So what we do is we help leaders to embed it themselves and then teach it to their teams to help them take it up. Another level. Number three,
Nathan Simmonds:
The fatal number three mistake pitfall that people make when delivering training content is they get generic trainers. They have a generic trainer inside a business. You know, maybe his name’s Bob, or it’s Jenny whatever. Apologies if there any Bobs or Jenny’s here. I’m just using that as a name to kind of give you an image. And one day they’ll be delivering how to fix an ice cream machine. And then next week you’ll be giving them leadership dev high potential leadership development skills to deliver.
Nathan Simmonds:
So Bob, one moment is the, the generalist over here is still the generalist, but over here fixing ice cream machines. And then over here is delivering coaching skills. And what people do in organizations is they think in the nicest possible way, they might be able to save a little bit of money by giving someone a training pack and telling them to go and get on with it.
Nathan Simmonds:
But what you start to do is actually lose a little bit of credibility. Why? Because you’re gonna get exactly the same jokes, one-liners and concepts from the ice cream ache, ice cream fixing day over here as you do in your coaching skills. The other side of it is people look at it and go, well that’s Bob. He’s really good at, you know, fixing ice cream machines. But coaching skills. What, how has he got the credibility? How has he built up those skills? What experiences is he bringing?
Nathan Simmonds:
What stories is he able, you know, an analogies, is he able to share that? Help build my skillset as some, an aspiring coach or an aspiring leader? So the problem is we hire in generalists rather than specialists. The key part here is, is we want to get experts in. We want to get people that are passionate about some of the core elements and the things that they deliver about.
Nathan Simmonds:
Whether it’s coaching skills, leadership skills, influencing skills, doesn’t matter, whatever that content is, you get a specialist, you get the expert. Why? Because to get an expert, you bring you are bringing in, in experience. You are not just bringing in the experience, you are bringing that person who is creating an experience. ’cause They will share stories, they will share events.
Nathan Simmonds:
And as I said earlier, they will share their epic failures and their amazing successes when they were learning these skills and how they were deploying them and employing them so that when those people leave that room, they can say that was true, that was genuine, authentic. And I can see myself in that behavior. I can see I’ve made that mistake. I can see how I can adjust that next time and get a better result for myself and my team and the business.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when we get into this third part here, the pitfall is we hire the generalist. What you want is passion. What you want is expertise. And what you want is someone that’s gonna create an experience, which is partly what we’re gonna talk about tomorrow. So that they can make the training experiential submersive. So when people are sitting in the room, they absorb why, because they are in it. When I’m teaching, and I’ll talk a bit more about this technically tomorrow when I’m teaching and sharing, I do to people what I’m teaching them to do.
Nathan Simmonds:
I break the models down in a very specific way so that actually I’m walking them through it without them even realizing it and then taking them through the, the concepts and the ideas play by play so they can feel it and they can realize how it’s worked on them. At a personal level that does not happen with a generalist comes with expertise and experience. Too many people though are playing a shorter game, which is why some of that learning or large quantity of that learning just isn’t sticking. It’s got to be embedded at a visceral level. 20 minutes time. So what have we covered? The first thing, what’s in it for me?
Nathan Simmonds:
This is where we need to be going. Whenever we’re designing l and d projects, whenever we’re designing a training course, a program, a conversation, even as a leader holding a one-to-one developmental conversation, always the question is what’s in it for them at any point. Now, if we’re starting to forget that or it’s about me, we’ve already taken it off and it’s already about us. It’s our ego leaders Engagement number two is making sure that our leaders at all levels are engaged top down, bottom, up in themselves first. So they can engage their teams and their teams will be filled, filled, pulled into that.
Nathan Simmonds:
Number three expertise. Get the right people to deliver the right content so that content sticks stays in and gets utilized. Tomorrow. Technicalities, we’re gonna get into some technical mind shifts and approaches that we use. I’m looking forward to sharing that. I will share the link for tomorrow’s session if you have not registered already for tomorrow. I’m gonna share the link in just a moment before then. What questions have you got for me about the key elements that we shared today? While I get that link questions for me now
Nathan Simmonds:
Just says, well there we got it. Link for tomorrow’s session there. Question come up. My challenge is leader engagement and comp, a company culture, rum, get on and do the job, how to overcome this. And it is one step at a time. So when we are looking at the culture of a company’s case of get on and do the job, we put ourselves in the shoes of the individual and we start to ask questions like, what do I do?
Nathan Simmonds:
How do I put myself in these people’s shoes to help them get on with the job? How do I shift my training sessions and my coaching sessions? So maybe they are more in the moment, maybe they are shorter and sharper. Espresso sessions, maybe 10 minute hits of learning. What we do at MBM as part of our training programs is we break our learning down into smaller chunks. Why? Because we know a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses would not be happy with us or are not happy generally to take people out for 3, 4, 5 days in one go.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, that has a huge impact on the business. And we also know that learner retention over a course of time, over a day, two days, whatever depreciates as you get through the day. So a lot of our sessions are, are shorter and sharper. One, one or two key points. So we make sure we’re embedding that and then we build on that over a course of time.
Nathan Simmonds:
So one, you know, is, is certain companies and cultures have their frameworks, understand what the restrictions are, understand what the rules of engagement are, and then ask questions. How do I get around that? How do I deliver in, how do I deliver even stronger as though even inside that framework. Hope that helps. Colin, question another question. You mentioned the leaders need to be engaged, but my leader is a, a wiffin class. How can I lead the leader?
Nathan Simmonds:
I would, my suggestion for this Christopher, is due to them, as I’ve explained here, make it about them. When we look at things like communication styles and when I’m teaching these certain elements is I make it about them. I may be looking for, you know, a route to find what I need to get ’cause that’s also beneficial, but I need to understand how, what I need to give to that person in order for me to get what I want.
Nathan Simmonds:
So again, I shift. I put me second, how can I give this person what they need so that I get what I need? And again, it comes back to that you cannot tell people what to do. You have no right to do that. When you start to lead by example, you’ll start to shift the dialogue. When you change the way that you speak to them, they’ll change the way that they speak to you. Hope that’s helpful.
Nathan Simmonds:
We have a new team starting, so need to start planning training before we have the opportunity to find out what they’re interested in. Absolutely. So you may not find out what they’re interested in when you desi, you potentially have a core chunk of content that you are gonna deliver anyway. You may have done this before. Put yourself in their shoes. Now see it from their perspective.
Nathan Simmonds:
What’s in it to them? What is the most important person, most important thing to that person there so I can make sure that they hear this content. How can I adjust what it is I’m saying? How can I, what examples can I include that are gonna help this person understand that I’m real, this is real and everything that we’re doing is for them.
Nathan Simmonds:
And, and that way is no. Well I need them to do this and this is for me and if they fail, I look bad. No. Okay, what is it I give to them that helps them to excel? What analogies is analogies and concepts and tools or whatever that are gonna help them to supersede and excel from this content. And asking the question that, how do I show up for them? What is it I have to bring that’s gonna help them go one step higher than the last, last quarter? We trained, as I’ve said before, what is the 1% improvement that you can make right now in what you are doing that’s gonna help them be even and even better to training group than the previous group.
Nathan Simmonds:
And right now, for those people that are in HR and l and d functions, you’re probably already thinking of a couple of answers. If you’ve got time, fire ’em up in the question box. Any suggestions? What’s one thing that you can do that makes a 1% improvement in your next training group from your last training group? What’s one thing you could do? Fire them in the question box and let’s get some ideas flowing between us.
Nathan Simmonds:
A little bit of peer to peer coaching while we’re doing this. Move from me to them. Absolutely ask the learners what they want to improve from for next time. So speak to the previous learners, get the feedback going, be the example. Good. Get yourself up there. Ask the one thing they take away from the session. Absolutely. Help them to embed it. Susan, you’ve been in the sessions obviously before because that’s one thing that I do.
Nathan Simmonds:
And right now we’re on that time, so I’m gonna finish on that question. Everyone, I hope you’ve enjoyed this session. Two questions from me then to finish this, on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being really great, really appreciative how valuable was today’s session? One to 10, one not at all. 10, absolutely. And then the final question from me is, what’s the one key thing that you are taking away from this session that is gonna help you be more incredible than yesterday? What’s the one key point that you’ve taken away from the ideas that I’ve shared that is gonna help you deliver a better and stronger result with your pe?
Nathan Simmonds:
What’s in it for them? Good. Get the expert. Absolutely. W good what’s in it for them? Absolutely good. If this is one thing that sticks, this is gonna be beneficial to your training. Have to role model the training. Absolutely. It’s about them. Absolutely. These are the things that you need to keep hold of tomorrow. We’re gonna look at a few more. Individual technicalities experts create experience. Absolutely.
Nathan Simmonds:
They bring in experience in truth, everyone thinks they’re paying for a result when you are buying a service, a product or, or whatever they, I think people, I think you are buying this. You are buying a result. You’re not. You are buying an ex an experience. I’m a leadership in career coach and there’s plenty of leadership and career coaches out there, but when people come to work with me, they’re buying the experience of Nathan Simmons. Not just the experience of years, but the experience that I create with those individuals.
Nathan Simmonds:
And as l and d and as hr. Again, being mindful, what experience do you bring to these conversations? How are you helping these people? What environment, what ambiance are you creating when you are delivering these conversations? Really appreciate you being here today. Thanks very much. Tomorrow we have the second part of this. As I said, we’re gonna look at technicalities. We’re gonna look at some of the nuances we, we utilize make, make the most of to help that learning stick. So you can use some of these tools, concepts, and approaches to help your delivery be even more incredible than yesterday.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely vital links in the chat box for tomorrow’s session. If you have not registered already, two other announcements are gonna make. As always, it’s mental health awareness week this week. It shouldn’t be just one week, it should be every day. I’ve also shared in the chat box there, there’s the link for the mental health coaching cards.
Nathan Simmonds:
You saw this on the previous training with our unique model mind that I created a little while ago. Mind is a model that helps leaders have the conversation with the people that they need to have in the best and most possible robust possible way. Karen’s already said purchase. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. If you want your leaders and your HR team to have stronger conversations, that deck of cards there gives you a set of questions that just helps your people to get to the heart of the matter quickly and to, to them, you know, the most focused way with, again, keeping that person at the center of the conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And finally, who do you know that would enjoy this conversation? Who do you know that needs to be a part of these, these conversations and these training sessions and would benefit from having a conversation like this with me and experiencing some of the training that you have this week, previous weeks around training techniques around the grow coaching model or even around the mind model. Who do you know that would benefit from some of this training?
Nathan Simmonds:
If you are already thinking of people, I’ve put a link in there for the virtual classroom. You can click on there and follow the link through and it’ll take you through. And it shows you a list of the soft skills and leadership development programs that we offer through virtual classrooms. Obviously we’re still physically distancing at this point in time. That will help you be the best version of you. Links available there.
Nathan Simmonds:
I would love to have a conversation with you. I hope this has been useful. I’m really appreciative of your time and I’m hoping to see you again tomorrow. Looking forward to sharing some of the technical details that are gonna help you deliver an even stronger result. Everyone, have a lovely rest of your day and I will speak to you soon.
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