Creative Training Delivery by Paul Harris

in the latest issue of T and D magazine from ASTD, Paul Harris highlights five "terrific training ideas" to make your delivery towards a business audience a little bit more creative:

1. "Laughing and learning" - Many business people are left brained, while most improvisational comedians use both sides of their brain. By learning how to use the whole brain (or at least tap into the right side occasionally), we can create more engaging ways to present information and break out of the PowerPoint mold. (Here at CramerSweeney, we are fortunate to have the resources of our own internal creative staff of art directors and multimedia/graphic designers!) Training is greatly improved by inserting some fun into it and emphasizing facts/information in creative ways - all with the goal of encouraging greater learning retention. (Take a look at a fun quiz that we created for our own website: Go to http://www.cramersweeney.com/, then click on the Smart Marketing IQ box in the lower left corner.)

In this article, Harris mentions that improv-based training helps businesses enhance how "people adapt to changing environments, process information, work in teams, and collaborate across functional and geographic boundaries...The methods address an ever-evolving range of client situations and needs." Improv games teach workers more flexible responses to situations.

2. "Hit me with knowledge" - Harvard law professor Charles R. Nesson says, "Poker is a great game for learning how to size up things for yourself, get intorisk management, and channel aggression. A student who can hold his own at a poker table, I have no worries about when they enter the real world."

My 14-year-old son loves poker. I suppose I should be encouraging him to play more often - and let him teach me Texas Hold 'Em! Nesson has even formed the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) among some Ivy Leagues, to promote poker as a learning tool. He also belives that poker skills can really help high school kids with math. Poker teaches you numeracy, probability, risk assessment, and subtleties vs. complexities.

3. "No, you first" - How can we increase socially responsible behavior on our roads? London and other Western European cities tried something new on their roadways. They removed traffic lights and signs so that no one would have right of way. You would expect chaos to ensue. Lo and behold, by making sure no one had the right of way, accidents dropped 44%! Drivers and pedestrians suddenly began relying on eye contact with each other rather than signs. Imagine roads with no signs telling traffic to stop, yield, or merge, and no lines on the roads to guide traffic - these are called "naked roads." These naked roads actually dramatically improved harmony on the roadway. Now everyone looks out for each other!

4. "Point-of-need learning" - Knowledge (more than training) is increasingly becoming the answer to what workers really need on the job. Learning content providers will need to become capability providers. Instead of providing customers with proprietary content/training, companies will be teaching skill transfer capability - as 80% of learning happens on the job, not in the classroom. It's all about bringing training to people's workspaces.

5. "A virtual community blossoms" - As I have written in previous blogs and Harris reports in T&D, virtual 3D worlds "have emerged as a bona fide educational tool." Organizations have begun using Second Life (a popular virtual environment) as a "place of engagement" - for employees and instructors to interact in formal or informal settings, and public or private spaces; role play; access resources; and engage in collaborative learning.