But what I walked away with was overflowing renewed energy that far exceeded my expectations.

As I reflected on what made that time together so special, a few points of impact stood out. These points can serve as helpful reminders for us trainers as we engage with learners and work to sustain engaging, fulfilling, and impactful learning experiences. They are:

• Tuning in.
• Extending empathy for unique experiences.
• Strategically balancing structure and humanness.

Each of these three elements was so present in each of our interactions in our events. And at the end of the day it’s each of these elements that really help create human connection in our classrooms.

Tuning In

I’ve had the opportunity to experience and observe hundreds of trainers, and what I absolutely love is that the content and the structure of our courses is the same—but the discussions and the connections make each experience unique.

Sometimes as trainers we can be so focused on the answers we expect the group to give, the historical responses that people have shared, or even the number of responses we’d like to elicit from the group.

But this can distract us from tuning in to our learners. Individuals face varying habits, challenges, and Crucial Conversations, even if they’re in the same organization or in similar roles.

When you tune into your learners, you focus on the contributions they bring to the classroom and the real-life examples that they’ve shared with you. You acknowledge and honor what they’ve shared and let them know you care enough to loop back with them as you move through the content.

Tip: Create a running list of what your learners share with you. As you facilitate the class, use breaks, breakouts, or—if they shared in the larger group and the example might be relevant to the larger group—come back to their example(s) to talk about how a particular section or concept could be helpful to consider. When you come back to those examples, give yourself a checkmark for each touch point. Try to loop back to each person once or twice during the course.

When we know AND feel like people truly are tuning into us—and that they genuinely care—it expands our capacity to engage in the content, amplifies our ability to retain and use the content, and broadens the human connection that we make.

Extending Empathy for Unique Experiences

A social media content developer recently shared with me how they have built a sense of community. As they surveyed their followers, the feedback that really stands out is that they know they’re not alone. Our classrooms can be a community too, and one of the things that bonds the classroom community together in safety is empathy.

Both we trainers and our learners face real-life challenges that are unique and complex—but that’s why we’re learning together. We can use what we learn from one another to grow, evolve, and get better at being human.

Tip: When a learner shares their experience with the group (if appropriate), acknowledge their sharing—and that while life experiences can be similar, they are nuanced, and everyone can process them in different ways. Emphasize that we’re here to support them in the use of the content so they’re not alone in preparing to work through challenges.

We’re all human, we all have challenges, and we’re in this learning space together.

Strategically Balancing Structure and Humanness

As with so many elements of facilitation, balance is key. At Crucial Learning, we believe deeply in staying true to the integrity of content—and our research shows that when we do, learners walk away from the classroom with the ability to implement and sustain concepts taught in our classes beyond their learning experiences.

Strategically balancing the structure, timing, and content delivery with human connection is incredibly important. It’s vital to make those connections without steamrolling the training.

Tip: When preparing for training, designate key points to do two things:

1. Check your timing and where you are in the content.
2. Formally create space for tuning into your learners.

At first this may feel a bit technical, but it allows us to honor the contributions our learners make in the classroom while also not competing with the learning trajectory of the class as a whole.

Tuning in, extending empathy, and balancing structure all contributed to creating the powerful sense of connection and renewed energy I felt when walking away from our master trainer time together this summer. Each of these elements can help us as trainers to deepen our connection to the content and to our learning communities. Through those connections, we amplify our energy around the content, our human connections, and our impact.

The post Human Connection in the Classroom appeared first on Crucial Learning.

When it comes to organizational training, questions like these are often coupled with a variety of constraints: limited employee availability, limited opportunity to pull employees from primary job responsibilities, limited meeting time and space, and more.

These constraints are a reality of the training world. So, we often end up asking ourselves, how do we shorten our training and amplify our impact? How can we work with those constraints and, at the same time, preserve the quality of our training?

Here are some ideas.

Review Organizational Objectives
Before making any edits to course content, first examine why you’re offering the course in the first place. What are your organizational goals? What results do you hope to see?

The answers to these questions should guide you as you customize or shorten the course. If you’re bringing in Crucial Conversations® for Mastering Dialogue to create a culture of speaking up, for example, you won’t want to skip the skill Make it Safe.

Assess Timing and Opportunities
When you know what your objectives are, you then can think more about the learning experience and constraints.

• How much total time do you have for a learning cohort?
• What prework will your organization accept?
• Can your organization provide ongoing support for learning groups?
• Is your organization open to blended learning?

Answers to these questions will help you determine how to customize the course and what you’ll need to do to support learners beyond the initial classroom experience.

For example, you might adapt the learning to a shortened virtual course followed by a series of monthly webinars and reminders in meetings about the skills.

Create an Action Plan
After gathering information and reviewing your objectives, you can adjust your training. Whatever your objectives, whatever your time, whatever your ongoing opportunities—focus on your goals and teach the skills that will help you reach them.

Also, instead of trying to do more faster, try to make the most of your time with your learners. We don’t want to teach groups a multitude of concepts—we want to build new skills that support growth and change. To do that well, you’ll want to prioritize quality over quantity, or depth over breadth.

A long-standing principle for our master trainers is this: never teach a concept that you can’t practice. Instead of skimming several concepts from the course, teach the key concepts that support your organizational objectives. Spend the time needed for employees to gain insights and practice the skills.

For example, if your organization wants to improve accountability, make sure you teach the skills in State My Path. Help your people learn relevant skills and understand why your organization values them. This is how you can make the most of your time.

All of this said, remember that all of the skills are part of the course for a reason. While you may not have time to teach them during your classroom time, you can continue expanding your learners’ skillsets through newsletters/emails, lunch-and-learns, skill workshops, and more.

For more tips, download How to Customize Your Learning Experience. While this document is specific to the Crucial Conversations® courses, the principles apply to any course customization.

I wish you the best as you prep and plan for your training—and as you work to make the most of the time you have to help others grow.

The post Quality Over Quantity: Customizing Crucial Learning Courses without Sacrificing Impact appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Maybe it’s the season of life I am in or the fact that in just a few short days I’ll have been teaching this life-changing content for almost nearly 15 years. Whatever the reason, I know that learning is a journey, and I don’t ever want to lose my energy for problem-solving, passion for helping participants, and zest for growth in organizations.

So, as I began preparing for class, I asked a beautiful learning community of fellow certified and master trainers, “What do you do to stay fresh and energized, and to create the most impactful and meaningful connections in the classroom?”

I’ve gathered up what was shared with me, and I invite you to join me in exploring where you’re at right now, what your opportunities are to grow, and how you can continue to have an intentional impact on your participants and organization.

1. Where are you right now?

Think about the last time you were in the classroom. When did you feel incredibly connected to the participants and content? And when during the training did you not feel that same energy? What was the time of day, what was the topic, what are the challenges you faced? Examining where we are right now can help us identify where we feel solid and where we have opportunities to improve.

2. In what ways would you like to grow?

Content: Become a practitioner.
If you’d like to better live the Crucial Learning skills and principles that you teach, check out our webinars and newsletter articles. You may also find new ideas and examples to infuse into your sessions.

Don’t limit your learning to Crucial Learning, either. There are so many amazing authors out there who can provide even more insight as you facilitate parallel content. Reading a variety of authors can deepen our knowledge and generate new insights and perspectives.

Facilitation: Observe and adopt.
If facilitation is one of your opportunities to improve, consider observing a colleague or attend other parallel courses to gain insights into what is working for other trainers. This doesn’t mean you should necessarily do exactly what they do—you also want to show up as your authentic self in the classroom. However, there is lot you can learn simply by watching others. What’s working for someone else that you can see yourself doing? Do they remind you of things you could refresh about your experience?

If observing someone else isn’t doable, do you have a trusted colleague, mentor, or friend that is willing to sit in on one of your trainings to talk you through areas to improve, ask tough questions or offer challenging comments, or identify situations where you can be more agile? This step has been incredibly rewarding for me as I’ve stepped back into the classroom.

Connection: Learning is deepened by creating classroom connections.
Whether it’s connections between learners or to the content, when learners share experiences and see how the content relates to their world, they’re going to be more likely to use what they’re learning. So ask yourself: What new ways can you improve people’s connection to the content? Can you create challenges for yourself to pick up on what learners are sharing with you? Can you use what they’re sharing to deepen their learning experience? Can you tell new stories based on different groups that are present in the class?

3. What impact would you like to have moving forward?

Once you know where you are and how you want to grow, it’s time to look toward the impact the skills you teach need to have on the organization. Can you explore research and/or data that relates to organizational goals? In what ways do you want or need participants to develop?

How can we weave this content into the core of what we do as an organization? What can I do to have a greater impact? What can I do to prevent a stale or stagnated delivery experience? And how can I grow and challenge myself to continually evolve and become better?

The deliberate way in which we analyze where we are currently and how we can grow as facilitators—and then align our work with the long-term goals of individuals and organizations—all determine how successful we are in creating change through learning. As a facilitator, I have an ongoing opportunity to learn and grow and to ensure that I am intentional in the way we explore our growth as individuals, as a class, and as an organization.

The post Exploring Intentional Growth as Facilitators appeared first on Crucial Learning.

I’ve heard many trainers ask, “When can I go back to the classroom?”—and that’s often followed by waxing sentimental for the days when we could audibly hear the laughter in response to a video or see the “aha” moments as we glance around the room.

As we near the two-year mark of the pandemic, it’s become clear that life won’t return to the way it was before anytime soon. As trainers, navigating this evolution provides an opportunity to focus on our why. Instead of asking when we can go back, ask, “What are people in my organization experiencing in their world today, and how can I help right now?”

With this question, we can explore everything from addressing burnout to navigating different ways of managing employees in today’s virtual landscape—and most of these answers involve finding ways to talk about tough issues, manage changing dynamics, and create sustainable business solutions.

A few barriers prevent some trainers from fully embracing a virtual training model. The three most common ones I hear are, “I don’t think virtual training works as well,” “I worry about low engagement,” and “I just don’t like it—I miss in-person training!”

Let’s take a closer look at each of these three areas, starting with, “I don’t think virtual training works well.”

Crucial Learning began researching the impact of virtual training in 2015. We’ve found that behavior change among virtual participants has been immediate, “with participants using one or more of the skills ‘very frequently” after attending the course,” according to this initial whitepaper.

We’re continuing to research virtual training, including a survey sent last month to update our data. One respondent to this survey said, “Normally I prefer in-person training, but I feel that Crucial Learning does an EXCELLENT job of ‘keeping the learning sticky’ in a virtual environment. Lots of engagement. Lots of opportunity for trying things out. I don’t feel like I missed anything by going virtual, and I also feel it’s much more convenient. I’d prefer to not need to travel for training!”

Another respondent said, “I like both types of learning. I was amazed at how engaged the participants were throughout the program. Loved the buddy system! I met up with my buddy already, and it was great!”

The beauty of these learner comments is they highlight the ease of attending and the impact that the training is having.

Which leads to our second area of concern: low engagement. Nearly half (44%) of respondents of this recent survey rated Crucial Learning virtual training as more engaging than other virtual training courses they’ve attended. One in four respondents felt it was much more engaging than other courses.

What does engagement look like in the virtual classroom? It looks like insight from almost every learner. I’ve always loved the discussions and debriefs around the videos and challenges that learners were facing. Often, in an in-person space, that meant engaging with two or three comments per discussion. In moving to a virtual environment, we can hear from participants in so many different ways that feel most comfortable to them. Chats, polls, emojis, audio, and drawing tools allow participants to connect with the material and each other. As a trainer, connecting the content to learners’ challenges in a meaningful way also contributes to behavior change after the training has ended.

Finally, what if we just don’t like virtually training? That’s okay. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a reverence and love for our in-person classroom days or that I don’t also miss that connection. What I am saying is that there are other ways we can help people right now, right where they are. If we can tap into a new way to find our “why” as a trainer—why we do what we do and the impact we want to have—we can truly start to address what people in our organizations are experiencing right now.

Maybe we can build some truly meaningful learning cohorts across our organizations and bring people together to bond over addressing challenges. Maybe we can help others become grounded in skills that will help them navigate some of the most difficult conversations in their lives. It might be exactly what someone else needs right here, right now. It may not look the way it did before—and yet, if we can find our why, maybe we can have an effective, engaging, different-yet-meaningful learning and life experience.

If you’re looking for a more hands-on virtual trainer experience, reach out to your client advisor and they can connect you with an implementation consultant at Crucial Learning to explore solutions.

The post Love it, Hate it: Connecting To Your Why As a Virtual Teacher appeared first on Crucial Learning.

As I taught an Influencer course in January 2021, my class and I discussed the structural lens of Influence: what it looks like and sounds like, and how our tools, systems, and physical worlds impact our success. As we talked, we began to explore the adaptations organizations have had to recently make—especially those involving physical structure and space.

The more we talked, the more curious I got. I later reached out to some of our trainers and influencers to talk with them about adaptation and the sixth source of Influence, Structural Ability. One of our inspiring influencers, Richard Sheridan, author of Joy, Inc., shared his experience at Menlo Innovations, where he serves as CEO. Menlo is a software company focused on bringing joy to technology with a people-centric process and culture.

Here are a few things I learned from Rich on how the post-pandemic world challenges our traditional thinking of structural ability and what we can do about it.

Shift Your Thinking

According to research from the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at University of Chicago, “20 percent of all full workdays will be supplied from home after the pandemic ends, compared with just 5 percent before.” While none of us can know exactly what’s next, statistics like this suggest that our work structure isn’t likely to return to what it was.

Many months ago, we adapted in order to continue functioning in our jobs. And many of us did so with the idea that we’d return to working like we did before the pandemic. But the statistic above suggests this is not a temporary change. Many of us need to shift our thinking long-term. We need to challenge some of our deeply embedded beliefs about virtual work.

If you had visited Menlo Innovations pre-pandemic, you would have seen, experienced, and felt the attention to detail that had gone into creating a physical environment to “work best for the humans,” as Rich Sheridan puts it. How could an organization so reliant on the physical environment not only adapt to working from home but also function at a high level? They moved from sharing physical spaces to sharing virtual ones.

Menlo values project visibility and collaboration. So, they’ve continued their 13-minute stand-up meetings as virtual meetings with the same format—moving from one pair of work partners to the next—so that everyone can share updates in an organized, efficient way. They use the Zoom login order to determine who shares next, and it’s almost like the team is in the same room together. To give another example, their High-Tech Anthropologists® have switched from doing office visits with clients to doing video tours with cameras and screen-sharing. This shift has allowed them to create a virtual workspace that keeps them connected with their clients.

Distance Physically, not Socially

One thing that threatens organizational culture today is what has been called virtual burnout or virtual fatigue. Menlo leadership explains that virtual burnout is not a byproduct of virtual work, but of isolation. In order to ensure people stay connected and don’t experience isolation and burnout, Menlo employees work in pairs and use the term “physical distancing” instead of “social distancing.” This encourages accountability and personal connection. People get work done together, and they can use the virtual environment in their favor—to get some fresh air, take a coffee break, or snuggle with a furry friend before hopping onto the next task.

Distance also impacts the way that Menlo works with clients. Menlo has always done “show-and-tells,” where clients test a product or solution and the Menlo team follows along, evaluating the user experience. Before the pandemic, this was done both in person and via screensharing, but now it’s done entirely remotely. Even so, Menlo has continued to make this an interactive experience for clients that strengthens connection with their team.

Change the Environment

Our environment has changed and yet, in many cases, our thoughts about it haven’t. In our Influencer course, we use the phrase “Change Their Space” to highlight the fact that you can influence better behavior by removing structural barriers. In this new virtual workspace, instead of wondering “How can we make do?” ask yourself, “What bad behaviors have we acquired over the last year?” and “How can we make these bad behaviors harder and good behaviors easier?” Answers may involve finding new tools or reorganizing workflow.

At Menlo they switched from using a physical work board at the office to using an accessible online project management system that shows project status and what people are working on. This visibility helps people focus on the most important tasks instead of falling prey to multitasking.

You can target structural ability by evaluating collaboration tools, improving access to important tools or resources, or implementing cues to prompt behaviors. Menlo has done this many times over. For example, they’ve switched from using physical index cards to map out projects to using software that offers a similar user experience.

In the face of the pandemic, it would have been easy for Menlo to have done away with work partners, show-and-tells, and 13-minute stand-up meetings. But then they wouldn’t be Menlo—a company whose processes, culture, and work ethic all aim toward a single goal: joy. By focusing on how to use technology to work better for the humans, Menlo has adapted in a way that continues to showcase their incredible attention to structural detail.

As you begin to look at your environment, consider what you can do to take your teams, organizations, and communities from a place of functioning to a place of flourishing. Our changing world has challenged our traditional approaches. As we shift our thinking and respond to changing environments, we may achieve more than our traditional ways ever allowed.

You can learn more about the specifics of Menlo’s structural approach and the changes brought on by the pandemic by reading stores here, and by signing up for a free virtual tour here.

The post Shifts in Structural Influence: What Source 6 Looks Like in 2021 appeared first on Crucial Learning.

I think we can find inspiration in one of the essential principles from Crucial Conversations: examine your motives.

What were your motives the last time you stepped into your classroom? To share the skills? To “not mess up”? To have a fun learning environment? These are all great considerations that can help foster a good learning experience, but what if we also thought a little more deeply about our motives and added one of gratitude?

In Start With Heart, we talk about ways we can create motives of dialogue. The skills in this section help us:

• Assess the situation and interrupt feelings that might lead us to poor results.
• Reflect on our motives and explore what it is we truly want from an experience or relationship.
• Move forward in a way that aligns with our deepest values.

What if we did something similar the next time we stepped into our classrooms? With a slight twist, we can use a process to interrupt the stress of everyday life that might derail our presentations and better prepare us to step into the classroom with heart. Just like motives guide crucial conversations, motives influence instruction. We can take the principle we teach in Start With Heart and adapt it to ensure that we are cultivating motives of gratitude to set the right learning conditions for our classes. So, the next time you step into your classroom, ask yourself:

What am I thinking about right now? What am I feeling, experiencing, etc.?

If you’re like me, you’re thinking about getting your room set up and connecting with participants. Yet, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking about the fact that you didn’t quite get enough sleep and you’ve got an ever-increasing list of things to get done once you are home.

What do I want for my participants? What am I grateful for? How can I be present with this group?

Instead of staying stuck in the minutia of life (especially this time of year), I remember I am grateful to be able to what I do. I’m grateful that in a world where people often react viscerally to a disagreement, I get to teach and learn about how to interact effectively with others. And I am grateful for the opportunity to create a safe learning space to help others do the same.

How can I help learners get the most from this session?

Focus on the challenges your participants face. Each crucial conversation, accountability issue, influence challenge, or barrier to getting things done is nuanced. It’s important to pay attention to those nuances for each audience so you can speak to their challenges. You might lead a discussion at the end of your session about what skills participants are most grateful for, or find most useful.

Tapping your higher motives and letting them guide your instruction can help you create beautiful opportunities for dialogue and discovery.

And what better way than to consider what we’re grateful for? Whether you’re grateful for the opportunity to help others learn skills, grateful for your position, or even to get up and train that day, gratitude pays off. It pays for you and for your participants. As David Steindl-Rast said, “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

We can “start with heart” when we enter our classrooms by fostering gratitude. With motives of gratitude, we create opportunities for learning, application, and even joy as we work to change lives in our organizations and across the world. Next time you step into the classroom, I wish you motives of gratitude.

The post Motive of Gratitude appeared first on Crucial Learning.