Acronym time! E.I.R.

Idon’t teach. I lead an experience. I don’t facilitate classes. I facilitate workshops. I always get asked about principles for an excellent experience and it’s time to tell my secrets. This is a secret I have formulated over many years and with many other great facilitators. So here it is: E.I.R, no not the Norse mythology goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skills. It is the acronym I use a lot when I facilitate learning 101 and always use this as a basis when I build a workshop. What does it mean, you ask? Engagement, Involvement, Retention! It’s the core of a successful workshop and helps begin behavior change to make the experience memorable.

E – Engagement Contrary to popular belief a workshop does not start on a Tuesday and end on a Thursday. It begins a lot earlier than that. Now I’m not talking about actual classroom time, or virtual time. I’m talking about the time when we first connect and start the learning process. Engagement, a word that is rooted in the idea of participation and the process of the experience, means starting early. It means peaking the interest of our learners before we ever get to the classroom. Have you ever showed up to a class and had no idea what you were doing there? Maybe you had no idea what the class was about, or what you were about to learn. This is a fail; a failure of our learning systems to adequately get our learners prepped and engaged early in the learning process. However, we can overcome this. We can learn from those past opportunities and find ways to engage our teams before we get to the classroom. Engage your learners with communication weeks or months before the experience starts. Provide pre-learning activities, objectives, and logistics for the workshop. Have them watch a micro-learning video, or share a teaser of something fun the team will be doing. These are engagement techniques. This starts our process. This gets our learners imagining, talking about, or even learning and engaging early! It’s a big win when a learner shows up Tuesday for our experience all ready to learn, and having an idea of where this journey is going to go. I (arguably my favorite!) – Involvement Involvement is honestly the most fun, but definitely one of the most tedious parts, of the process. Once learners physically arrive at the workshop, you need to involve them from the second they walk in the door until the end of that journey. This can be as simple as a “hello, how were your travels?”, a quick handshake, or a high five. It is important to set the tone early that this is not a sit and listen type of experience; it’s time to get energized and get engaged. (Cue the YouTube video of the teacher that has a personalized handshake with every student…seriously go watch it. It’s awesome!) Involvement is about keeping the learning active both mentally and physically. This can be done in so many different ways: discussion, questions, games, activities, team challenges, white board activities, reflections, etc, but yet we struggle with this in our workshops. We forget the audience, what they need, and why they came. We just want to get through all the slides or show our expertise. We don’t remember that the experience is about the learner and we need to focus on them. When we lose our focus, we lose our audience…and it’s very hard to get them back. You don’t need to exhaust everyone with high powered energy for 8-straight hours, asking an overload of questions and doing activities straight through, but you do need to mix it up to keep the learners constantly guessing about what’s next and keep them excited about the journey. Did you know that covering more than 10 PowerPoint slides over an hour period is not involving our learners? However, if you pair a few, simple, clean slides with 2 great discussions and a team activity…that is exactly what the doctor ordered! It time to step it up and involve our learners during our experiences as soon as they walk in the door until the last person leaves. R – Retention This is what we want to achieve at the end of our journey, or as the learner goes off into the world. Retention is remembering or applying the main learning points, or honestly anything from the experience! How do we do this? Wow this is a big question, one that plagues learning leaders everywhere. We need to use a variety of different techniques. Typically, retention techniques begin during the workshop and then are carried on long after the training is over. We use techniques like repetition, applying mnemonics, asking questions, completing a practical demonstration, or administering a test. Techniques also included assigning an action item or providing key takeaways. This starts our retention process. However, after the class is over, we cannot stop there. We need to keep the learner aware of the topics we discussed. We need them to retain the information we provided. Have you ever had a follow up call 30 or 60 days after a class to see how things are going or follow up on those action items or takeaways? Do you find ways to send emails with post-micro learnings or reminders? Have you tried to pair up people in the class to practice a technique you shared during the experience? These all work! The learning needs to continue. Remember, it’s about the learner and we need to make sure they are successful now and in the future.

Three Ripples to take away! 1. Engagement – Engage early, start the process before you start the workshop 2. Involvement – Involve often, keep the learner active 3. Retention – Give the learner ways to retain the information that you provide