Some people never learn. Or maybe they just forget everything they’ve learned soon after they’ve learned it. Or maybe they just don’t have an opportunity to practice new skills. Or it could be they have no encouragement, support or resources when it comes to applying these skills in real-life situations. Maybe it’s all of these or something else altogether.
Why do organizations invest so much in top-shelf skills training programs, and yet do little to help people actually use their new skills in real-life situations?
Simply put, it’s a lot easier and faster to offer a training program and call it a day than it is to provide the needed support and resources to make learning stick.
Let’s take facilitation skills training as an example. The workshop draws rave reviews at the end of the workshop, but less than two weeks later, most people revert to the very behaviors and habits they’d sworn to change. Why?
It’s not just that people forget what they learned, though that may be part of it. It’s more about how people process what they’ve learned and the choices they make when it counts.
Julie Dirksen’s excellent book, Talk to the Elephant, provides a useful metaphor to help us understand the dynamics at play: the rider, the elephant and the path. (See links below.)
🚹 The rider — our rational, reasoning self. The part that nods along in the workshop and genuinely means it.
🐘 The elephant — our emotional, instinctive self. Bigger, stronger, and usually driving the bus, whether the rider likes it or not.
🌄 The path — the environment we’re operating in, which can make the new skills easy or nearly impossible to apply, no matter how willing the rider and elephant are.
🚹 The Rider – Our rational, reasoning self
What people know and will likely use:
Some of the facilitation techniques people may have learned are relatively easy to recall and use without discomfort or awkwardness. Examples:
- Asking open-ended questions at the right time
- Doing round-robins to create a more level playing field
- Using parking lots to capture off-topic but important questions and issues
What people know but will resist using:
People may recall some knowledge but may be uncomfortable putting into practice, so they resist using it. Examples:
- Silence after a question means people are thinking vs. a gap to be filled
- Asking “does everyone agree?” followed by nods isn’t consensus
- Calling out a dominant talker or a dysfunctional pattern assertively yet diplomatically is their job as the facilitator, not a personal confrontation
What people believe may stop them from using new skills:
Beliefs and assumptions are probably the biggest barriers to the successful application of new skills. Examples:
- “If I push for real engagement/consensus, the meeting will run long and people will get annoyed at me, not at the problem.”
- “If I stop the big talker or coax quiet people to speak, they may think I don’t like them, or they may not like me.”
🐘 The Elephant – Our emotional, instinctive self
This is the place where gaps tend to most prevalent, in large part because most people are not consciously aware of the real factors contributing to their inability or unwillingness to practice new skills.
- Identity mismatch: Many people who run meetings have primary roles like subject matter expert or manager. Facilitator is a secondary role. Their default identity tends to be “the person with answers,” and not “the person who creates an environment for open conversations and deep discussions.” The role of facilitator requires them to act in a way that may not come naturally, such as pausing for silence or refraining from offering opinions. This behavior may feel uncomfortable and unproductive, at least in the moment. (After all, if they have the expertise, why not share it right up front and save everyone time?!)
- Conflict avoidance: Acknowledging and directly addressing dysfunctional behavior (e.g., the dominator, the side conversation, the dead silence, the multitasker) will cause friction with at least one or two people in the room. Even the best training in the world can’t fully immunize people against that lack of ease and discomfort when conflict arises. It’s easier to ignore it or dismiss it and hope that no one else notices.
- Habits: Many meeting leaders may take the path of least resistance, pushing through to a conclusion so they can end the meeting on time. Examples: “I’ll just present this quickly and ask you to save ask questions until the end.” “Since I see no one disagreeing, let’s decide to move ahead.” “Given that there are no more questions, I assume everyone has what they need.” They may know on some level that they’re making unfounded assumptions, but it’s easier and faster to plow through the agenda than to have a meaningful discussion.
- Recent misfires: If a recent attempt to include all voices derailed the agenda, meeting leaders may revert to their usual “Who wants to speak?” which can lead either to prolonged silence or to extroverts taking over. Another example: If calling out someone for disrespectful behavior didn’t go as planned, the meeting leader may give a pass to dysfunctional behavior next time.
🌄 The Path – The environment we’re working within
The environment and organizational culture both affect the extent to which meeting leaders are able to practice new behaviors. Examples:
- The time allocation isn’t theirs to control: If the meeting owner or senior leader insists on booking just 30 minutes for what needs to be an hour-long conversation, interactivity is often the first casualty. Either that or the scope must be reined in. Guess which happens more often?
- Leadership norms override facilitator skill: If the most powerful person in the room offers their opinions before letting others weigh in, others may be reluctant to speak openly, especially if they disagree. Similarly, if the senior person declares a decision has been reached, even the most skilled facilitator may find it tough to insist on keeping the discussion open until consensus has been reached.
- No accountability loop: If meeting norms are routinely ignored, it’s harder for both the meeting leader and participants to be accountable. For example, if action items get logged but nobody checks them at the next meeting, a norm that calls for every meeting to “end with clear actions” gets skipped due to time pressure. If dominant people are routinely allowed to take over the conversation, others may give up on trying to speak.
- Insufficient technology: This one applies more to hybrid meetings, where there may be no easy way to capture live input from remote participants, so “include all voices” quietly becomes “include the voices in the room.”
- Lack of modeling: If managers and senior leaders are still running meetings the same old way, it takes a certain amount of courage to design and lead meetings that break the mold. And even those who championed the training might revert back to their old ways, especially if they’re not recognized or rewarded for better meeting habits, or if their bosses prefer the old way better.
If people who attended that highly-rated skills training workshop aren’t using what they learned, it’s probably not just because they forgot everything as soon as they walked out the door. It’s more complicated than that. Even when they can recall which approaches might work best in certain situations, they may take the path of least resistance, especially if everyone around them has reverted to the status quo.
If you want to find ways to help skills training participants apply what they’ve learned more easily, quickly and safely click here for my new “Facilitation Skills Learning ” tip sheet.
Links
Downloadable resources from Guided Insights
Facilitation Skills Tip Sheet – downloadable PDF designed to give managers and L&D professionals practical ideas to help make learning stick. This one focuses on facilitation skills, but it can be useful for any kind of training intended to change behaviors.
Keeping Virtual Learners Engaged, By Design – downloadable PDF with dozens of tips for creating an engaging instructor-led virtual learning program by design
Past Communiques
- How Feedback Can Stunt Growth, Stifle Learning and Encourage Mediocrity
- To Design Really Engaging Virtual Learning Programs, Throw Away the Old Rules
- Flip Your (Virtual) Meetings – Learning from Our Best Teachers
- Accelerate On-the-Job Learning With (Virtual) Peer Roundtables
External resources
- Two of my favorite books on adult learning design, both full of brilliant, practical tips by author Julie Dirksen: Talk to the Elephant and Design for How People Learn. Highly recommended!
- Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Dan and Chip Heath, where I first learned of the rider-elephant-path metaphor
P.S. This newsletter never was, and never will be, written with AI.
