One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war!!!!

I recently attended a training seminar in which the instructor provided the following exercise. (Of course it worked better in a face to face setting, but since I was suitably impressed with it, I thought I would share it will all of you as well – hopefully it will translate into text!)

The facilitator began by instructing all the participants to turn to their neighbor and face them. He then said -”Okay, now have a thumb war and keep track of how many ‘pins’ each person gets…you have 60 seconds.” Of course, all of you have been to these training seminars before, so there was a lot of sheepish laughter and a few rolling eyes, but pretty soon the small room echoed with overlapping calls of “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war!” Quickly the room was filled with laughter as everyone remembered how much FUN it was to try and pin someone’s thumb. I am sure you have done this before – or at the very least, you have seen someone have a thumb war before – so you can just picture the various contortions that everyone was putting themselves in just to gain a hint of advantage.

All too soon, the facilitator called a stop to the fun and asked, “Okay, let’s hear how many pins everyone had.” Once again, the responses started off as low mumbles….3 to 1…5 to 2…mumbles also soon gave way to laughter as the scores were tallied…8-0…15-1…no kidding…15 pins in 60 seconds. Wow! (Maybe we have a professional (thumb) wrestler on our hands…pun somewhat intended!) We thought we were done, but the facilitator had another trick up his sleeve. “Okay, now I want you to do this exercise again, but this time, I will pay you $10 dollars for every pin that you get.” Wow! you should have seen everyone’s eyes get bigger. The anticipation was palpable and manifested itself through people moving forward in their seats, licking their lips and just getting downright ready for some serious pins.

But wait. “Before you all start,” the facilitator interrupted, “I want to show you something.” He called up one of the participants to the front of the room and said, “Okay, let’s get ready for a thumb war.” They clasped fingers…with their thumbs sticking straight up…and then he said, “Let’s rotate our hands a quarter turn toward so that everyone out there can see our hands.” “Okay,” he said, “start the stopwatch…and….go.” Now the head fake (thanks Randy Pausch), the facilitator put his thumb down immediately and said, “Pin me….now let me pin you….now let’s speed it up.” By the time the stopwatch hit sixty seconds, we lost track of the number of ‘pins’ that each person recorded because they were moving so fast working together.

You could have heard a pin drop. Did you see the head fake? As soon as the facilitator mentioned that he would pay every participant $10 dollars for each pin – EVERY ONE of us made it a zero sum game. We all approached the activity from the viewpoint of scarcity. NOT ONE PERSON approached it from a view of abundance (Thanks Benjamin Zander!).

What a powerful lesson. How many times a day to we look at our learning problems as zero sum games? How many times a day do we view our projects through scarcity rather than abundance? This isn’t rocket science here, but it sure was an eye opener.

Next time you encounter a problem…take a minute and have a thumb war…maybe a more creative solution – one that enlarges the pie – will come to mind.

I’m not listening…la..la..la..la

Harold Jarche and Jay Cross recently discussed the idea of closing down the training department and getting out of the training business. Harold quotes Jay as follows:

“Next week, we will close the training department. We are shifting our focus from training to performance. Legal or the line departments can handle compliance. Any remaining training staff will become mentors, coaches, and facilitators who work on improving core business processes, strengthening relationships with customers, and cutting costs.”

I am certainly all for this idea of shifting the focus from training to performance. But it seems that we’ve been trying to do this for some time. Dave Ferguson will tell you that he has been out on the front lines with this message for what seems like forever. So will Clark Quinn. If that’s the case – namely that many of us in the learning profession believe in performance outcomes over training (and I bet it’s a LARGE majority that do hold this belief) – why have we failed so miserably in making our case to the powers that be as well as to the people we are supposed to serve?

Will Thalheimer may have some clues. In a recent blog post Will contemplated why it is so hard to get people to change their minds about things. He specifically mentioned the examples of anti-bacterial soap and vitamins. Basically, long standing evidence runs counter to people’s standard beliefs, yet even in the face of this evidence, they still cling to older beliefs and behaviors. In his final thoughts, Will says:

“…we often forget that long-held views are not easily overcome. We need to be more careful and more energetic in confronting them. It’s not our learners’ fault when they don’t make the turn. We have to make it our fault. We have to take responsibility.”

My question for all of us to consider is: What’s our responsibility regarding performance outcomes? If we know this is what we need to target, why can’t we get buy-in from other constituencies? Weren’t we ALWAYS supposed to be focusing on improving core business processes? Weren’t we ALWAYS supposed to be strengthening relationships with customers? Weren’t we ALWAYS supposed to be cutting costs?

Are you still using anti-bacterial soap in your training efforts – or have you taken a good hard look at the evidence and decided it’s time to make a change?

Two steps forward, one step back

Josh and Footprints by Vu Bui

I have a sign that hangs by my desk. It is simply black print on a white piece of paper. It says: The Prime Directive: Improve outcome performance measurably. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. In my opinion, it sums up my job quite nicely. The problem is that I can’t tell when I am successful and when I am not successful. Have you ever had that happen to you? Have you ever worked for a company and been unable to tell if you were successful or not in executing the mission statement?

My goal with each and every elearning course or training tool that I develop is make a positive impact on the user and to improve their performance. Sounds easy. Unfortunately, there are so many factors involved that it is difficult to pinpoint changes in performance that are directly related to the course. I have tried pretests and posttests. I have tried focus groups. I have tried coaching sessions, all in an effort to zero in on the true impact of the learning interaction. So far, I have not found a satisfactory was to track the impact of the training interventions that I have designed.

To date, the most rewarding feedback is simply annecdotal – the people in my Leadership Development Program (LDP) say that the courses and discussions are helping them with their daily management tasks. They have changed the way that do certain things based on the material that they learned in the program. Maybe this is enough. Maybe I am just being too picky in looking for a “scientific” way to measure this impact. Obviously this measure of performance change is all the more important in today’s economy in which the learning and development folks must show results.

How about the rest of you? Have you experienced this challenge as well? How did you measure performance change? Do you have any ideas to share that might help other L&D folks out? Let’s hear them everyone!