Last winter, I was on a cub scout camping trip with my
son. Me and a bunch of dads. The inevitable “what do you do for a living
conversation” came up over pancakes. I
hadn’t gotten too far into the “I design corporate training programs that
people take online” description before one of the dads started hissing at
me. Literally. He formed his fingers into a cross and said, “You’re the CBT Lady!”
Visions of a hair-netted lunch lady serving up sloppy
joes. Is that what I am?
He went on to describe the true horrors he had suffered
while forced to complete hour after endless hour of boring, locked down
elearning programs: “They make us sit through this long audio and
you can’t click next until it’s over and then you get to the end of the quiz
and you have to take all twenty questions over again because you got one
question wrong!”
I attempted to defend myself and our profession. “We try to do it better than that! That’s not
what we’re about!” I protested. My words
fell on deaf ears. This man had suffered
and would hear nothing more.
Weeks later he introduced me to his wife and I got the exact
same treatment. She works in the pharmaceutical industry and had similar tales
of woe and suffering at the hands of elearning. “Honey, she’s the CBT Lady!”
The point is, this is what a lot of people think of this
profession and the work that elearning designers and developers put out there
in the name of training. Is this what
you want your name on? Is this how you want to be known?
So before you go out and spend another minute planning your
next learning initiative, go out and find out just how what you’re already
doing is being perceived.
Do you know how the people in your organization currently
view your formal learning offerings? Is classroom training seen as punishment
for poor performance or a careless slip of the tongue? Or is it a breezy day or
two out of the office with free lunch?
What about elearning? Is it a task to be endured while otherwise
multitasking?
Conduct surveys or get an informal feet-on-the-street view
of what’s really happening. You may want
to walk around and check out the kitchens or break rooms. Are the answers to
the latest compliance elearning assessment posted on the fridge for all to
share? The message here is that this
elearning is just a box to tick rather than an activity with any actual value—or
any connection to improving any one’s performance.
Ask people what they think.
If they’re really being honest, you might get responses that will take
your breath away: “You’re the CBT Lady!”
While you’re on this fact finding mission, find out what
people really value in a learning experience and find out if your organization
is providing that. If not, how?
Ask people how they like to learn on their own time. Ask people what you could offer them to help
them do their jobs better.
Find ways to provide support and tools that give people what
they need and when they need it. Can you
embed performance support tools and job aids into the work flow? Can you use
social business tools to connect people directly to the experts in your
organization or provide a platform for asking questions and sharing knowledge,
information and best practices?
Look at your data and see what you can uncover. I heard a story of an organization that
developed an award winning elearning program with game-like features and
goal-based scenarios. They got lots of
hits and uptake from their European and Asian audiences—an unexpected
outcome—while the intended American audience stayed away in droves. Why was that? And then why was this
organization now designing a very similar program for their American audience?
Do we ever learn?
I’m raising questions here and not providing a lot of
solutions, I realize. But the point is to live the questions first. Find out what people really think of all of
the effort you and your team create.
Then ask the question, “is that the kind of work you want to stand by?”
Stop being the CBT Lady, I beg you. And then
let’s all go out and find better ways together.
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