Putting it All TogetherLearning Science for Living
Modern learning science should be applied to everything from leadership development to interactive design of training applications. That covers a broad set of topics, but if we don't train our reptile brain, then we are leaving the way we embed all our essential skills and habits to chance.
The research and knowledge has vastly improved our understanding of learning and development, To make that change, we must re-architect our learning systems and processes. So I choose 5 topics to start with; gravitas, persuasion, dysfunction, motivation, instrumentality.
challenge
The biggest challenge to using learning science is understanding that it starts with your body and not your mind. The body stimulus or somatic signals mix with your charged cognitions before you make any decision. So why not start there.
- Train the Reptile Brain:
The reptile brain is what runs the show. So building instincts, motor-reaction skills, and embodied cognition is the start. But to scale, you need frameworks, rubrics, exemplars, and assessments to gauge effectivenes. And you need to re-architect how you deliver that content.
- Determine the right North Star level:
Start with what the field and market needs are. Second use the field and market as a tertiary stakeholders. Its not what the organization wants a sales manager who wants his team to know, its what does the customer or prospect need the sales agent to know. And those KSAO’s are very different, require fast, intuitive thinking and behavior skills.
- Optimize the design chain for perfect learning, planning & production:
The diagnostics for progression must be built-in through the process of development, delivery, and deployment to stakeholders. Once you accept that you are going to work backwards from ready-state of the market, through assessment to content production, the work in measuring performance at the individual, team and organizational levels begins.
solution
The solution is to accept the change process paradox; implement fast, learn slow, and burn goodwill as you go. Transformational learning projects take time and require lots of quick wins, but with only steady progress full of set-backs and stumbling blocks gets the work done. While that may sound disheartening, it is reality and setting unachievable expectations is unacceptable.
Nobody trains the reptile brain, nobody focuses on the body before the mind, and nobody tries to scale embodied cognition for high performance work other than NASA astronauts, Olympic champions, and award winning artists.
The question is if it is good enough for NASA and the Marines, why not your organization?
results
In training hundreds of high level executives across North America, I found that making them try to make sense of their situations, and then putting people in real scenarios, real simulations, and making them stand and deliver against seemingly unsurmountable odds created the fastest and most enduring training transformation.
It is why our marines don’t practice with multiple choice questions. It is why our jet pilots don’t write essays on take-off procedures. It is why your surgeons don’t practice on PowerPoints. So why are we in the 21st century still using the wrong tools, for the right skills and not starting with the end result first?
I have done the statistics on using the training of champions and here is what I found:
By the numbers, the effort:
- Reduced recall time by 43%
- Decreased variability by 42%
- Lowered the risk of forgetting by 65%
- Increased performance for finalized skills 32%
Contact me as soon as you can or submit a business meeting inquiry online.
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