Have you decoded the learning maze?

Let me share with you a lovely learning experience that I had in the recent past in ‘Unleashing Excellence’ session. The session is designed to train participants on how to change customer experience by understanding the nuances of what drives the behaviour to attain this. Though the program was predominantly focused on unleashing ways and techniques to achieve the objective stated above, it was truly an eye opener on how the driving factors to meet the outcome can be the ones we thought were of no or less significance; for e.g. your behaviour, body language, communication style and methods. These factors have a great deal of influence on the people you interact with regularly.

Have you ever wondered the impact you can have on someone or how you can influence their behaviour, if you’re extremely rude or even display a feeling of indifference toward them for reasons known or unknown?

Believe it or not, this can have a tremendous domino outcome on their day.

Some of the reasons this learning experience will always be a part of me are:

The session maze:

Do you remember the age old TV programme, ‘The crystal maze’? The entire show kept you at the edge of your seat watching the participants manage the task at hand with the clock ticking. Similarly, this sessions and its experience, while simple, had effective ways of the content being delivered. The day started out just as any other, however before I knew it, the contents of the session were outlined and introduced so well through active participation in the classroom. The facilitator made things happen so seamlessly. Each level of the session peaked in complexity and this triggered more participation and excitement amongst us to unveil the upcoming discussions.

My learning while making our way through the maze:

Each section of the training session truly had a ‘Eureka’ moment for each of us.

The constant flow of dialogue, either between the participants or between the facilitator and the participants, led each point of discussion to a well-established and fruitful learning. The acknowledgement and appreciations received motivated us and prompted more participation.

While the simplicity and approachable attitude of the facilitator, added to the fun and frolic of the learning, her organized procedure to present the content made it easy to understand the reasons to implement the change and its long term gains. The set of instructions for each activity were so well explained that it was beyond easy to follow them ‘to a T’. There was a constant build in our enthusiasm so much so that it led to chaos, but an organized chaos. This only let self-learning prevail instead of the facilitator becoming the teacher in the session.

My present outlook:

Attending this program entirely changed my approach and viewpoint toward driving the change I desired within the team members or with my clients.

I practiced the learning and till date, attempt my best to practice it without fail, to have meaningful conversations and impactful learning delivered.

Being a part of the transformation process made the changes required easier and quicker to implement.

Try this:

I'd like for you think about the most amazing learning experience you have ever had. Which one was it? For most of us it maybe more than one such experience. However, since we are allowed only one pick, select the one that stands out the most for you. Hoping the one you thinking of is a good one, are your reasons similar to the aforementioned pointers?

While not all of us would be from the training fraternity and hence you think this will not apply to you, think again! In our daily lives, the amount of communication that happens either professionally or personally, there is always a learning that we would like to impart in one way or another. Taking an example in our professional lives, even as an individual contributor the knowledge transfers or briefing sessions that are conducted needs you to apply the guidelines. As leaders, the constant interactions with your team in the form of team huddles and best practices sharing will call for the implementation of these simple guidelines. As colleagues, friends, parents we need to understand that if the person listening to us does not see the value add or feels that it is a one sided conversation, the purpose is lost.

While it looks so easy to follow these tips, most of the time, we get carried away with the topic at hand, that we skip almost all the points to ascertain that the meeting was effective. This may leave the audience with little or no motivation to apply the learning.

The next time you plan any gathering  or even an individual one-to-one, keep in mind the feeling you have when you reminisce over your awesome learning experience and put together a programme to leave your audience with a learning experience so memorable that all they do is smile and say,  ‘That  was one session I will always remember'.

I’d say go ahead right now and start discovering your learning maze. All the best!