Learning: The Magic of Making Training FUN

I happened to work with a CEO of a major Insurance company in Malaysia, who happens to be a good friend too.  His Secretary looked Chinese but the name sounded Malay. My colleague and I asked her if she was Malay and her answer shamed us.  She responded: I am a Malaysian and a human being. Her ability to look beyond race and at how we can promote the value of the human spirit stumped me. While she was an ethnic Malay, my colleague was Chinese and I was Indian, her ability to reflect human values even though she was young thrilled me. There is still goodness left in this world.  I learned so much about values from this young lady.

Three Objectives Let us review what performance management is designed to do.  The principle of such a business process has three objectives:  Performance Planning & Alignment: First, to develop and align goals that is essential to implement business strategy. This must link with the organizational structure and positions. The creation of a position is not without a reason. Organizational structure is nothing but a series of relationships/positions designed to successfully implement strategy. Second, to create consistent goals which align employees with managers and business units and align these goals with the organization’s overall priorities?  These goals also help employees themselves stay focused. Coaching and development:   This process enables a structured process where managers are able to provide coaching and development. This can be supported by Learning & Development organization, leadership development, and other organizational developmental processes i

Performance Appraisals do not work. That seems to be the conclusion of many authors including Deming and Drucker. They have proposed various alternatives around the concept to make it work. During the last few years, we have studied the utilization of the various performance management programmes used by organizations and the software programmes available. There is little doubt that organizations struggle to implement a precise process which will best reflect their organization’s goals, culture, and desired management style. Most organizations have difficulty with the performance management programme or the software. This leads to organizations designing a process around the system features and capabilities. The rapid growth of performance management off the shelf software is creating quite a bit of difficulty for organizations. Research organizations studying HR systems believe a major shift is taking place. While enterprise systems are being gradually edged out because of the ava

Is the use of FUN something that trainers, facilitators or learning specialists can avoid without affecting learning results? Research shows us that it is highly unlikely for great learning results when the delivery is devoid of FUN. In my 30 over years of experience in delivering sessions and attending training, I have found the use of FUN to be a very powerful tool to gain learner attention, promote participation and accelerate retention. The resistance towards the use of FUN tools maybe largely attributed towards the stereotyped perceptions of FUN. Many years ago, the late Dr. Surjit Singh, a Malaysian trainer differentiated the use of FUN and being funny in a jovial manner. Rather than share the lengthy research background, suffice to say for now, we can certainly say the use of FUN is a purpose driven activity; being funny is largely trivia without a purpose, when taken in the context of learning. How many times have we heard participants murmuring that while the trainer is a con