Learning: The Magic of Making Training FUN

This is the one question I get asked very often. FUN is a facilitative factor to deliver content, a required condition. The answer to the question depnds on how much we can redesign the content to make it interactive and engaging.

After a long time, I return to blogging today. The last blog I wrote seems so long ago, on April 11th, 2010. Coincidentally, the two liner I had extracted from a Chinese proverb was: “A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.“ The reasons for not being able to write I guess can be explained by the mad routines we force upon ourselves. We claim to be busy, I guess I was too. And, it is such a useless word when we are unable to do what we want to do. Over the last few months, I have increasingly enjoyed the company of my four year old daughter, particularly after the very successful and hectic Asia HRDCongress 2010 Kuching, Sarawak. This evening after a long walk with my four year old daughter, I realised that I have been taking life too seriously. I recalled the words of three friends this late evening. Jeremy Spoor, a former colleague and a wonderful trainer from the United Kingdom used to talk about stopping to reflect once in a while. My frien...

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study. ~Chinese Proverb

I was there at the Sime Darby Lecture series with my colleague Subra to listen to Prof Ram Charan, renowned author and former Harvard Professor. Simple message: Leaders work on their basics just like athletes do. And, they are not shy of hiring people who are more clever than them.

The ASTD report: Bridging the Skills Gap: new Factors compounding the growing skills shortage covers the growing importance of talent to organisational performance and the growing skills gaps that threaten many organisations today. A Skills gap is identified as a significant gap between an organisation’s capabilities and the skills it needs to achieve its goals. Communities, regions and nations pay a heavy price when they cannot find or equip workers with the right skills for the right jobs. Jobs are changing and educational attainment is lagging; current global economic challenges may result in a jobless recovery where organisations may put off new hires and achieve productivity gains with existing employees. Such situations may provoke the social fabric prevailing in many developing and emerging economies. Each individual is responsible for his or her own learning if they want to gain high pay or keep their jobs.

I watched this lovely film today with my family. Enjoyed it immensely. The message do what you are passionate about and follow your heart resonated with me. Become an engineer if you desire so, become a photographer if you desire so not because of parental or peer pressure. All is Well were three most powerful words I took away from the film.

If you want to unlearn, relearn and change for the better, here is a movie you must watch. I watched Sharukh Khan's movie, I was so touched by the story line. My family enjoyed it too. The film is about an autistic person who shows leadership in adversity. He shows you to be yourself, taught me so much about what prejudices mean. I only wish every American Caucasian gets to see this film. The country that elected a non Caucasian to the country's highest office must be proud of this movie. It helps erase so much of the prejudices prevailing about Muslims and clearly communicates you cannot stop someone from showering their love and goodwill for you. A wonderful movie. Just made me sit up and recognise what I should be doing for the needy every day of my life.

What does the year 2010 hold for the learning and development community? We need innovations in Human Capital development to ensure learning stays on the agenda during these competitive times. ASTD and others list three key areas: 1. New ways to work with the Gen Y 2. 21st century Mentoring 3. Working with the Social evolution and breakthrough technologies

Budget and Staffing Cuts Continue The Bersin & Associates Annual Training Industry Survey is interesting; visit their website for more details. Some salient points: In 2009, the faltering U.S. economy continued to take its toll on training organizations. Companies cut their L&D budgets by another 11 percent from 2008 levels, with median spending falling to $714 per learner. Combined with the budget reductions that occurred in 2008, training budgets have fallen a total of 21 percent over the past two years. Spending was down across all company size categories. Small companies cut their L&D spending by 10 percent; midsize companies cut 11 percent and large companies cut 12 percent of their L&D spending. Many L&D organizations also shed jobs in 2009. The median L&D staff fell from 7.0 staff per 1,000 learners in 2008 to 6.2 in 2009. Small businesses reduced their training staffs by four percent, while midsize firms cut five percent and large companies cut eight per...

I have been honoured with the appointment as a Director of the Human Reources Development Corporation by the Honourable Minister of HR, Government of Malaysia. It gives me an opportunity to contribute to the development of human capital. The Human Resources Development Council manages the Human Resources Development Fund and aims to support human capital development. For more details visit their web site.

Do student grades determine their true potential? It does not, it looks like that there is huge gap between employer expectations and what the universities produce. This inconsistency between educational output, industry requirements and priorities pose a serious problem. Skills Invest Forum organized at the Dubai Knowledge Village assembled a team of experts to address this issue. A 2009 report titled “the Arab Human Capital Challenge – the voice of the CEO’s has lessons for all of us. The two factors cited as causes are worth further studying – the first is the need for the universities to partner with industry to identify needs and priorities, the second is for a review of the teaching methods. A joint study by the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings Institution and the Dubai School of Government states that a continued dependence on rote teaching methods stifles creativity and independent thinking. In July, we had the opportunity of partnering with a government linked co...

We talked about the three C's in the last blog. Brands must deliver. I have enjoyed travelling Emirates Airlines in the past but today was a nightmare. Growth creates challenges. You cut corners. I guess that's what happened today. The crew forgot to serve me lunch for 4 hours. No regrets, no apologies. Can you believe it it was the first time in my life I was served a quarter cup of mango juice with the promise she will return. She did not till I asked her two hours later. Yet, she did not say sorry. Pretty cabin crew but does that help deliver the brand. I doubt they understood the vision and mission of the airline or they were engaged. All that they told me in excuse was the new 777 Boeing aircraft was too big 340 passengers and “boy, it was full.’ They regret the flight was full. Lucky I had biscuits with me to ensure I did not die of starvation. Even if I had I do not think the crew would have minded that. They were just least bothered. Service recovery was even worse - I...

I read the article in the Research World - kind courtesy of my Saudi colleague Dr. Abdul Hai. The artilce talks about: The Culture - the internal culture of an organisation, The Community - how you engage them, and The Commercial - the primary focus of brands. The new world is about managing all three concepts.

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...

This morning I had the opportunity to climb the famous Hindu temple  Batu Caves . Close to 280 steps. It was a wonderful experience. I had not climbed the Batu Caves for the last 5 years. As with customary Hindu practice, we had gone there as a family to fulfill a prayer. The interesting part was when we climbed down the 280 steps; to quench our thirst, we decided to have a few Cokes at the local store. As we found no straws, we asked the customer service operator if we could have one and he just said “figure it out yourself, it should be somewhere there."  My wife had recently visited India. Her goal was to buy a handicraft piece in the government authorized handicraft emporium. She paid with her Malaysian credit card.It has taken three long months and we have still not received the handicraft piece.  Apparently, this evening's phone call revealed that they have just about got the government permission to ship the handicraft piece. The customary answer to a frustrating ques...

I was looking at the Learning Trends and I looked at the work of several people like Bill Kutik, Masie and Mary White. While most of the literature point to the growing use of e learning and web 2.0 tools, I was impacted by the numbers that more and more people are enjoying convenience in fulfilling their various goals in life including that of obtaining education. Increasingly more and more educational institutions are now offering online degree programs in response to the speed of life and unavailability of time. Online learning is gaining ground in the different parts of the world but is more popular than ever in the United States. A report revealed that online enrollment in the U.S. rose from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 2004. Flexibility in the delivery of online education has resulted in more people adopting e learning. The technology used since the introduction of e – learning has also dramatically improved. Current technology fuelled by web 2.0 tools allows greater ...

“It's the economy, stupid ", a phrase developed by James Carville, a campaign strategist during Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign in 1992 was the slogan that led Bill Clinton to victory.   While the 2008 campaign reflected President elect Barack Obama’s “ Change we can believe in”, the economy   is indeed worrying every person. And, the markets eagerly await the inauguration of the President Barack Obama on January 20 th , 2009. Newsweek reports that he economic crisis is far worse than what we think. Everyone is so fearful that I wonder whether the self fulfilling prophesies will take effect. When I was a student, I did not quite realize what an economic recession could do, life just went on. Now, when I look back, some of the worst economic recessions were during my college days. The first few years of work life introduced me to the world of economic recessions. I did an economic quiz though it is very American centric and achieved a score of 70% In Asia, the n...