If You Design Training…
By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.
Every so often you learn something that permanently transforms the way you think about how you do your work. I certainly did a few months back. And if you design training, I think you may as well.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of traveling to Saudi Arabia to co-teach our flagship facilitation training course, The Effective Facilitator. I have been teaching this particular course for nearly two decades and we continually update our methods and instructional processes. Teaching in a foreign country is always fun and it is not unusual to have people positively overwhelmed with the rich content and highly practical techniques that we teach in this course.
So I was not at all prepared when, at the end of a practice exercise, a participant said,
“Well, obviously you didn’t teach that very well.”
M-A, as I shall call him, was talking about a technique that I believe is one of the more powerful concepts in our course: the secret of the starting question. I had just taken the group through our standard instructional approach which can be characterized as “What-Why-How-We Model-You Model. I thought I had use the approach extremely well. What I didn’t know was that I was about to learn something that would be a big help to me and to others who take the course going forward.
What-Why-How-We Model-You Model
For most of our courses, when we teach a major concept, we take a five step approach.
1. The What
We first explain what facilitators might do to be most effective and we typically use an example.
- In the case of the starting question, we explain that a starting question is typically used at the beginning of an agenda item to get the participants speaking.
- Many people think that the key attribute of a starting question is that it be open-ended by beginning with “how” or one of the five Ws: who, what, why, when, or where.
- However, we then show them the example below of two ways to ask a starting question, both of which are open-ended.
Question Type A: “The first thing we want to talk about are inputs. What are the inputs to the scheduling process?”
Question Type B: “If you were about to develop the school schedule, what information would you need to have close by?”
- Typically, the entire class agrees that the type B question is the better question.
- We take them through an inquiry process to help them to discover the reason type B questions are better: they build an image that allows the participants to see their answers.
2. The Why
After giving “The What,” we then explain why it is so important to ask starting questions in this way.
- We explain that the ability of the group to respond to a question is significantly impacted by the quality of the question asked by the facilitator. It is much like starting a fire. When facilitators use the wrong material to ask questions, they will get flickering flames that they have to blow on and feed continually to just keep the flames going. When facilitators use the right material, they quickly have a bonfire of responses with people hardly able to wait to make their contributions.
- When the facilitator draws a vivid image, the participants can literally “see” the answers, and can begin responding right away.
- Contrast this with the Type A starting question. While a Type B starting question draws a vivid image, the Type A starting question simply asks what you as the facilitator want to know. If you want to know the inputs to the scheduling process, you ask “What are the inputs to the scheduling process?” After you ask the question, the participants have to put their hands to their heads and begin thinking of answers. What are they doing? They are probably trying to imagine themselves back at their desks the last time they did scheduling. They are probably trying to draw the image that the facilitator did not draw for them!
- Unfortunately, this effort usually results in the room going silent for several moments – just at the time when the facilitator is looking for responses. In essence, due to the poor starting question, the facilitator has driven the room silent!
- Why use Type B starting questions? Because they enable participants to visualize their answers and the participants begin answering right away.
3. The How
We then show them a three-step process for building great starting questions.
- Step 1: Start with an image building phrase (e.g., “Think about,” “Imagine,” “If,” “Consider”).
- Step 2: Extend the image by adding two or three phrases that get the participants to visualize their answers
- Step 3: Ask the direct question that prompts the participants to respond with their answers.
4. We Model
After showing the three step formula, we then model transforming Type B questions from Type A questions by making common mistakes and asking the participants to tell us what is wrong with our Type B questions.
- For example, if the Type A question is “What are your objectives for this class?” we give examples such as the following and ask the participants to indicate what is wrong with them.
- “Thank you for being here. I would like to start by getting an idea of what you would like to get out of the class. What are your objectives for this class?” (Step 1 only)
- “Thank you for being here. I would like to start by getting an idea of what you would like to get out of the class. Think about meetings you have led or attended that didn’t go well. What are your objectives for this class?” (Steps 1 and 3 only)
- “Thank you for being here. I would like to start by getting an idea of what you would like to get out of the class. Think about meetings you have led or attended in the last few days. Think about the things that didn’t go well. The things that happened that made you think, ‘It would be great to have better techniques to deal with…’ or made you wonder, ‘How do I ….’ Let’s build a list. What are your objectives for this class?” (All steps)
5. They Model
- Our final step is to have them model the technique by individually writing a Type B question. We then divide them in teams to refine the Type B questions worked on individually to select one to write on a flip chart to represent the team’s answer. We then use a “rotating flip chart” process to have the teams review and score the Type B questions of the other teams.
Our Lesson Courtesy of M-A
I like our five step model for instruction. I think it is a nice way to introduce a concept, gain buy-in and help achieve learning transfer. So when M-A said, “Well, obviously you didn’t teach that very well,” I was intrigued. Here is the dialogue that followed.
Facilitator (Me) “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
M-A “Well, all of the teams had something wrong with their starting question. So obviously you didn’t teach that very well.”
Facilitator “You may be right. How would you suggest we teach it differently?”
M-A “In one of the best classes I ever attended, the instructor explained what we were supposed to do, showed us examples of good ones and bad ones, had us correct the bad ones, and then had us create good ones.”
Facilitator “That sounds like an interesting process indeed. Let’s step back and compare that to what we did. Did we explain what you were supposed to do and give your examples of good ones and bad ones?”
M-A “Yes. But then you had us try to create good ones without giving us an opportunity to correct bad ones. So this was too large of a learning gap. You need to have us correct bad ones first.”
Facilitator “I see your point. If we had asked everyone to correct the bad ones, it would have given you more practice at doing what was right. This way, when it was time to create from scratch, it would have been much easier. I get it. It makes sense. I’ll have to try that the next time.”
And indeed I did and the percentage of “good ones” went way up! Having participants correct “bad ones” as an interim step to creating their own “good ones” – if you design training programs, this is a simple approach well worth considering.
Interested in learning more facilitation techniques? Check out our course, The Effective Facilitator.
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies – The Facilitation Company, and a much sought after trainer, facilitator and speaker. He is a Certified Master Facilitator and a Certified Professional Facilitator. As a past president of the Southeast Association of Facilitators and a board member of the National Institute of Facilitation, Michael is a national leader in the facilitation industry. You can get more tips from either of Michael’s books, The Secrets of Facilitation or The Secrets to Masterful Meetings. You can receive a signed copy through our website.
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