All learning, great and small
It seems that the ‘classroom learning is dead’ idea is going to be part of the l&d industry’s next big sell. Look out for a leap in informal learning consultants.
This article makes some good points, but the ‘training is dead’ headline feels a little bit like unnecessary hyperbole. I added my tuppence worth.
I wrote the following for Londonist in 2006, just after Sol Campbell had walked out of Highbury during half-time in his club’s game against West Ham. It was described as a meltdown at the time and there were all sorts of theories flying around as to Campbell’s state of mind, but no explanation was given by the man himself and I doubt that he will ever feel the need to explain himself to the media now that he’s left Notts County in a hurry. Sol keeps his own counsel and I admire the way he’s maintained a level of privacy. He’s a maverick of sorts, but he deserves our respect.
Still waters run deep is how the proverb goes. And there are few athletes as still, as impenetrable as Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell. Here is a man who has spent the last thirteen years defying lazy footballer stereotypes whilst going about his business of de-constructing attacking moves with a level of stealth that is almost perverse in its ability to go unnoticed. All the while his sphinx-like visage and ice-cold demeanour have combined to keep us all at bay and denied us the opportunity to proclaim ‘this is what Sol Campbell is about, this is who he is, this why he was good and this is why he is now bad’.
He has let the mask slip though. But only twice. Both times playing for England in international tournaments, when he thought that he’d won the contest for his country, only to have the glory snatched away. In the anguish writ large over his face, we saw just how important it was to this man to win and to set the standard on the global stage. Setting the standard is exactly what he did, as Campbell was voted into the ‘team of the tournament’ on both occasions by the real experts, the technical study groups of FIFA and UEFA respectively. Rated as the best of the best, but not able to take his team all the way, and in those fleeting moments, the pain really showed. The only clues that we have been given then, is that Campbell cares very deeply about playing for his country and after the trauma of Wednesday night, the received opinion is that he is going to be denied the opportunity to make any kind of impression in Germany this summer.
What is wrong with Sol then? Has he lost control? Too old? Too rich? Some Arsenal fans might have it that he is no longer committed, that he is no longer making an effort. But how can you say that of a player whose gift has always been to appear as if he does not need to make any effort at all? Certainly, Campbell appears to have lost focus, but we have no idea why, and perhaps the fact that he has never revealed his life to us, might remind us that players do have a life away from the arena and that like anyone, their focus can be disrupted by the ups and downs of the everyday.
Don’t write him off too quickly though. Towards the end of the 2002/03 Premiership season, Campbell was red-carded for apparently elbowing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He missed the last four games of the season and could only watch as the title was conceded to Manchester United and his teammates lifted the FA Cup without him. Sol came back from that, and we’ll back him to come back from this.
He can’t pass though.
There is nothing new about learning and development professionals, be they coaches, facilitators or l&d managers, borrowing ideas and techniques from the sporting world. The most obvious example is business or workplace coaching, which has a good portion of its roots in the practice of traditional sport coaching and has been heavily influenced by the thinking of people like Timothy Gallway (author of The Inner Game), who successfully transferred their thinking from pitch or court to the boardroom.
To be honest though, the business world has been looking across to sport for inspiration for decades, be it in the hope of finding new ways of influencing, motivating, developing or inspiring their employees or perhaps just to have a reliable way of providing hospitality events for their clients. The traditional, male-dominated workplace saw itself reflected in macho sporting environments and felt comfortable leaning across and plucking out endless inspirational quotes and team building exercises.
But this isn’t a diatribe against the macho workplace, this is an attempt to pick out the most positive aspects of the sport/workplace interface, which I think are plentiful. In my own experience, what I’ve learnt as a football coach has had a fundamental effect on my abilities as a learning facilitator and a workplace coach. Designing and running training drills with a collection of unruly footballers has taught me so much about group dynamics, learning structures, delivery styles and self-confidence, and I savour the opportunities I have to take new ideas from one field to another. Football has heavily shaped my thinking in the workplace and I strongly believe that looking to another environment, any environment, is critical for anyone who wants to be better at what they do.
As a football coach, I’ve been very aware how attitudes to the ‘matchday warm-up’ have changed over the years. Back in the day, before a game the coach or team manager would send the players out for a few laps round the pitch and a bit of shooting practice and that would pretty much be their lot. Ideas around this area quickly began to develop, as the thinking was driven by the visionaries constantly looking for new ways to seek an advantage over their opposition. It soon became apparent that players would benefit from a warm-up that included a range of exercises, some designed to stretch the muscles and some to get their heart-rates up to the level they would be experiencing in the match. Coaches had begun to recognise that if their players were to be truly ‘match-ready’ and able to make an impact from the first whistle, then they would need a warm-up that involved exercises which replicated the kind of movements they would be making in the game itself.
If this weekend you were to go and watch a Sunday league game of football at your local path, you may well see a team warming up in the more traditional way, running few some half-hearted stretches before standing in line and taking turns to take an unopposed shot against their own goalkeeper, despite the fact that it is highly unlikely that they will face a similar situation in the game. If however, you go and see the Arsenal, you will see a warm-up which incorporates a succession of high-intensity drills where every player is able to replicate the movements and situations they will soon be finding themselves in. One team is warming up in a thoroughly amateur way and the other is pushing boundaries and finding new ways to continuously improve.
I think that the classic ‘icebreaker’ exercise should be viewed the same way. These kind of exercises are classically used at the beginning of a group learning session, they can have a variety of purposes, but usually it is to engage the group, bring them together and get them ‘warmed up’ for the activities that will follow. Unfortunately, it is precisely this kind of activity which we have often seen being parodied in programmes like ‘The Office’, trite and embarrassing games which the trainer has picked out of a ‘1001 Icebreakers’ book. Learners often dread them and see them only as an opportunity for unwanted exposure or a necessary evil that need s to be endured before the proper stuff can get underway. For my own part I now feel compelled to start every warm-up exercise that I deliver with a ‘I promise that this won’t be too painful or cheesy’ line, in an attempt to limit the pre-conceptions and anxiety that I know exists.
These kind of exercises are used for a good reason, it is important to get the learning group engaged, relaxed and focused on the work ahead, and a short sharp and effective drill is often the best way to do that. My contention is that to get the most out of this kind of activity, you should design a warm-up exercise in which you give the learners the opportunity to replicate the skills they are going to be using in the work ahead. If for example, you are delivering an away-day for a team of directors, in which they plan to be analysing the external environment and identifying possible risks, then create a warm-up exercise that includes those skills. You can (and should) keep it simple, you can keep it light, but whatever you do, make sure that it’s relevant. Even if your warm-up exercise consists of nothing more than the same question directed at each learner, then tie that question in to the aims and objectives of the entire session.
The reason that the icebreaker has become so poorly thought of is that too often trainers and facilitators have used exercises that have no connection to the rest of the learning event. Delegates aren’t dummies, if they can see that (for instance) your carefully constructed bingo exercise has no link to the networking skills course you’re delivering then of course they’ll view it as nothing more than a frivolous bit of fun. And that’s at best, at worst they’ll feel condescended to and may start to disengage.
I prefer the aim high approach. Challenge your learners and get them focused and sparking off each other from the moment they enter the classroom. If you can get them match-ready, then they will produce the results you are looking for.
Having taken a look at the concept of sanctuary, it’s now time to get cracking with the second of my three ‘mini-projects’, which was also inspired by reading ‘The Mentor’s Book’ by Mike Pegg. I want to take a closer look at the following idea:
Creating a compelling picture of perfection.
This is a technique that I encountered throughout the time I was studying for my coaching diploma, that the individual is much more likely to achieve their goal if they take the time to transform that goal from a simple statement into a fully-formed and fleshed out vision for success. That may sound a bit corny, but it’s something I’ve seen work in practice, both in myself and when working with people I’ve coached. It’s not a complex process, it requires nothing more than exercising your imagination in a way that is fun and rewarding. I’m tempted here to launch into a detailed definition of this process, as I see it, but instead I’ll hold back from that and let my thoughts develop, allowing myself be influenced by others as I build a much fuller understanding of what the phrase above means to me.
I do however, have a clearer idea of how I’m going to go about building that understanding. To begin with, I’ll shoot a short video, where I will attempt to explain why I find this conecept so interesting. Then, I will attempt to use social media to collect some input from others. Rather than opening it too wide, I’m going to see if I can target a few people whose thoughts I’m really interested in and see if I can co-erce them into making a short video for me. I’ll ask them three core questions:
Next step would be to see if I can take what I’ve learned from these people and see if I can improve the way I create my own pictures of prefection. I’m also toying with the idea of drawing some of these pictures and asking a wider selection of people for their own examples, but I’ll see about that when I get to it.
I feel quite excited about this one, as I’m hoping that I will get a lot out of it. We. Shall. See.
As the title suggests, these are my first thoughts on a topic on which thoughts are being exchanged with much more seriousness by various learning professionals and academics. I’m just happy to sneak into the back of the lecture theatre, check on what’s going down and then leave early so that I can take up residence in the bar, where I will spout out my half-formed ideas to anyone who’s willing to listen.
The topic in question is the supposed death-knell of the classroom (within the context of adult learning), bludgeoned into oblivion by the combined might of informal leaning and e-learning. Right now, I don’t know enough about informal learning to be able to make a judgement on its relative merits and neither am I looking for a debate on e-learning. What I am prepared to state with conviction is that there will always be a place for classroom-based learning.
As I see it, the classroom provides the opportunity for learners to come together and work within a safe environment where they can practice skills, build confidence and raise their own awareness and understanding. Of course, for this kind of learning to occur, the right conditions need to be in place. You’ll need a skilled facilitator who can put in place an appropriate structure and can provide a range of learning methods and tools when needed. That facilitator will need to support the learners in designing their own environment, supporting them to put boundaries in place and identify their desired outcomes. Everything needs to be in place for the good stuff to happen.
But the classroom can only take the learner so far.
Here’s a clumsy analogy. I’ve got a long cycle ride coming up at the end of September. Oxford to Cambridge, 90 miles in one day and lots of hills. Over the last five weeks I’ve only used my bike to go to the shops, but what I have been doing is going to a spin class at the gym every weekend and thrashing away on a stationary bike. During those 40 minute sessions I’ve been able to work on my endurance, specifically my ability to recover quickly from sprints and climbs. My breathing has got easier and I’ve lost a little bit of weight. These spin classes won’t prepare me for the conditions I’ll face on the ride itself: the wind, rain (hope not), the demands of the course, the experience of riding with other people, the stunning scenery etc. I know that if I wanted to maximise my performance and complete that ride in the shortest time possible then I would need to train in a way that would allow me to replicate those conditions. But the spin classes have given me an invaluable foundation of fitness, I feel much more confident that I have the leg and lung power I will need to avoid having to get off my bike and push it up the hills. The class has been my safe environment, with a set structure (40 minute session split into 3-5 minute bursts), a skilled facilitator (the instructor, bellowing instructions and encouragement) and some fellow learners, all set to a pulsating soundtrack of loud dance music.
And this is how I see the classroom. A real foundation for learning where individuals are able to build their skills, knowledge and experience. But it really can only be the starting point, because if these learners are going to achieve the outcomes they desire, they are going to have to leave the safe environment and start practicing those skills or areas of knowledge. They’re going to have to reflect on that practice and recognise where they can make more changes. And they’re going have to find the support they need to be able to put those changes in place, be it from friends, colleagues or coach-mentors.
So hooray for the classroom and here’s hoping for very little wind and rain when cycling from Oxford to Cambridge.