What’s the best learning model for conference sessions? We don’t usually think about the learning models we employ during conference sessions. I believe our events would be better if we did. Conventional conferences assume a ready supply of experts. We listen to them while they cover the learning advertised for their sessions. Here’s how Jeff Hurt describes this approach, which he calls surface learning, contrasting it with deep learning where attendees discover through exploratory activity:
Content Covered Or Discovered “In surface learning, the session reflects the knowledge and skills of the speaker. Knowledge is considered a thing that can be deposited into the minds of the listener. The attendee consumes as much as the speaker says as possible and tries to store it in the mind. The speaker covers as much as they can as fast as they can.
In deep learning, attendees explore challenging questions, dilemmas and problems using new and past knowledge. A focus is put on the attendee testing ideas, correcting them as needed and opening up to new perspectives. Attendees spend time discovering and investigating.”
—Jeff Hurt, We Must Stop Promoting Conference Fast-Track, Artificial, Butt-In-Seat, Surface Learning
Active learning
As explained in my books, we know that the active learning that occurs through attendee discovery is indeed more effective than the learning that may result from sharing information with passive listeners. More is learned, more is retained, and overall retention is more accurate. So I agree with Jeff that discovered learning trumps covered learning. But from whom do we discover this learning?
Even when we incorporate active learning into a conference session, invariably the assumption remains that we are learning about content provided exclusively by a speaker or presenter. What we discover is limited to the content they can provide.
Improving active learning
While this approach is far better than the pour-information-into-their-minds model, I think we can almost always improve it. Unless the room is full of novices — attendees who know nothing about a session topic — using process during the session that uncovers knowledge and resources in the room opens up the quantity and quality of learning that’s possible.
I know this to be true from my own experience. When I’ve led a conference session using process that supports and encourages participants to contribute their own expertise and experience, I’ve always learned something new! Extending our resources for active learning to the entire room uncovers relevant and useful knowledge from everyone present. Active learning then becomes social learning, reflecting today’s reality that knowledge is a social construct, no longer something residing in an individual head. When we incorporate social learning into our events we all benefit. Because, as David Weinberger says: “The smartest person in the room is the room.”
Three learning models
Let’s summarize the three learning models I’ve described.
Covered learning is an outdated, inferior learning model.
Discovered learning is an improvement because we are actively involving attendees in the learning process, though the focus is just one person’s content.
Uncovered learning further improves discovered learning by increasing the resources for active learning to include the expertise and experience available in the entire room. If a presenter or facilitator knows how to effectively uncover learning, they will be using the best learning model available.
To successfully implement uncovered learning, we need to use process that, as Weinberger puts it: “improves expertise by exposing weaknesses, introducing new viewpoints, and pushing ideas into accessible form.” Such process is the focus of the peer conference designs and associated participation techniques that I’ve been developing and writing about here and in my books. Studying how to facilitate and then adopt this process is perhaps the most effective way you can improve the learning at your events.
Every day of my annual visits to Anguilla, right after waking up, I’ve taken a 25-minute walk (red line below).
I’ve written about the importance of my morning route.
It’s a feast of the senses. Warm air on my skin. The sweet smell of almond croissants—alarming numbers of calories beckoning, reluctantly resisted—waft from the French bakery. Bass notes thud from several houses, random patterns until I am close enough to hear the melody. I pass trailers cradling gleaming powerboats: Pure Pleasure, Wet Dreamz, Drippin’ Wet, and Royal Seaduction (notice a theme here?) The gentle return uphill gradient calls for a quick dip in our pool. As I cool down I hear the clamor of bananaquits on the veranda railing gobbling up the raw sugar we’ve set out for them. Connection: A morning walk in Anguilla
But one day last year, with no advance warning, several of Daddy’s First Son’s dogs leaped over the low wall around Son’s house, snarling loudly, and one of them bit my leg (nothing too serious). For the remainder of the stay, I carried a rolled-up newspaper, which I was forced to use, luckily successfully, on a second occasion.
Time to change
On returning this year, I didn’t want to carry a dog-repelling device. Or worry each time passing Son’s house whether today would be the occasion of Attack Number Three.
No more returning home via a pleasant loop, no more glimpses of Royal Seaduction—and, thankfully, no more fierce, territorial, unrestricted dogs.
The new route is longer, 40 minutes. It includes more main road, where occasionally one faces reckless Anguillian drivers speeding a little faster than pedestrians on the narrow verges like.
But there are compensating vistas: for example, the poignant Eduarlin Barber Shop:
The Anguilla Sea Salt Company/Miniature Golf/Ice Cream Parlor Anchor Complex (how’s that for synergy?!):
Sunny Time Grocery:
And, of course, the beauty of Island Harbour itself.
After a week of these changed morning excursions, I am still discovering new aspects of my path. This is sure to continue.
But what’s most important is my experience and realization of what has not changed.
Almost everyone I see on my walk responds in some way. On foot, the standard greeting is mornin’. The people who drive past me raise a hand in greeting, and sometimes hoot the horn. These are not, usually, people I know or have ever met before, and I may never meet them again. And yet, there’s invariably a moment of connection.
Every day, unexpected responses. The speedy truck driver who takes both hands off the wheel, palms facing me to say hi as I walk towards him, the hedge on my right leaving me no place to go if his steering is not true. The beautiful woman who shoots me a dazzling smile as she leaves her driveway for work. Two locals walking in the same direction who, as I pass with a mornin’, say fast walkin’ admiringly to my back. Nuanced respectful nods from respectable Anguillan lady drivers. The grandmother who pivots from conversation to pipe a melodious good morning. Her granddaughter in cream blouse and green skirt uniform, waiting for her ride to school, murmurs hello as I pass. A businesswoman gripping the top of her steering wheel, fingers flying up like rabbit ears when I wave. The minister, waiting for a ride to preach to his church who lifts his hand and our eyes connect. Then I’m past, turning the corner, moving towards the next meeting.
Such simple moments of connection. So little to give, so much received. Growing warmth. A wonderful way to start any morning.
Sometimes, the lessons we learn from what doesn’t change are the most important lessons of all.
Not long ago, my friend Jeremy Birch told me about the recorded announcement you hear—in English—when Japanese buses approach a bus stop. “Please remember what you were about to forget.”
No, Japanese bus companies are not promoting distributed practice, where we spread out learning activities over time to improve overall learning. (Chapter 4 of The Power of Participation has more on this.)
Nor are they commenting on the unlearning process, which is crucial to facilitating change.
Instead, they are merely reminding people who are getting off the bus to check for anything they may be leaving behind.
Nevertheless, I like the (probably unintended) playful construction of “Please remember what you were about to forget”.
As we all get older, we are more likely to need this reminder.
And perhaps, having typed it a few times here, I’m a little more likely to carry it out…
In his beautiful and insightful book “Being Mortal“, surgeon Atul Gawande describes a mistake clinicians frequently make. They “see their task as just supplying cognitive information—hard, cold facts and descriptions. They want to be Dr. Informative.”
Atul contrasts this with an approach offered by palliative care physician Bob Arnold:
“Arnold … recommended a strategy palliative care physicians use when they have to talk about bad news with people—they ‘ask, tell, ask.’ They ask what you want to hear, then they tell you, and then they ask what you understood.”
—Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, pages 206-7
“Ask, tell, ask” is excellent advice for anyone who wants to connect fruitfully in a learning environment. Personally, over the years, I’ve become better at asking people what they want to learn (ask) before responding (tell), but I still often omit the second ask: “What did you understand?”
The follow-up ask is important for two reasons.
Without it, we do not know if anything we told has been heard/absorbed, and whether the listener’s understanding is complete and/or accurate.
Asking the listener’s understanding of what he heard allows him to process his understanding immediately. This not only improves the likelihood that it will be retained and remembered longer but also allows him to respond to what he has heard and deepen the conversation.
“Ask, tell, ask” assists in transforming a putative one-way information dump from a teacher to a student into a learning conversation. I will work to better incorporate the second ask into my consulting interactions. Perhaps you will too?
When asked, just about everyone mentions learning as a key reason for conference attendance.
So, given the clear importance of learning at events, it’s surprising that we lump distinctly different activities into the single word “learning”. Perhaps this reflects the reality that learning acquisition is a largely unconscious process, in the same way our casual familiarity with snow leads us to possess far fewer words for it than the Inuit. Whatever the reasons, it’s useful to distinguish between three different categories of learning:
factual information acquisition;
problem-solving; and
building a process toolkit.
Factual knowledge acquisition
Factual knowledge acquisition involves what it sounds like — learning factual information.
Multiplication tables, names and typical dosages of medications, foreign language nouns, and the millions of facts that we don’t even know we know until someone asks us.
It also includes sensory knowledge.
The ability to recognize whether a skin lesion is benign, the sound of Mahler’s Second Symphony, the feel of satin, the smell of a skunk, or the taste of rhubarb.
Problem-solving
Problem-solving calls for a different level of learning. In essence, it requires noticing or discovering relationships between pieces of information and using these associations to infer answers to relevant problems. Problem-solving provides useful process that operates on our knowledge.
Building a process toolkit
Building a process toolkit is an even higher form of learning. After all, in many situations—for example, multiplying two 4-digit numbers using paper and pen—problem-solving is rote. But developing novel process frequently challenges our best minds. This can take a long time, as illustrated by the growth of scientific understanding over millennia. Whether we construct our own process or appropriate useful process developed by others, building a collection of processes that are relevant to our lives is perhaps the most powerful kind of learning we can perform.
I make these distinctions because any specific instance of learning incorporates a different mixture of each category. To complicate things further, the effectiveness of each kind of learning is influenced by disparate factors. As a result, books about learning tend to contain a bewildering variety and quantity of information about aspects of learning.
Some examples
Training workers
Consider training workers to determine whether an applicant is eligible for government benefits. This could involve many days of teaching a large number of complex requirements. Success might be defined as being able to consistently understand, remember, and apply the correct requirements for each applicant. Such learning will concentrate on acquiring relevant factual knowledge plus the capacity to follow a defined process determined by senior administrators. Some important factors are:
retention of key knowledge;
maintaining the level of accuracy necessary to make correct decisions; and
the ability to recall relevant material over time.
Developing graduate students
Compare this with the mysterious multiyear process by which some graduate students develop from novice researchers into leading practitioners in their field, which includes attending numerous conferences. This involves all three categories of learning:
Obtaining a wide range of relevant and not-obviously-relevant knowledge;
Comfort and familiarity with the discipline’s existing body of processes and problem-solving; and
Developing a toolkit of novel processes that can, hopefully, extend the field further.
While the government workers need to concentrate on retaining well-defined information, the researchers will likely acquire far more information than ultimately needed to make an advance or breakthrough. Consequently, graduate students need to learn how to refine—both narrow and broaden—their focus on a wide range of information. They constantly make decisions on what they will concentrate on and what they will, possibly temporarily, put aside. The capacity to do this well, combined with the ability to effectively problem-solve and develop novel processes defines successful learning in this situation.
Learning at meetings
So when we talk about learning at meetings, it can be very helpful to be specific about the kind(s) of learning that are desired. Trainings focus on the first two categories I’ve described. More powerful forms of learning—typically experiential process that introduces tools that can be applied in a variety of future situations—incorporates all three.
In Part 2 of this exploration of learning, I’ll share a final example of the complex ways that learning and learning approaches can be affected by multiple factors, specifically the differences between how children and adults typically learn.
What impact does a good process have on the learning environment?
Ask me about an environment for learning. I recall sitting in a classroom full of ancient wooden desks. Their hinged lids are inscribed with the penknife carvings, initials, and crude drawings of generations of semi-bored schoolboys. A thin film of chalk dust covers everything. Distant trees and blue sky beckon faintly through the windows at the side of the room. The teacher is talking and I am paying attention in case he asks me to answer a question. If it’s a subject I like—science, math, or English—I am present, working to pick up the wisdom imparted, motivated by my curiosity about the world and the desire not to appear stupid in front of my classmates. If it’s a subject I am not passionate about—foreign languages, history, art, or geography—I do what I need to do to get by.
When asked to think about creating an environment for learning we tend to focus, as I just did, on the physical environment and our motivations for learning.
But there’s a third element of the learning environment that we largely overlook. Did you spot it? If you’ve read my post Meetings are a mess—and how they got that way you probably did; we have not yet mentioned the learning processes we use as a key component of our learning environment. These processes are so deeply associated with our experience of learning in specific environments that we’re rarely conscious of how much they affect what and how we learn.
Let’s meet Linda, who’s about to discover why using a good process can be so impactful.
About Linda
Linda’s waiting to get her badge and information packet at a conference registration table. She’s nervous because she’s new to the industry. She has only previously briefly met a couple of people on the list of registered attendees. Linda likes her profession. She came principally in order to receive continuing education credits that she needs to maintain her professional certification. She wants to learn more about certain industry issues, get some answers to specific questions, and hopes to meet peers and begin to build a professional network.
At this point, let’s see what happens when Linda experiences two somewhat different conference designs.
Linda goes to TradConf
Before TradConf
Linda is a first-time attendee at TradConf, a small annual association conference that has pretty much the same format since it was first held in 1982. She received a conference program six months ago and saw a few sessions listed that look relevant to her current needs.
During TradConf
After picking up her preprinted name badge she enters the conference venue. Linda sees a large number of people chatting with each other in small groups. There isn’t anyone there she knows. She drifts over to a refreshment table and picks up a glass of soda water, hoping to be able to finesse her way into one of the groups and join a conversation.
Linda meets a few people before the opening session, but no one who she really clicks with. Still, she’s grateful that she can at least associate a few names with faces.
Linda doesn’t find the opening keynote especially interesting. The speaker is entertaining but doesn’t really offer any useful takeaways. And sitting and listening for 80 minutes has taken a toll on her concentration. She follows the crowd to the refreshments in the hallway outside and tries to meet some more people. Linda’s not shy, but it’s still daunting to have to repeatedly approach strangers and introduce herself. By the end of the first day, Linda has met one person with whom she has a fair amount in common, and she bumped into one of the people she knew before the conference. The three of them spend the evening talking.
Days 2 and 3
The next couple of days’ sessions are a mixed bag. Some of the sessions are a rehash of things Linda already knows rather than covering new techniques. Another turns out to focus on something very different from the description in the conference program. Linda picks up a few useful nuggets from a couple of sessions and gets one of her pressing questions answered. She connects with someone who asks an interesting question at the end of a presentation. She spends most of her time between sessions with her old connection and two new friends.
The conference closes with a keynote banquet. Linda sits next to a stimulating colleague but doesn’t get much time to talk to him because the keynote monopolizes most of their time together. They swap business cards and promise to stay in touch.
After TradConf
Afterward, Linda has mixed feelings about her TradConf experience. She met some interesting people and learned a few things. But it didn’t seem to be an especially productive use of her time, given that she has to get back to work and still grapple with the majority of her unanswered questions. She doesn’t feel like she’s built much of a professional network. Perhaps things will be better when she goes next year?
Linda goes to PartConf
Before PartConf
Linda is a first-time attendee at PartConf, a small annual association conference first held in 1993. It has a good reputation, but it’s hard to understand what the conference will be like, because, apart from an interesting-sounding keynote from someone really well known in the industry and a few other sessions on hot topics, the program doesn’t list any other session topics. Instead, the pre-conference materials claim that the participants themselves will create the conference sessions on the topics that they want to learn about. This sounds good in theory to Linda, but she is quite skeptical about how well this will actually work in practice.
A few weeks before the event, Linda gets a call from Maria, who identifies herself as a returning conference participant. Maria explains that all first-time PartConf attendees get paired with a buddy before the conference. Maria offers to answer any questions about the conference. She’ll also meet Linda at registration and introduce her to other attendees if desired. Linda asks how the participant-driven conference format works, and Maria is happy to share her own positive experience. They swap contact information and agree to meet at registration.
During PartConf
Linda calls Maria as she waits in line to register. As she picks up her large name badge, she notices it has some questions on it: “Talk to me about…” and “I’d like to know about…” with blank spaces for answers. Maria appears and explains that the questions allow people with matching interests or expertise to find each other. Linda fills out her badge.
Linda and Maria enter the conference venue and see a large number of people chatting with each other in small groups. There isn’t anyone there Linda knows, but Maria brings her over to one of the groups and introduces her to Yang and Tony. “Based on what you’ve told me about your interests,” Maria says, “I think you guys have a lot in common.” A glance at Yang’s and Tony’s badges confirms this. Linda is soon deep in conversation with her two new colleagues, who introduce her to other attendees.
By the time the opening session starts, Linda has met six people who are clearly going to be great resources for her. She’s also surprised to discover that a couple of other people are really interested in certain experiences and expertise she acquired at a previous job.
The opening session
The opening session is called The Three Questions. Linda has been preassigned to one of five simultaneous sessions. Two of her new friends join her in a large room with a circle of forty chairs. A facilitator explains how The Three Questions works and provides some ground rules for everyone to follow. Over the next 90 minutes, everyone gets a turn to share their answers to three questions. Linda learns much about the other participants. She gets a comprehensive overview of group members’ questions, issues, topics, experience, and expertise. Human spectrograms are held roughly every twenty minutes. They get people on their feet to show experience levels, geographical distribution, and other useful information about the group. Linda notes the names of four more people she wants to talk to during the conference. She discovers that her former job experience is of interest to other people in the room.
At the first evening social, Linda enjoys getting to know her new friends. Everyone spends some time proposing and signing up for “peer sessions”, using a simple process involving colored pens and sheets of paper. Peer sessions can be presentations, discussions, panels, workshops, or any format that seems appropriate for the participants’ learning and sharing. Linda suggests several issues she is grappling with and a couple of the sessions she wants to get scheduled. Although another topic doesn’t have sufficient interest to be formally scheduled, she notes the names of the people interested and decides to try to talk with them between sessions. She is surprised to find that quite a few people want to learn from her former job experience and ends up facilitating a discussion on the topic the next day.
Days 2 and 3
The next couple of days’ sessions are incredibly productive and useful for Linda. She meets other participants who answer all her questions, and several people who can advise her on potential future issues. Linda enjoys being an unexpected resource herself and has begun to build a great professional network by the time the conference draws to a close.
The last couple of sessions provide Linda an opportunity to think about what she has learned and what she wants to do professionally as a result. She now feels confident about beginning a major initiative at work, sketches out the initial steps, and gets helpful feedback from her colleagues. She even has some time to reconnect with now-familiar peers and make arrangements to stay in touch. The last session starts with a public evaluation of the entire conference: what worked well and potential improvements. Linda makes several contributions. She gets a clear idea of how the conference has been valuable to the many different constituencies present. Several great ideas emerge on how to make the event even better next year, together with the next steps for their development.
After PartConf
Afterward, Linda has very positive feelings about her conference experience. She got all her questions answered, learned much of value, and built the solid beginnings of a significant professional network. And she’s certain PartConf will be even better when she returns next year!
The impact of good process on the learning environment
Linda’s story illustrates the tremendous effect good process can have on the learning environment. The attendees at TradConf and PartConf are the same; only the processes used are different! PartConf’s participation-rich process gave Linda a learning experience that was much more tailored to her and the other attendees’ actual needs and wants than the predetermined program at TradConf. Linda also made useful connections with many more people at PartConf compared to TradConf.
The PartConf design also allows participants to make changes to the conference processes used. The learning environment at PartConf extends to the event design. The conference can “learn” itself through participant feedback and suggestions to become a more effective vehicle for participants’ needs and wants.
I have been running conferences like PartConf for over twenty years. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the vast majority of those who attend these events come to greatly prefer such designs over the TradConfs that have been the rule for hundreds of years.
Jeff Hurt’s recent post makes the case for incorporating reflection/debriefing into all conference sessions. While I agree entirely with him that these activities should be included, I think a minor clarification is needed.
His post implies that you must debrief participant experiences at events for learning to occur. If that were true, you would never learn anything from a lecture. While it’s true that lectures are one of the worst ways to attempt to teach people anything, there’s no question that some learning occurs via lectures for some people some of the time.
Taking notes
You probably discovered at school that if you took notes during a lecture (interestingly, handwritten notes seem more effective than typed notes) you retained more of the material than if you simply listened and tried to remember the lecture points later. This is because note-taking is a form of personal reflection/debriefing; it forces you to process, to some degree, the information you are hearing and this improves your associated memory and understanding, and consequent accuracy, quantity, and length of recall.
This means that it’s possible to learn from experience without external prompting or exercises, if you can do the necessary reflection yourself. One of the most potent learning disciplines you can cultivate is the practice of regular reflection on your own experiences. I know that many impactful decisions and changes in my life have occurred through ongoing self-reflection rather than the feedback or advice of others.
During our education, we are rarely taught the value of regular, honest self-reflection. By “honest,” I mean self-reflection that neither avoids beating oneself up over “mistakes” or hard-to-stomach experiences nor glossing over them. Instead, cultivating your ability to dispassionately notice what is happening to you and periodically reflecting on what you have noticed allows you to learn effectively by yourself.
John Dewey said, “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” Reflection with others and by yourself will allow you to maximize your learning throughout your life.
In May 2014, I spent a gastronomically intense delightful week in San Francisco. I ate lunch and dinner at different restaurants almost every day. After an initial low from consuming the worst tuna salad sandwich ever during a hectic rush to return my rental car, I enjoyed French, Italian, Korean, vegetarian, New American, and Argentinean cuisines, to name a few. And I noticed a pattern to my favorite experiences.
I like small-plate meals best.
Meal variety
The United States is famous for its giant servings of food. I don’t know if this is a reflection of our pioneer appetites or simply a commercial determination that people will pay for larger portions, making more profit for restaurants in the process. I do know that the large portions invariably offered when we eat out made the United States the most obese populous nation in the world until being overtaken by Mexico last year.
It’s interesting to me how many other cultures concentrate on offering small amounts of many different foods at every meal. Spanish tapas are an obvious example, but there are many others. When I was in South Korea a number of years ago, I loved how before any meal “began” we were served a multitude of tiny dishes, buffet style, of all kinds of interesting and intriguing foods known as Banchan. Artfully cooked rice, bewildering varieties of kimchi, noodles, radishes, steamed dumplings, and other delicacies appear at your table before you’ve even picked up a menu. What a way to start a meal!
Small is beautiful
Small plate meals make it easy to share and fun to discover commonalities with your dining companions. They allow great flexibility for personal choice. I can mix and match my own personal mélange on the spot. If I don’t enjoy something on one plate, someone else probably will and I can concentrate on what I really like. Compare this with the common experience of ordering a single massive entrée that you find you don’t like so much or can’t finish.
Small bites of content
You know what? In my experience, the best learning environments work the same way. Instead of serving up large indigestible chunks of content, we learn better when we:
Can choose from a variety of learning options and experiences;
Receive learning in small bites, twenty minutes or less, and then have opportunities to digest it; and
Can share our learning experiences with others.
Although once in a while a master teacher can create a superb learning “meal” where the whole experience flows expertly from one dish of content to the next, I’ve found that such people are rare and, more importantly, in retrospect the drama of the presentation often overshadows the learning that might have taken place. Presentations as entertainment, as art, can be great and memorable experiences, but they frequently don’t provide significant long-term learning.
There is no substitute, I’ve found, for participation in one’s own learning to:
reinforce what we learn of value;
how well we learn; and
how long we retain the learning.
(Just seeing the pictures above brings back memories of those small plates of delicacies!) Supplying small bites of learning during your conferences, with time to reflect, swap ideas, and contrast experiences turns out to be a highly enjoyable and effective way to feed the minds and souls of your participants.
In 1982, Australian physicians Barry Marshall and Robin Warren proposed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori was the cause of most ulcers, challenging the established medical doctrine that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. Their claim was ridiculed, so Barry drank a Petri dish containing cultured Heliobacter and promptly developed gastritis. His self-experiment eventually helped change medical thinking. In 2005, both men were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
So, how do we convince people?
Changing events
Often when I’m working with a client on implementing experiential and participant-driven events, he wants to understand how what I’m proposing will work.
It’s perfectly reasonable that he wants to understand. The trouble is, unless he’s had the experience of participating in an experiential and participant-driven event, he simply may not be able to understand how the format works.
If you think about it, this seems silly. Every day we experience unexpected things, and some of them change our world for the better in ways we’d never rationally expect. Right? So why are we skeptical that this can happen at our events?
Because most meetings and conferences are tightly scripted and controlled. So we’ve likely never experienced the intense conversations, learning, and facilitated connection around topics and issues that we, not a conference program committee, chose. We’ve never had the opportunity to discover the empowerment and joy when we get to meet, face-to-face, peers who share and have insights on our specific challenges. We’ve never seen a solid, long-lasting community of fellow participants being built before our eyes. And we’ve never encountered an event that galvanized participants into appropriate and effective action.
The need to understand
So when someone like me proposes a “different” way to design events, clients want to “understand” how it works before they’ll give me a go-ahead. When they don’t, I’ll get responses like this [verbatim extract from an email I received this week]:
“We presented our program to [our board] last week and got some push back on having two full days of the format/program devoted to the unconference. The primary concern is being able to effectively market the program such that potential attendees can show the published programming/topics and get manager support for the expense to attend/travel to the event. Without a descriptive agenda with topics – the fear is that managers won’t be able to justify that it is a relevant agenda for professional development.”
In fact, everyone who experiences a well-designed participant-driven event knows that on-site development of an agenda that is truly relevant to the attendees’ professional development is not a problem. Yet without that experience, most people cannot understand how such a format can work.
If I get sufficient access to the decision-makers, I can usually provide enough “understanding” to convince them to go ahead. But experiencing the design itself is far more effective. Here’s a post-event communication excerpt from a decision-making former skeptic:
Thank you for your efforts in making our very first [foundation] meeting a huge success. The meeting far exceeded my expectations and I have been reporting the success of the event to the leadership here at [foundation].
And here’s a participant’s feedback from the same event:
Thank you Adrian! I was skeptical at first of the conference format. But now I’m really glad that it was organized that way!
Experience to understand
Sometimes you need to experience to understand. Seth Godin puts it like this:
It turns out, humans don’t use explanations to make change happen. They change, and then try to explain it. —Seth Godin, Clarity vs. impact
When I have the opportunity and authority to facilitate an experience that can lead to powerful, appropriate learning and change, I don’t spend much time explaining why it might do so. I just start. The hardest part is being given the authority to do it. Because that requires trust in my ability to deliver what I’m offering.
I don’t blame the skeptics out there. The world is full of people who promise miracles and don’t deliver. That’s why, besides attempting to explain why what I do works, I also encourage clients to talk to some of the tens of thousands of people who have participated in one of my experiential sessions or conferences. If they take the time to check, this usually does the trick.
Taking a leap
Yes, it’s hard to take a leap and trust something you haven’t experienced and don’t yet understand. Ask me to be the first person to ever jump from a plane with something called a “parachute” on my back? I’d turn you down. But you’re not the first person to jump! Talk to people you trust who have already made it safely and wonderfully to the ground. You may well realize that if they did it, you can do it too.
Then, go for the change. You can work on understanding it later.
This post is part of the series How do you facilitate change? In this occasional series, we explore various aspects of facilitating individual and group change.
Ask, tell, ask.
