A single simple trend that will dominate America’s future…

Hyper-distraction

Here are the facts…

Average American is exposed to 5,000 ads or brand messages per day.

• Our attention span is down to 8 seconds. (It was 12 seconds just 4 years ago.)
• Emails with sentences are too long to read so we went to texting. 
• Texts are too long so now we tweet (140 characters or less).  But we don’t have the time or attention to read those so we’ve gone to #hastags and emojis to make it faster.  

Don’t shoot the messenger… I’m not in anyway saying this improves communication or the sharing of messages.

This trend is dominating us moving forward!

From a learning and development standpoint we know that “lecture” doesn’t work but I still see it in everything from onboarding, to team huddles and “training” sessions. Please take a moment and re-read the above facts.

With a hyper-distracted world, a person showing up and throwing up will have little to no meaningful impact long term.

I’ve seen it referred to as the “sage on the stage” meaning the person with the knowledge stands in front of the participants and shares the wisdom and knowledge that they need.

Almost 30 years ago when I was at Purdue that was the way “teaching” was done. You shuffled into a huge lecture hall like lemmings and feverishly took notes as the “sage” shared his wisdom. (Sorry, yes, 30 years ago most of my professors were men.)

In order to survive going forward that model needs to be thrown out.

When I see people playing a game on their phone, while watching TV and commenting on social media the idea of a person standing and talking at them is doomed for failure.

You see that, right?

I’m asked all of the time… how do we “engage” and improve “retention”.

I guess if it was easy people wouldn’t ask me all the time.

Here are few thoughts…

Start with changing your words to change your focus.

1 - Facilitator. We stress that it’s about facilitating learning and new ideas. By this simple change it helps to move from being the sage to being a partner in the process. Similar to “Guide on the side” concept.

2 - Participant. In order to engage and retain, people need to participate in their learning and growth. Think for a moment, if you were a strength and conditioning coach for a football team and you squat 400 pounds... does that make any of the players stronger?

Of course not!

People get stronger by doing it.

The more active people are in the learning process the more they retain and potentially use. People often struggle when I say good facilitators are “lazy”. The fact is if the facilitator does less it means the learners are required to do more and learn more.

This is a very simplistic example but if you have a young child and you “let” them make their own peanut butter sandwich what happens?

I know, they could make a mess, but what else?

They learn some basic skills and those skills can be built on over time to help them learn to make toast or maybe a PB&J?

The reality is the more the learner does the more they will learn.

Next, think about the words mandatory and obligation…

When training is mandatory or an obligation does that sound engaging, fun or memorable?

I understand that many times team members are required to have training on a regular basis for a variety of very valuable reasons.

What if that training was optional, just like working for your organization?

By simply saying that the experience is “mandatory” you create resistance, fear and reduce engagement.

Finally in the new reality of “hyper distraction” you want to remember this valuable and simple equation.

Enthusiasm + Entertainment = Engagement

When you are thinking about how you can help your team learn new concepts and ideas that are valuable to them look at how you can add enthusiasm and entertainment to the mix.

Lots of ink is spilled over “gamification” and yes I’m a fan but it’s not limited to that. Not everything needs to be a multidimensional game to create learning and retention.

My son shared the other day that in a class they were required to find a book, video or movie and use a different “lens” to view it.

What if you gave your team members a variety of lenses to look through and decide how the guest might feel based on the service provided?

What if one lens was…

• Single mom, 27, with two children and stressed by her bill
• Married couple with two kids in college
• Retired and divorced male with grown kids

Something as simple as looking at things from another person's perspective could be entertaining and engaging!

With the level of distraction we all are dealing with you also want to remember the simple concept of < = >.  :) (Not sure what that means drop me an email and I’ll explain it in old fashioned sentences.)

This challenge is a reality that we all face and there is no reason for it to end.

The key is being aware of it and approaching it in a new way.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for your attention. It goes without saying that it means the absolute world to me. I hope this piece helped you in even the slightest bit and if it did, please share it with a friend that could also benefit from this.

Thanks for reading...

Positively Transforming Lives and Having FUN Doing It!

P.S.  Share your thoughts below! Always looking for a good discussion and sharing of ideas.