We often do not get voluntary participants. People are forced to come to programs and consequently, it undermines the implementation of other game mechanics. How do we overcome the challenge of voluntary participation?

My response:

• First, there’s an assumption that participants DON’T want to go to training — I think they do. I think their work gets in the way. If they had their druthers, they would volunteer to come, but the system they are a part of (aka, their work environment), prevents/hinders/discourages them from doing so. If it’s choice between learning and utilization, utilization wins (particular to professional services.) Examine the SYSTEM they are a part of.
• Motivation comes from goals. Perhaps if were to get clear on the learner’s goals, we could more clearly map to motivation. If they don’t know their goals, their motivations will be fuzzy, IMHO. If their goal is to figure out their goals, then even that helps.
• The tension in most learning, as was noted in Joe’s post, is that is about the “message” that the organization wants their employees to learn/regurgitate/live. So absolutely, there are training situations where there is a need for compliance and people are forced to go. We look for ways to make those trainings more palatable (like gamification) rather than stating quite clearly, in this GAME of WORK, here are the rules. This is what you must know to survive and thrive. If your goal is to keep your job, guess what, you gotta play by these rules.
• The medium in which this message is given (yes I’m channeling McLuhan, he is Canadian after all) usually kills the motivation (yes, I’m thinking death by powerpoint)
• The challenge is the capture the energy in a forced training situation. Where is the energy? In onboarding (new hires or acquisitions), the energy has to do with anxiety of joining a new organization. The motivation is to understand the lay of the land – expectations, tools, etc. How does one channel the energy into something positive — either connections with each other, with their new organization, or voicing/airing concerns in a safe way. This is not new.

I think with gamification and voluntary participation we are perhaps asking the wrong question. It’s not just about the individual but the system they are a part of. Use gamification, but use it in a way that makes the experience more authentic — bring in randomess and the gaming aesthetic it creates rather than a point system. Allow rules that channel and focus the energy in the room — rules that open up the experience rather than shut it down by someone “telling” you what to do. Create teams that support collaboration rather than competition.

Gamification can be useful with the right framing.

If you’re like me your first reaction is — NO WAY.  You’re skeptical, you may get this feeling in your gut that makes you cringe. You’re thinking — love does not belong in the workplace, it’s personal, it belongs at home. You have a vision of people in loose, flowing clothes running around hugging each other. With flowers. And other stuff. (Ok, maybe that’s just me.)

But something made my critical mind pause.

The Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect describes how people act in accordance to the expectations you have of them — whether these expectations are conscious or unconscious. If you think people are stupid, guess what? — they can read your mind and act that way. This effect has been demonstrated in the classroom, at home, and at work. (Related effect — the Galatea effect > the expectations we have of ourselves.) Furthermore, a positive mindset from a leader can produce powerful behavioral effects, even in the absence of auditory or visual contact (references below). Whether you are leading employees or students — your mindset matters. Call it good will, call it focusing on the positive — or simply call it love.

Appreciative Processes

Ever heard of Appreciative Inquiry? It’s a type of inquiry that envisions a future that focuses positive relationships and collaboration, building organizations based on what works rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. Appreciative Processes improve systems by amplifying what’s working — identifying what people do best.

Think about how we approach most work — FIX THE PROBLEM. Do a gap analysis. Figure out what people need to learn, figure out what mindsets we need to change, usually ending up with the question — how do we fix our PEOPLE?

Appreciative Processes combine the Demming approach with Appreciative Inquiry — figure out what processes  make a difference and use an appreciative mindset to bring out the best in people. Use Appreciative Leadership to create a culture of systemic change and continuous improvement.

Back to LOVE

Ok, so here we are — back at the idea of love in organizations. When we think about creating an environment that:

• Focuses on what people and organizations do well
• Focuses on strengths,
• Allows people to do their best everyday
• A place where people enjoy being and where they enjoy each other

That’s a organization that uses love.

If it makes you feel better to call it something else, go ahead do so. But just remember, you’re losing the energy of a very powerful word.

Just try this — go about your work constantly thinking — “I love this place, my work, and the people I work with.” Try it for just ONE day. See what difference it makes.

Learn More…

• If you’re interested in learning more — come to a workshop on “Releasing the Power of Love in the Workplace”, by Roger Harrision sponsored by BAodn on June 9, 2010 in San Francisco. [Link to workshop]
• Accessing the Power of Love in the Workplace, by Roger Harrision, Ph.D. [Download PDF document here]
• The Appreciative Leader and Appreciative Change Processes by Gervase R. Bushe, Ph.D. [Download PDF document "aplc" here]. Or visit www.clearlearning.ca
• Pygmalion & Galatea effects

• Why the heck am in a meeting with a bunch of OD folks when I think of myself as an Instructional Designer?
• What’s is organizational development? How is it different from organizational learning?
• What the difference between development and learning?

Flash Mob Dance - Informal Group Learning?

I realized that  really liked the folks at this meeting — it was the first meeting I’ve been to in the Bay Area where I felt “Ah, I’ve found my people.” Since I want to keep going, I had to figure out a WHY I was there — what was the connection?

Development vs. Learning

Why not start with the basics?

• Development – stages that one goes through in one’s life or one’s life or one’s career, often thought of as change in roles (becoming a mother or becoming a manager). These stages in development can be biological (aging); psychological (maturing, identity); or sociocultural (change in roles, life or career events/problems/trajectory). In addition, there are variables such as race, gender, and sexual orientation and the impact and influence on that person’s development.
• Learning – knowledge, skills and attitudes required to master a subject, attain performance, or understand a domain, or innovate. Learning, like development, is about change and growth. Or sometimes just about “running to stand still” — keeping up with change to maintain one’s position. There is formal and informal learning; online, face-to-face, and blended; there is the technology of learning from CMS/LMS/Performance Management systems to Webinars to games and virtual worlds. Learning is a part of development. Learning integrated with development leads to “teachable moments” — learning appropriate to developmental stages. There’s much much more but I’ll stop here.

Organizational development vs. learning

Continuing from the explanation above, then organizational development is about the stages of an organization. It has an action orientation — it’s about evaluating and creating an intervention. Examples below:

• What an organization need when moving from start-up to mature organization
• Using diagnostic tools to understand what “life event” an organization is facing and creating an intervention, such as:
  • Using organizational 360 or SLCQ (Strategy Leadership Culture Questionnaire)
  • Using something like the Periodic Table of Strategy (Mercer-Delta) to determine the challenge and potential strategic moves for an organization
  • Gap  of where an organization is, where they want to go, and what it will take to get there.
  • SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
• Based on Senge’s five disciplines to create the learning organization:
  • personal mastery
  • mental models
  • shared visions
  • team learning
  • systems thinking
• Using coaching, mentoring, other tools to improve organizational performance

Organizational Learning

Quite simply, organizational learning is the collection of stuff involved in individual and collective learning inside an organization. It is also about the analysis and support of learning processes, formal and informal.

• Courses and curriculum
• Informal learning – social media, water-cooler learning, blogs, wikis, enabling conversations, mentoring, etc.
• Technology that support the above
• Design that supports the above
• Understanding of the cognitive and social processes that support learning
• Understanding the organizational processes that support or impeded learning
• Design of learning that supports organizational strategy
• Senge’s five disciplines

It’s in the last four that we cross-over into the realm of organizational development. There is clearly a link between the two — when things aren’t working on an organizational level, often we often turn to learning and development. However, much less often, do we turn to learning and development when things ARE working – or when we want to make things better when they are already good.

Why an Instructional Designer meets with OD folks

Instructional design (ID) is too narrowly focused on creating learning — instead of being more broadly focused on creating learning specific to organizational strategy — specific enough to measure impact. Because of the narrow focus of ID, I’m am pulled to people and groups asking bigger questions, with an organizational focus.

I love thinking about how people learn, but I also need (for my sanity) to think about how organizations learn, and how individual learning is relevant in this bigger picture.

That’s why I joined BAodn.

References for this Learning vs. Development article:

• Learning in Adulthood: A comprehensive guide by Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner
• Infed website: http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-organization.htm
• Organizational Learning vs. the Learning Organization by Carol Gorelick (Google Books)

One of my biggest struggles right now is how to get my spouse to clean up his “stuff” in the living room. I’ve tried to set boundaries, command, cajole, bribe — all to no avail. What I really want to do is go in there and throw all that “stuff” in the recycling bin. But then again, I value my relationship… and that might not go over so well.

How do I influence him and get him to do what I want?

This question is not so different from what I hear from some trainers and educators. How do I influence my learners? … and get them to want to be there, want to learn, do what’s good for them, do what I want? Ok, maybe the way that last phrasing is a bit manipulative, but essentially it’s the same question. How do I shift and influence behavior?

Small acts of commitment

Get people to make small acts of commitment, and that will lead to larger acts of commitment, according to Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. So what does that mean exactly?

An experiment: a volunteer asked  homeowners to put a 3″ sign in their window stating “Be a Safe Driver”.  Most complied. A couple weeks later, another person came to their door asking them if they could put a house-obscuring billboard on their front lawns with the words “DRIVE SAFELY”. A full 76% of the people who had agreed to the small sign, then agreed to the large billboard. A control group, people who had never been asked to put the small sign in their window, refused 83% of the time. What happened?

Small acts of commitment can lead to larger acts of commitment. Small acts of commitment can alter self-image (“I am a publicly minded person who cares about safe driving.”) When self-image is altered, we adjust our actions in the world to be in-line with our self-image.

Small acts of commitment for learners

Some of these small acts may already be familiar:

• learning contracts
• writing down goals for learning session (or merely even copying down goals…)
• raising hands in answer to a question affirming the reason one is at the session
• testimonials after the session
• videotaping people at the beginning of the session re: goals
• agree to have them act a certain way for a short period of time (examples: blog, but only for a month; eat healthier, but only for a week; hand over your Blackberry, but only for an hour)
• let them know that there will be a report out on what everyone is doing differently (learned/changed behavior) 2-3 weeks after session is over
• have them construct an ideal learning persona for the group
• Give out small prizes for the “best” answer. If prizes are too big, individuals won’t be doing to get the best answer, they’ll be doing it for the prize. It’s about the person owning their actions.

These small acts seem trivial, but it was  by small acts that American PoWs were broken down by their Chinese captors in the Korean war and willingly collaborated. This had never happened to a large extent before. What did the Chinese do? They had they write essays or statements on what was bad about America, even if the PoWs  just copied them out. And they offered small prizes for the best essays.

Choose small acts that help create the self-image you want people to have.

Back to the “stuff” in the living room

So what small acts of  can I come up for my stubborn spouse?

• create a list of what needs to be done to make a clean living room
• work together on cleaning up the stuff, but just for an hour
• take a picture of living room to put on Facebook to show to our friends
• have a big party so BIG that the living room *must* be cleaned up

I’ll let you know how it goes. If you have any suggestions for learners or for my spouse, let me know. Hopefully he won’t read this post and launch a counter-strategy.

Example: Ways of framing a problem (from IDEO – The Art of Innovation book p.57):

• Spill-proof coffee cup lids - to narrow and assumes an answer
• Bicycle cup holders – too dry and product focused
• Helping bike commuters to drink coffee without spilling it or burning their tongues – GOOD framing – does not unduly limit the possible solutions

from christophniemann.com

The cognitive concept of functional fixedness is about how we develop a narrow view of the objects and tools in our environment. The classic example of functional fixedness is the “candle problem” used by Duncker in a 1945 experiment (see Wikipedia). We create a tool for a specific purpose and we cannot see other purposes for the tool. Or as Marshall McLuhan observes (borrowed from Christopher D. Sessums blog.):

We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us – Marshall McLuhan

So when we encourage people to think outside the box to solve a problem, be aware of how you describe the box, and how you position all the things inside of the box.

Boxing in people – a story: I once suggested to a senior executive that our company only promotes people with MBAs or PhDs. He quickly reframed the issue and asked “Do we only promote people with advanced degrees or is there something about people who seek advanced degrees that get them promoted?” He succinctly reframed the issue from one of having the right credentials to an individual’s innate abilities, shifting the problem space from organizational issues to individual issues. Therefore, in seeking solutions, an individual looks within themselves rather than to the organization as a whole. (For the record, the answer pissed me off because I felt the shift in problem space at the time, although I could not articulate it.) As result, if one could not get promoted, it was because you could not demonstrate the abilities required — such as reframing your skills. Therefore, one becomes pigeon-holed.

How you frame a problem, and how you frame yourself, matters. Be aware of the box.