having difficulty at work.....

Jul 06, 2012

The training team that I am currently part of at work simply don't understand e-learning at all , it is really affecting my work. They are all grounded and fantastic trainers, but do not come from an elearning background.
I feel like im in a different time period to the rest of them. I am getting more and more secluded, and when I try to introduce new work modules with eLearning, they all look blank. I do feel that eLearning is a very niche area, and that many other eLearning managers have a tough challenge in battling the defintion of Training and eLearning content. My manager (who is a Product Director) is not of much help at all, in fact he is also part of the problem, being a traditionalist in spin selling and training, with no concept of what eLearning is.

Anyone here experience a similar problem at work , any tips on how to deal with it?

74 Replies
Bruce Graham

Belen Casado said:

 I think that maaaaaany companies exist, like Bruce puts it, to "perpetuate mediocrity". And I wonder, how's possible that the're still there? Why haven't they gone bankrupt yet?


To some extent - they have.

Many internal training organisations have cut and cut and cut - or have no plan, and are full of people wondering why "no-one understands what they do...". The point is they DO understand, they understand they do nothing very well at all.

Many external training companies just acquiesce to what clients ask for - failing to tell them the truth, (thereby perpetuating the status quo). They end up losing contracts, and then go and find other - playing the whole game all over again.

Once again - it is up to us to stand up, and stand proud. Unless we do something, tell someone or demonstrate what we can do, no-one will take any notice. It's hard, and it is harsh, but true.

Perhaps get agreement to hold some "eLearning Masterclasses" from the Instructional Design point of view, see who turns up. Give a short 30 minutes on "Using Gagnes theory to excite your audience through eLearning", or "Why ADDIE is nonsense", (or whatever...), and gain your personal credibility. There are loads of ways to do this, and it will be tough, no matter what you do.

Be true to yourself - do something about it, and keep on going until you win, or you decide to leave and spend your time doing something where people DO understand.

Evolve while those around you wither, (and still blame everyone else for their destruction...)

Bruce

Leisa  Bulow

Hi all,

Whilst agreeing with most of what has been said here, I have another suggestion for you Jonathan - try putting a blended presentation together, based on a "traditional" face-to-face session, but adding some snazzy eLearning content. Then, have some bite-sized reference material available for after the initial blended session. Present this to the guys you are having trouble convincing, but try to invite along a vocal supporter as well. That way someone has your back, will treat your version of the session with loud enthusiasm, and put the others in a tough spot to prove that their way is better.

I am lucky in the fact that I go across both the traditional and eLearning fields, designing and delivering sessions and courses in both mediums. However I have an audience who is very "traditional" and I have to find inventive work-specific solutions to interest them in the online offerings.

Good luck with it all!

Leisa.

Mariana Lopes

Hi!

I'm +/- feelling the same as Jonathan... 

I have one suggestion to you, because some days, I received the following comment on my work: "well...e-learning sessions look very pretty, etc, etc but wouldn't it be faster to have this contents in a text document, that I could simply read and revisit each and every chapter quickly, whenever I want?"

Of course I got very sad, because, all the effort in the good way of teaching has been completly ignored. It seems people want manuals, not e-learning contents.

But I could see one thing that maybe could help people actually like e-learning: time. People's time. I think the solution is turning the e-learning contents mobile, like that, people will be able to watch them anytime, anywhere, in their smartphone!

Hope, this helps! Good luck!

Bruce Graham

Mariana raises an interesting point.

When DO we actually tell people that sometimes - a learning aid, (such as a manual or a book), IS actually a better answer?

The thing that wastes a salesperson's time is chasing a lead that will never materialise, and we also need to qualify what we do.

Sometimes - we need to have the courage to tell people that eLearning is not the right answer - that is also part of the remit of an Instructional Designer, we have to "qualify the lead out".

I would be interested in exploring this path of the debate.

Bruce

Steve Flowers

Job aids and *just enough* support are almost always a better answer than a course, in my opinion. Focusing on the minimum force necessary to get the job done is good stewardship for our organizations and respects the time of the folks we serve. Sadly, many E-learning designers tend to spend a disproportionate balance of time on things that just don't matter that much.

We should support business and mission outcomes by balancing effort and resources in a ratio that favors the outcome, not the effort. Incidentally, these types of *just enough* nudges are indicated as better choices than long-form content-coasters for mobile devices.

A text document isn't a bad choice. In some cases it can be pedagogically superior to a locked presentation. It depends I wouldn't count a reading assignment out of the equation, especially when you can broaden the spectrum by mixing reading assignments where beneficial with interactions, videos, etc. where these methods are beneficial.

Holly MacDonald

Bruce, you are right both Leisa and Mariana raise the need for internal consulting for instructional designers - I think this is one of the things that can be challenging when your "role" or "job" is to produce the e-learning. How do we help our internal clients see the value of the range of options that can be developed?

It's a good question to ask ourselves if we are truly proposing the right solution that solves the problem at hand, or are we selling e-learning as a panacea for any illness. If you look at the chart that I included earlier "consult" shows up twice, so it must be important! 

I think internal consulting involves a lot of asking the right questions and really listening to what their issues are. What advice would others add to the internal consulting "sub-thread"?

Belen Casado

This is an interesting debate.

Not only we, as instructional designers, should think about the suitability of an e-learning course.

Sometimes, companies ask for an e-learning course and won't listen to anything else. Like I told in another post, the company I work for wants me to "convert", like magic, every traditional course into an e-learning course. And most of the contents are not "prepared" for that: technical worksheets, laws, long technical manuals... Or we'd have 5-hours e-learning courses.

Paradoxically, with this situation I need to convince them NOT to do "e-learning" (whatever the hell this girl does with headphones staring at the screens like if she was hypnotized). Ain't life pretty?

Mariana Lopes

Hi!

Belen, some time ago I've been in trouble, because here at the company I've been asked to convert some tools manual's into e-learning.

The way I've been able to convince people that it was not adequate has been by suggesting another solution: the creation of resumed and grouped by type of user animated manuals (almost the opposite of the situation I've described some days ago).

Hope it helps!

Todd Thornton

I attended an ASTD meeting yesterday and Tom Kuhlmann was the guest speaker. Even though it was on e-learning, it struck me as interesting because of the percentage of people in the room taking notes with pen/paper. (I would put it at 85%) I guess the meetings move around so you never know what the meeting facilities will be like (Nissan headquarters has a great meeting room BTW) and I'm a little overboard on the tech (some would say obsessed since I carry my own Mifi everywhere I go) but I started wondering about the correlation between someone's willingness to take electronic notes and move away from pen/paper and ultimately their openness to new ideas/new ways of learning. 

Granted my own personal observations don't make something true and I still take notes using paper in certain situations, but I don't think I've ever meet anyone at any conference who took notes using Evernote/equivalent, etc that wasn't also open to new suggestions on how to accomplish other tasks. I do know a lot of people who text who are still very "traditional" in their thinking so I just wonder if making the switch to electronic note taking is in fact a "tipping point" to being open to all e-learning?

On a side note, the meeting was scheduled from 4pm.-6pm and I knew it was a "corporate" environment when at exactly 5:50 (as Tom was in mid sentence) the screen started retracting automatically and the audio/mic/electricity in the room shut off completely.

Todd

Belen Casado

Mariana Lopes said:

Hi!

Belen, some time ago I've been in trouble, because here at the company I've been asked to convert some tools manual's into e-learning.

The way I've been able to convince people that it was not adequate has been by suggesting another solution: the creation of resumed and grouped by type of user animated manuals (almost the opposite of the situation I've described some days ago).

Hope it helps!


Thanks Mariana, this is a very good idea!

Yes, I need to provide a solution instead of creating unbearable e-learning... I'll give a thought to how could I do it.

Gracias!

Belén

Belen Casado

I wanted to share something in this thread.

I was asked to build a presentation for my company, and the feedback has been... AWFUL.

My bosses said they don't like it AT ALL, nothing of it is good for them.

I translated it and changed the logo for mine, so you can see it. 

Any feedback to guess why they consider this a bull$hit?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/companypresentation/player.html

I was inspired by this one that I love!: https://s3.amazonaws.com/GJW-SL/Leaders-As-Developers-v2/story.html

Thanks!

Bruce Graham

Belen,

So sad to hear this - it must be hard to have feedback like that..  :(

So - you need to pick yourself up, and review what they do want?

Are they ready for something like this yet? It is often the case that the audience are just used to seeing "Powerpoint" so that is what they expect to see.

Hope you can turn this one around.

Best of luck

Bruce

Dennis Hall

Great points mentioned, here are a few more...

In my experience, I have found the best way to sell eLearning is to sell it's results:

  1. eLearning (in an LMS environment) can be accurately measured by a machine and will not (typically) include human emotion in the scoring. This is the best approach selling eLearning for certification.
  2. eLearning (in an LMS environment) can provide course feedback via reporting. This is especially important when ISD's and management want courses produced that demand high-performance exams. The measurements can display results indicating when a question is too easy or too hard by reporting large passing for failures on a question-by-question basis.
  3. eLearning can provide reporting scenarios to everyone needing the results and those reporting results can be transfered to other Human Resource related systems for project planning and Human Resource management. This scenario has been highly effective in the Aerospace and Automotive industries.

I could go on forever with listed benefits, however, I think you can get the drift that the output of eLearning is a very beneficial selling point.

Best Regards,

Dennis Hall

James Brandwood

Belen I am very sorry that your feedback wasn't given more constructively. I don't mind people telling me that they don't like my work, as long as they are able to give feedback on what they would like to see changed/different. So I can understand your frustration.

I thought there were some real positives with your work, such as the way you brought in the courses screen shots, and the contrast of colours against the blackboard, but I do agree with Rebecca that perhaps, for a presentation that is promoting something it might be a bit too sombre. I was a little confused as to why the start had frustrated looking people, I understand it is to identify with the problems that people may be having and that the organisation/college can help, but I felt it set a very sombre tone.

After I viewed the example you referred to I understood why you had done your start that way but the example used quotes to engage the viewer (authoritive voice) and was more giving new information and suggesting how the viewer could take advantage of training to get themselves ahead rather than highlighting problems. You will also notice that although the quotes may have been gloomy, the pictures were of happy people and they highlighted the parts of the quote they wanted you to notice the most in pink (a happy colour).

 I would perhaps re-jig your start so it is more upbeat and grab the viewers interest more by using some engaging features, quotes and colour worked well in the example, but there are other ways.

I realise the presentation you were working off didn't have one but is it possible to put a voice over on your presentation to go with the visuals? I realise it's not always an option but I think it would help engage the viewer and you have a very good topic for a voice over. You could even do the quotes this way, someone could say "In 2014, 9 out or 10 employees will be over worked and explode - will they be yours? Training will help"

Please don't feel disheartened by your feedback, just have another shot at it and have some question ready to ask them if they don't like it, as to why they don't like it so you are on the front foot.

Hope this helps.

Belen Casado

Dear all, first of all, thank you very much!

This is exactly what I expected from bosses, a constructive feedback telling things that I can work with.

@Bruce, today I was thinking that it'd had been a miracle if they'd liked the presentation cause they never explain what they want. I try to see them as "another client", but of course I'd get rid of such a client that gives feedback like this. (You'd have seen their faces, I thought they were about to tell me that my family had died in a car accident).

At first I also thought that they weren't prepared to see that but... it was quite "the opposite?". They said (among many other things): we don't want another powerpoint presentation with lots of faces in it. Faces, faces, faces! Everything in HR has faces, what for? This is the same as ever! We don't want the same! (etc.)

@Rebecca, I totally agree that the mood was quite sombre, and probably they felt it that way thought they were unable to explain it.

@James, thank you for pointing out the good things from the sample that inspired me: quotes are key in it, and also happy faces. As you say, to show people having problems is not so positive. This I was told, too. (Maybe the only piece of understandable feedback). As for voice over and those things, I first wanted to deliver a very short message cause I know them and know that they usually dislike things. They wanted something done in 2 days, and yesterday they recognized they want a spot similar to BMW's "Do you like driving?". I suggested that they should hire an advertising agency -and pay for it. When they heared about spending money, they said that I could try something else...

@Dennis, your points are really of much help, I'll build something new on the benefits instead of the problems...

Anyway, please, wish me luck cause I've never encountered such a difficult client. :-(

Belén

Ant Pugh

This thread has been absolutely fantastic - thanks to everyone who has participated.

I am in a very similar position to Belen and Jonathan.. although I am confident that once I have created some examples of e-learning that will both knock my team-mates socks' off and cause a big impact at a much higher level.. the senior management team will take note and understand the potential of e-learning by seeing the benefits.

MY greatest challenge is that I am officially employed as a trainer.. with one of my other "projects" being to introduce e-learning and manage the new LMS. Convincing my manager that creating e-learning content is a job in itself is proving the biggest stumbling block!!! I'm just not being given the time to do what I know I am capable of!!!

Any suggestions on this would be gratefully received...

Bruce Graham

Hi Ant.

I think in this instance, it is very important to (formally) understand the %s of time that are allowed for your "work", and your "projects".

If "...introducing LMS and creating kickass eLearning..." is always a "project, it will always take 2nd place to the "work". It needs to be formally agreed in PDP, Objectives, Compensation Plan or similar.

Why not try and create (one of my favourite techniques...)  a "skunkworks" project - working wiith e.g a friendly sales manager, or a marketing manager that has a problem. You create a "simple" 5-10 minute course off the radar that is designed to solve a SPECIFIC problem or communications (?) issue. Make it one where there is a measurable and simply understood personal payback for that person.

When you release the course it into the wild, do not take, or try to take any credit, all the company focus will be on the other "clever" requestor, and very soon (with luck), others will want to try and take some of that success for themselves. They will then come to you and you can start your strategic plan.

I have adopted this strategy on a number of occasions and it has never failed me yet!

Good luck.

Bruce

Rebecca Hay

Ant,

I would suggest starting small. Build the courses that you know you can knock out failrly quickly. Get those up and running while you work out the bugs of the new LMS and the processes involved with managing that. Wait to create that big "Wow" project until you have a few successful smaller courses going. Of course, this is just my opinion.

Tom Kuhlmann

Sometimes people don't know what they want until they see what they don't want. The client has a mental image of what the course should be like and they're not always able to share it.

That's why the design mapping exercise we do in the elearning workshop is so handy. It's a great way to capture the visual voice of the course and negotiate the expectations with the client.

As a matter of personal preference, I prefer action and would prefer to get to the meat of the matter. It seems to move a little slow and the objectives aren't very obvious. 

Belen Casado

You're so right, Tom!

I've been thinking about all this and I've reached some conclusions:

  • Let your ego aside if you want to enjoy your ID job.
  • Let the client, bosses, choose. They've something in their minds, you don't know what is it, they're the experts.
  • Give options. Show mind maps. Show examples before moving a finger. 
  • Ask, communicate, don't take anything for granted.

How is it possible that my own father is a graphic designer with lots and lots of years of experience, and I've seen this during all my life, and I go and repeat it???

Just to say something that can also give clues for those who have difficulties at work, too: my bosses had seen several corporative presentations, but they didn't tell me. They chose a guy to tell me what they had in mind. He created his own part, then, he told me. I created my own part, and then, put a demo together that had nothing to do with what my bosses had seen. Clients can be in the same situation, so: listen, listen, listen.

Thanks again!!

Belen 

Elizabeth Polak

 

  • Let your ego aside if you want to enjoy your ID job.
  • Let the client, bosses, choose. They've something in their minds, you don't know what is it, they're the experts.
  • Give options. Show mind maps. Show examples before moving a finger. 
  • Ask, communicate, don't take anything for granted.


I completely agree with letting your ego go if you want to do your job but allowing our managers and bosses choose because they are the experts...well, that's where I have the difficulty.  Out of the entire team I work with, there are only three of us that have an actual learning background and instructional design certifications/degrees.  The others are former salesmen, customer service support and other various non training backgrounds.  They think because they have produced a "voice-over PowerPoint" in their past, that makes them an e-learning expert.  They argue with decisions I have made that are in the best interest of the learner and I have had to let it go and just do what they tell me to.  You see, there is a fine line between allowing me to do my job, what I am trained to do and being so directive that all I am is a monkey punching in the order.  If they want a blue box instead of yellow, I can let that go and just do what they ask; however, if you are arguing with me about creating scenarios to engage the learner instead of producing a 40 minute voice-over PowerPoint...well, that's when I get upset.    

Holly MacDonald

One of the tough things about being an ID is that it's a service and that's always difficult to manage. you are relying on relationships to complete the tasks and humans are notoriously unpredictable. When you work within an org, its tougher to deal with, I think. As an external, I just know at the end of the day the client needs to be happy.

I also think that there are times when learning isn't the highest priority. Sometimes its about showing action or politics or getting something out quickly or some other reason. You as the ID are the one who cares about the quality of the learning experience. We all have had that experience which is disheartening, but reality. You can clarify this up front with some discussion to avoid the letdown during the project, and if there is never a time that learning is a priority then you figure out whether or not you want to work in that environment (or you find something on the side that gives you the outlet).

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