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Ep 15: Psychomotor Skill Training: How to Optimize Learning
3 Plays5 years ago
On this episode, Allen Oelschlaeger is joined by Randy Revling, a retired Sheriff’s captain with over 30 years of experience as a law enforcement instructor. Randy developed the original instructor development course (IDC) used by the State of Wisconsin and has personally taught over 600 instructor schools for a wide range of disciplines.
Unlike most trainers, Randy has documented positive results of his training methods.
The discussion focuses on how to optimize “learning” — defined as creating relatively permanent changes in student behavior that results in the benefits expected from the training.
Some of the core principles discussed include:
• To optimize learning, the importance of soliciting emotion and making the training practical and relevant to the student
• People learn by doing, not by listening to a lecture
• To drive learning, the need for a stimulus that is created by practicing inside a real-life and relevant scenario
• The four steps that must be completed before delivering any training
• The reason why teaching should occur inside scenario practice, rather than before this practice
• The application of Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Training Evaluation Model to psychomotor skill training
• How to effectively engage with students who start class with a bad attitude
• The potentially conflicting goals of a training class generating “learning” versus generating good evaluations
Recommended
Transcript
Intro to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Confidence in Conflict podcast, your destination for learning how to prevent and better manage conflict in both your professional and personal lives.
Unique Aspects of Conflict Management Training
00:00:11
Speaker
If you're a listener to this podcast, you know that I work for a company that provides training on conflict management, which is a psychomotor skill.
00:00:21
Speaker
The training we provide is not like teaching math or social studies.
00:00:24
Speaker
Instead, we teach a skill that our students must use every day in their jobs.
00:00:30
Speaker
In their interactions with others, they must sound, look, and respond in ways to prevent conflict, de-escalate conflict if it occurs, and keep themselves and others safe.
00:00:40
Speaker
Again, doing this is a psychomotor skill, and as a result, the approach to training is different than teaching a pure knowledge-based course like math or social studies.
Meet Randy Revling
00:00:51
Speaker
So in this episode, I talk to Randy Revling about this type of training, which Randy's been studying and doing for over 30 years.
00:00:59
Speaker
Here you go.
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, Randy Revelling, how are you doing?
00:01:11
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Good to have you on the call.
00:01:11
Speaker
Thank you, Al.
00:01:13
Speaker
So you're up in Green Bay.
00:01:16
Speaker
I understand this is right in the middle of pandemic season, and every night I watch the evening news, and it seems like you're having a tough time up there with the pandemic.
00:01:26
Speaker
Is that true or not?
00:01:27
Speaker
That's only in the news.
00:01:29
Speaker
Only in the news.
00:01:29
Speaker
You cannot tell in our community that there's a pandemic.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:36
Speaker
It is making the natural news now, but...
00:01:38
Speaker
Anyway, so Randy, we were on once before.
00:01:42
Speaker
I wanted to loop back and talk further about this whole issue of how to best train psychomotor skills.
00:01:49
Speaker
And I know you've been doing this for years.
00:01:53
Speaker
I'll let you describe how many years and then
Practical Training for Memory Retention
00:01:56
Speaker
we can get into it.
00:01:56
Speaker
I know we want to talk about something new that's been around for probably, what, 40, 50 years is Kirkpatrick's model.
00:02:04
Speaker
So anyway, why don't you introduce yourself and we'll go from there.
00:02:08
Speaker
Well, good morning again.
00:02:09
Speaker
Randy Rebling here.
00:02:10
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For a number of years, I've been involved primarily in law enforcement training, but also have done a great deal of training in hospitals, industry, financial institutions, schools, and a lot of other organizations.
00:02:28
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And one of the most important things I believe that we came across in all these years of training tens of thousands of people
00:02:37
Speaker
is that the training must be practical and relevant to each individual.
00:02:41
Speaker
And we can discuss today how we can achieve that.
00:02:47
Speaker
It should be remembered that a lot of discussion is held on what should we train?
00:02:53
Speaker
Should we train this technique or that technique?
00:02:57
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And in reality, many techniques are good.
00:03:01
Speaker
But the critical thing is how it's going to be taught.
00:03:05
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How are you going to research this situation within this industry, this particular department, or whoever you're going to be working for?
00:03:14
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How do you research and find out what the actual issues are there?
00:03:19
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And by doing so, you're learning a lot about the employees, what their needs are, and you create a program, like whatever techniques you want to teach, that is practical and relevant to them.
The Role of Emotion in Training
00:03:35
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In that, you'll create emotion.
00:03:37
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Emotion and training is what drives to long-term memory.
00:03:43
Speaker
Randy, I love it.
00:03:43
Speaker
That's where I would see us going today, Al.
00:03:45
Speaker
Thank you.
00:03:46
Speaker
Well, I think you know that we've been doing conflict management training forever, 30-plus years.
00:03:53
Speaker
And in our minds, it's human behavior.
00:03:59
Speaker
You're dealing with humans.
00:04:01
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All humans are pretty much the same.
00:04:02
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You're dealing with body mechanics.
00:04:05
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and people's conflict triggers we talk about.
00:04:08
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And at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what market you're in or what discipline.
00:04:14
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The core principles are the same.
00:04:16
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But just like what you described there in that the audience doesn't understand that.
00:04:22
Speaker
And they need I think what you're saying here, they need training that's very relevant, very specific to what they're doing in their jobs every day and not
00:04:33
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some general principle that applies to all humans.
Group Organization for Effective Learning
00:04:37
Speaker
Well, that's correct.
00:04:38
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But for example, one of the classes that I audited for you and what your instructors were presenting to a very nice group of probably 30 or 40 people for a four day period of time.
00:04:56
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And those people came from various backgrounds.
00:04:59
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And now based on what I just said, you said, well, how would you determine what all of these people need?
00:05:04
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Well, that's easy, but many people don't do it.
00:05:08
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And that is to allow this class to organize itself into working groups, teams of perhaps three, sometimes four people who have the similar needs, who have the similar backgrounds, who have the similar concerns.
00:05:26
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And then, uh,
00:05:28
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some more associates of your company have done a lot of work, a lot of great work in England.
00:05:35
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And they talked about, you know, putting this stuff into context.
Scenario-Based Training from Day One
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And in this class that we would have then, these people are working together.
00:05:52
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And as they talked about in England, well, they must be doing the complete work.
00:05:57
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program from the start because if you want them in the end to be able to do x well then they have to be doing x and that was the exact words of professor cushions but see when they're doing x x has to be practical and relevant to them so now if you have this group of people who have similar backgrounds similar concerns similar needs when they return to the workplace must be doing similar things right from the start
00:06:23
Speaker
they are doing something that they are going to need to do back home.
00:06:28
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Now the degrees of intensity, which will continually increase as the skills develop, are based upon the role of the person playing the role player, the one who is creating the situation within their teams.
00:06:47
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And that's how we achieve this.
00:06:48
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That's how you achieve the emotion
00:06:51
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that drives this to an actual psychomotor skill that they can do without thinking about it based upon the stimulus to the incident back home, which was the same thing they created in the training environment.
Aristotle's Influence on Modern Learning
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And Randy, I've heard this from you for as long as I've known you, that this emotion is pretty key for learning to occur and that without it, not much learning is going to happen.
00:07:15
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But if you can get people
00:07:17
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emotional, embedded in what you're doing, and they see that this is going to apply to what they do in their jobs, that's when the magic happens.
00:07:26
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Exactly.
00:07:26
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That magic is what we call the involuntary desire to learn.
00:07:29
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They don't even realize in their own minds what's going on.
00:07:34
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They're working.
00:07:34
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They're doing a job.
00:07:36
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They're involved in it.
00:07:41
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Because it's practical and relevant to them that you'll get this psychomotor skill development
00:07:47
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drives us to long term memory.
00:07:50
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And they just keep working.
00:07:52
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It's work.
00:07:53
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Training is work.
00:07:55
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So, you know, I there was a previous podcast here.
00:08:00
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I did.
00:08:01
Speaker
I'm not sure exactly when this one will get published versus the one we did within the UK, but that talked about how a lot of this is based on 40 years of research.
00:08:11
Speaker
And you'd pointed out that a lot of this goes back all the way to Aristotle.
00:08:16
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So tell me about that.
00:08:17
Speaker
Where does Aristotle fit into this?
Modeling and Imitation in Psychomotor Skills
00:08:20
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Well, everybody knows who Aristotle was.
00:08:22
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Not too many people know just how long ago it was.
00:08:26
Speaker
But what I enjoy most about reading from those times is those people were as smart as anybody today and maybe smarter.
00:08:39
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They understood the mind and the body.
00:08:46
Speaker
And Aristotle said, whatever you want to be good at, you must do that.
00:08:52
Speaker
Now, certainly, when you read more in depth, you'll see that there was evaluation even then, of course.
00:08:59
Speaker
And it's the same type of evaluation as now.
00:09:03
Speaker
And that is, when someone is...
00:09:06
Speaker
initially learning this, the first thing they must have is a model.
00:09:09
Speaker
They have to see somebody doing it.
00:09:11
Speaker
Now, what this person is doing, that's actually typically the role of the instructor, but I'm going to show you as our discussion continues today, how the students actually take on this role as well, and what we call student instruction, student evaluation, learner instruction, learner evaluation.
00:09:32
Speaker
But first of all, instructor, the teacher,
00:09:36
Speaker
has taken the time to research and learn what are the needs and develop, select from among many techniques, a technique to teach them today, a series of techniques, and be able to effectively model it, show them.
00:09:53
Speaker
When the learner sees somebody doing something that they can see as practical and relevant, starts the desire to imitate.
00:10:02
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As soon as that desire to imitate is there, you've got to get them out of the chair.
00:10:06
Speaker
They can't be sitting there 15, 20 minutes or two or three hours.
00:10:11
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Get them up.
00:10:13
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After demonstrating this thing, explaining why it's practical and relevant within just a few minutes, get them up.
00:10:21
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Get them into their groups.
00:10:23
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And here in this group, you'll have someone who is actually carrying out the exercise.
00:10:27
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You'll have somebody who is watching them, guiding them.
00:10:31
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Initial stages, they'll need some direction.
00:10:35
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And that direction is not complete, but it's, pause for a second.
00:10:39
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Remember, you hold your hand here, or this is what you say.
00:10:44
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And within a couple of repetitions, they're able to do this.
00:10:47
Speaker
Now they're thinking themselves through it, which is good.
00:10:50
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Conscious effort.
00:10:52
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They're thinking about what they're saying.
00:10:53
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They're thinking about what they're doing.
00:10:55
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And they're reacting to the role player who's actually creating the stimulus by which they would say and do these things.
00:11:03
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And then they rotate.
00:11:05
Speaker
But before they rotate and keep changing positions of one is the actual practitioner, you know, the person that's doing this job, one is the coach, and another one is the role player who's creating a stimulus.
00:11:17
Speaker
That role player is on a very strict role player card where they cannot deviate from.
00:11:23
Speaker
But as they pause to rotate positions, one of the most important things they can do is now debrief, where they actually talk about it.
00:11:34
Speaker
And let's say the coach will ask the person who just went through this, well, tell me, why did you do what you did?
Effective Role-Playing Environments
00:11:40
Speaker
What was the stimulus?
00:11:42
Speaker
What's the justification for you carrying out the things you just said and done?
00:11:46
Speaker
That's all they need.
00:11:47
Speaker
What's the justification?
00:11:49
Speaker
What that does is it builds confidence.
00:11:51
Speaker
They need that confidence because people sometimes have a little bit of difficulty in talking about what they've done and why they've done it.
00:12:01
Speaker
Oftentimes, maybe they haven't thought about why they did it.
00:12:04
Speaker
But remember now, nothing has been done in this training that has not already been improved in the policy of the agency.
00:12:13
Speaker
And they just reference that.
00:12:15
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Here is what this person was saying and doing, and now here is what I have done.
00:12:22
Speaker
And Randy, let's step back on that because I think that's a crazy important point is you share a little chart with me here where, you know, you're into delivering the training program and how do you do that and get people up and making sure they work in groups and relevant content, whatever.
00:12:38
Speaker
But you have this chart where there's four steps before that, right?
00:12:42
Speaker
And I think your point here is that if they don't understand that what they're doing is in alignment with their
00:12:50
Speaker
organizational policies, which I think is one of these steps, you get in a little bit of trouble.
00:12:55
Speaker
So just briefly describe, you know, what you should be doing before you ever show up in class.
00:13:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:03
Speaker
We started talking about that just a few minutes ago, but so this law has now had someone inquire to your company as to, you know, maybe this law would be the right fit for our company and you shall come and do some training for us.
00:13:17
Speaker
And you're listening to their concerns and
00:13:19
Speaker
actually taking note of them.
00:13:21
Speaker
And if your contract discussions go so far as to initiate a contract, well, the first thing you're going to be doing is sending your staff to that company to do a number of things.
00:13:33
Speaker
One is to get to know the people who are in charge, see what their concerns are, see where they're going.
00:13:42
Speaker
Also to review the policies of the agency, as well as the procedures.
00:13:47
Speaker
The policy manual empowers employees to act.
00:13:50
Speaker
The procedure manual gives them the guidelines to work within.
00:13:54
Speaker
And you're studying these things.
00:13:56
Speaker
And now you're working together right with the employee.
00:13:58
Speaker
You're watching them in the job place.
00:14:00
Speaker
You're reading about the incidents that have already occurred.
00:14:02
Speaker
There's no doubt reports at this company of previous situations, previous incidents, walking to the employees,
00:14:12
Speaker
Meeting in focus groups with the employees.
00:14:14
Speaker
Get the union members.
00:14:15
Speaker
If there's a collective bargaining agreement in place at that company, this is going nowhere without the union supporting it.
00:14:23
Speaker
No matter what anybody says, I've been around a long time.
00:14:26
Speaker
I've worked with a lot of unions and nothing goes anywhere without their cooperation.
00:14:32
Speaker
But if there is no union, it's really the same thing.
00:14:34
Speaker
The focus groups, getting the employees to buy into what you're going to be doing.
00:14:40
Speaker
This is all before you've even written the learning objectives.
00:14:45
Speaker
But once you have a firm understanding of what are the needs of this company, the needs specifically of these individual employees, you can write the learning objectives.
00:14:56
Speaker
Once you have the objectives, this is how we want to be here in the future.
Pre-Training Evaluation and Company Needs
00:15:00
Speaker
Okay, how are we going to implement that?
00:15:02
Speaker
So we write a lesson plan and we're determining what our instructional strategy is going to be.
00:15:08
Speaker
Maybe some of this is going to be online.
00:15:10
Speaker
great way of doing things now is to get academic information to the person, which they need in the online environment.
00:15:19
Speaker
In many companies, they want the employee to do that on duty while they're working.
00:15:24
Speaker
Everybody has a little bit of time during the day, and if they don't have some time during their shift, then again, there has to be agreements on who's going to pay them to do their work online if they're not doing it well at work.
00:15:38
Speaker
And then
00:15:39
Speaker
and also looking at how's the hands-on training going to go what are we going to do to create an effective working environment one of the comments that i heard special questions was make sure you're not doing scenarios in the last day well that is absolutely the truth if you wait till the last day to do a scenario well what is the purpose of that
00:16:02
Speaker
evaluation and then what if the person doesn't do good and so when are you going to fix that person that doesn't make any sense at all to wait to the end right that scenario environment begins on day one as i just mentioned you know here you had an instructor who created an effective model for these people when they walk out onto the floor they are literally experiencing the same stimulus that they're going to see in the workplace you've got that person who is
00:16:31
Speaker
playing the role.
00:16:32
Speaker
Now, it's very low key.
00:16:35
Speaker
You would not even really recognize it as a full-blown scenario, but you have a role player that's creating the stimulus.
00:16:44
Speaker
Now, in these learning strategies, you're going slow, and then now we're kind of coming back to what I was mentioning, that debrief before they rotate.
00:16:55
Speaker
The first question was, why did you do what you did?
00:16:58
Speaker
consistent with recognizing the stimulus that the role player presented, and I'm working within the policy that empowers me, and I'm also within the guidelines that the company has given me to carry this out.
00:17:13
Speaker
Next question is, well, that's very good, but how do you see yourself next time?
00:17:19
Speaker
It's real easy for people to tell you all the things they did wrong, which will only increase the likelihood of that being done again.
00:17:27
Speaker
Wrong.
00:17:29
Speaker
When you ask the question, when the coach asks the question, how do you see yourself next time?
00:17:34
Speaker
They must pause and see how they desire themselves to be next time.
00:17:40
Speaker
And literally, first person, experiential, describe themselves doing this thing right.
00:17:50
Speaker
That's what they will move toward to become like.
00:17:53
Speaker
You're actually affecting the neuron structure of the brain and the neuromuscular pathway
00:17:59
Speaker
with your language.
00:18:02
Speaker
Language is a very, very important and influential factor in training.
00:18:08
Speaker
They must be able to describe themselves as they want to be, just like they were modeled.
00:18:16
Speaker
Now, it's time to rotate and they get back into it.
00:18:19
Speaker
And
Continuous Evaluation with Kirkpatrick's Model
00:18:20
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hence, that's how the training goes.
00:18:22
Speaker
If you push and set it, you wanna do X?
00:18:25
Speaker
Well, you better keep doing X.
00:18:28
Speaker
and throughout the various levels of intensity.
00:18:31
Speaker
So by the time the last day comes and the scenarios have become pretty intense, well, they already know they're going to do good.
00:18:40
Speaker
They know they'll do good.
00:18:41
Speaker
They have a great deal of confidence.
00:18:43
Speaker
Well, they're competent.
00:18:46
Speaker
As we talked about with with with Professor Cushion and Jared O'Day is that once they're in that, but you're just describing these little groups and they're doing the scenario and there's a coach and a
00:18:58
Speaker
practitioner and a role player, they also have the opportunity to say, you know, boy, I need to learn this better.
00:19:08
Speaker
And as Dr. Cushion said, it doesn't get any better than having the student ask to be taught.
00:19:14
Speaker
And at that point, you can go back and do, you know, the specific practice to learn a piece of that scenario and how to do it better and then come back into the scenario and try it again.
00:19:26
Speaker
Well, there's two parts to that.
00:19:29
Speaker
One, which is the most important part, is that group of learners, that small team of three to four people, they will very likely determine that themselves.
00:19:43
Speaker
You know, their brain is as powerful as the coach's brain, as the teacher's brain.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yep.
00:19:50
Speaker
Now...
00:19:51
Speaker
Remember, you're paying a Vistalar teacher to be there.
00:19:56
Speaker
That Vistalar teacher is watching from a distance, watching these teams, not standing right on top of them.
00:20:02
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As soon as that Vistalar trainer, the big shot, comes close to that little group, the energy will leave them and go toward that.
00:20:13
Speaker
They give all the authority over to that coach standing there.
00:20:17
Speaker
Stay away from them.
00:20:18
Speaker
Watch them from a distance.
00:20:20
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They will keep their own authority.
00:20:21
Speaker
They'll keep their own energy, and they'll move toward it, the goal.
00:20:26
Speaker
Now, that coach is watching a distance, and he sees something that's not quite right.
00:20:30
Speaker
Well, that needs to be fixed.
00:20:32
Speaker
And you're watching to see if they correct it.
00:20:34
Speaker
If they don't correct it, now the coach is going to step up, and they've got the authority, they've got the energy.
00:20:40
Speaker
They go ahead and model it again, describe it just a little bit better for them, maybe describe it in a different manner.
00:20:47
Speaker
And
00:20:48
Speaker
Get away from and they'll they'll improve.
00:20:50
Speaker
They'll do good.
00:20:53
Speaker
I love it.
00:20:55
Speaker
So quick summary then.
00:20:56
Speaker
So.
00:20:58
Speaker
Because I want to I want to talk about this evaluation, which is this Kirkpatrick's model that you've mentioned.
00:21:03
Speaker
But the the point here is you that before training ever occurs, you've got to determine the needs.
00:21:09
Speaker
You've got to make sure the policy and procedures align with what the the training is going to teach.
00:21:15
Speaker
You develop a lesson plan, make sure the objectives are clear, make sure you understand clearly what the instruction strategies are.
00:21:20
Speaker
And what you're saying is it could be that online is an effective instruction strategy for part of a course.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then separately, you might have the hands-on training where people can work together in groups.
00:21:32
Speaker
And then you deliver the training, you make sure the scenarios are occurring and people are working in groups and it's real life.
00:21:39
Speaker
And then,
Behavioral Change Evaluation
00:21:40
Speaker
but then at some point you're going to evaluate how this all went so you can improve next time.
00:21:44
Speaker
So talk a little bit about this Kirkpatrick's model and how that fits in.
00:21:49
Speaker
First of all, there's four levels for Kirkpatrick.
00:21:54
Speaker
The first three are running all the time.
00:21:58
Speaker
There's not a day where, okay, today's evaluation day.
00:22:01
Speaker
No, no.
00:22:03
Speaker
Here's the first level evaluation of Kirkpatrick.
00:22:06
Speaker
That's the student's reaction to their training.
00:22:09
Speaker
Well,
00:22:10
Speaker
The student's reaction starts when the instructor walks into the classroom and looks out at them.
00:22:16
Speaker
What's their body language?
00:22:18
Speaker
What are they doing?
00:22:18
Speaker
How prepared are they?
00:22:20
Speaker
That's the reaction already.
00:22:23
Speaker
Some say, oh, no, no, that's the survey or the evaluation that they'll do on an instructor at the end of the class.
00:22:30
Speaker
True.
00:22:31
Speaker
The student's reaction to the training starts in the first minute and it runs throughout the class.
00:22:37
Speaker
Are they attentive?
00:22:39
Speaker
Are they involved?
00:22:41
Speaker
Well, if the instructor is more concerned about their talking and their explaining the stuff where the student falls asleep, you can't blame the student.
00:22:57
Speaker
That's the instructor's fault.
00:23:00
Speaker
The student's reaction to training is measured in their enthusiasm.
00:23:05
Speaker
It's measured in how hard they work.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's measured in their involvement.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's measured in their evaluation of the other students, in their cooperation, and the assistance that they provide to the other students.
00:23:19
Speaker
And it runs throughout the class.
00:23:21
Speaker
The next level is, has anything learned?
00:23:23
Speaker
Has anything been learned?
00:23:24
Speaker
Well, if you wait until the last day and give them a written test to see if anything was learned, you might be very disappointed.
00:23:32
Speaker
Right.
00:23:33
Speaker
So has anything been learned?
00:23:36
Speaker
When the instructor is standing there watching four or five or six or seven groups of students out on this floor, and they're all interacting within their little work environment that they're creating with the role player and the coach, might be a couple coaches, and then, of course, one person who's a practitioner, you're seeing if learning is occurring right there.
00:24:02
Speaker
Also, if you want to have some evaluation of academic concerns, terminologies, definitions, procedures, give them a pretest in the morning.
00:24:14
Speaker
See what they learned in their homework that night.
00:24:17
Speaker
Give them a post-test at the end of the day, and maybe five or six questions, seven or eight, no more than 10.
00:24:25
Speaker
And you'll see if learning is occurring, but that goes on throughout the class.
00:24:30
Speaker
So we've covered the student's reaction,
00:24:32
Speaker
We've covered learning as far as measuring it, because everything has to be measured.
00:24:38
Speaker
Even that student reaction should be measured on a rubric.
00:24:42
Speaker
You should lay out the definitions of what you want to see in a rubric.
00:24:47
Speaker
The third thing, what is your behavioral change?
00:24:51
Speaker
Are they actually doing the things that you wrote down?
00:24:57
Speaker
Perhaps months before you did all the surveys and did
Facilitators' Role in Training Impact
00:25:00
Speaker
all the work within the agency.
00:25:02
Speaker
Are they doing that now?
00:25:04
Speaker
And are they doing that without direction?
00:25:07
Speaker
Are they doing that solely by the stimulus of the role player?
00:25:11
Speaker
And you saw it go through all the various levels of intensity to the point where you actually can predict that when they go to the workplace, they're going to be doing it.
00:25:24
Speaker
Now, the second part of that third level of evaluation is, are they actually doing it in the workplace?
00:25:32
Speaker
So hence, it's important to consider the development of facilitators.
00:25:39
Speaker
Facilitators aren't necessarily teachers.
00:25:44
Speaker
Facilitators ensure that the VISTA-LAR curriculum is being presented and utilized within their workplace as VISTA-LAR intended.
00:25:57
Speaker
That's what a facilitator does.
00:25:58
Speaker
Now, a lot of what they do seems like a coach, seems like a trainer, but it's a facilitator.
00:26:05
Speaker
Interesting.
00:26:06
Speaker
Now, there's one more, Al.
00:26:09
Speaker
That's number four.
00:26:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:11
Speaker
Number four is what is the impact now in our workplace?
00:26:17
Speaker
Our, right?
00:26:17
Speaker
Because we have become part of this company.
00:26:21
Speaker
In our workplace, because of the VISTA-LAR training,
00:26:26
Speaker
Do we see less complaints from citizens?
00:26:30
Speaker
Do we see less sick time taken by employees?
00:26:33
Speaker
Do we see better retention of the employee?
00:26:35
Speaker
Do we have to hire less people, spend less money on training?
00:26:39
Speaker
Do we have better quality in our product?
00:26:42
Speaker
What are the measurements that we had intended to make right from the start?
00:26:48
Speaker
And are we hitting those milestones?
00:26:51
Speaker
Or is there something unexpected benefit that has derived from this?
00:26:55
Speaker
Or was there an unexpected downturn because of something?
00:26:59
Speaker
We have to be watching for our impact in the workplace in measurable, measurable evaluation criteria.
00:27:12
Speaker
Well, that's the four levels of evaluation, but it runs continuously.
00:27:17
Speaker
But let's go back to level three, because your description of your groups and the scenarios and all that, that's level three.
00:27:26
Speaker
That's where you get to see, can they actually do this?
00:27:29
Speaker
And throughout the week, you can continue to evaluate, can they do the skills effectively?
00:27:33
Speaker
Are you changing behavior?
00:27:35
Speaker
Changing behavior.
00:27:36
Speaker
Love it.
00:27:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:37
Speaker
There has to be what they call a paradigm shift.
00:27:39
Speaker
This is how we are now, and we're not going back.
00:27:43
Speaker
But again, in training, you're only predicting it because it's still training.
00:27:47
Speaker
Right.
00:27:47
Speaker
They know it.
00:27:49
Speaker
And they know, even though that instructor's far off and that there's fellow students who are helping them to coach and helping them to evaluate, helping them to learn, they know you're watching.
00:28:00
Speaker
And they know they're supposed to do what you want them to do.
00:28:04
Speaker
So that's why the actual second part of level three evaluation behavior is how are they doing this on the job when nobody's watching?
00:28:14
Speaker
Let's...
00:28:14
Speaker
Remember, there's always somebody watching, but sometimes people get the feeling like nobody's watching.
00:28:19
Speaker
Right.
Engaging Reluctant Learners
00:28:20
Speaker
How are we doing then?
00:28:24
Speaker
Yep.
00:28:25
Speaker
And that's, you know, it's just as you're talking there, Randy, it kind of on that, the cushion call, we, we talked a little bit about driver training and how, you know, you learn to become a new driver and you do a little class time, you know, find out what the rules are and what the signs mean, but then you're,
00:28:43
Speaker
Right away, you're out in the car driving.
00:28:44
Speaker
You got a coach and he's giving you feedback and he's taking you through various levels of intensity and whatever.
00:28:51
Speaker
And that's, I think, the analogy of being in class and training class.
00:28:55
Speaker
But then and then you leave that training and you go out and now you got your maybe your dad is the facilitator.
00:29:02
Speaker
Is that a fair analogy?
00:29:04
Speaker
And the dad is is making sure you're doing what you were taught in class.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
And then ultimately you gotta be able to do it when nobody else is in the car and nobody's watching, but occasionally somebody is watching like a, you know, law enforcement officer that sees you, uh, you know, very good analogy.
00:29:30
Speaker
Remembering these facilitators are trained by Vistolar to carry it on to exactly how Vistolar wants it to carry it on.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:41
Speaker
Well, that's obviously part of the problem with driver training is the, sometimes the dad or the mom isn't necessarily a good facilitator.
00:29:47
Speaker
They haven't been trained, right?
00:29:50
Speaker
A lot of, a lot of 16 year olds go through a lot of stress because of that.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
So, okay.
00:29:58
Speaker
So, and, but this, that, that fourth level is the hard one, right?
00:30:01
Speaker
Because that means somehow you need to track, you know, what are the results that you're expecting from this training?
00:30:07
Speaker
Obviously you should know what those are up front, but,
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, if you're looking for less turnover because people have less stress or conflict and whatever, then you got to measure turnover.
00:30:17
Speaker
See what happens.
00:30:18
Speaker
And there's a couple of, well, there's more than a couple.
00:30:20
Speaker
There's several different ways of achieving number four.
00:30:25
Speaker
One is when you were developing the lesson plans, you're actually developing the surveys that would go out to this company.
00:30:33
Speaker
So you don't have facilitators that are trained, or even if you have them, these are some tools that would be beneficial.
00:30:40
Speaker
We're creating a survey, a survey that goes to the agency a few months after the training, six months after training, maybe annually.
00:30:50
Speaker
And you're determining if any of these benchmarks have been achieved.
00:30:54
Speaker
Some of these things we mentioned, have there been a reduction of complaints?
00:30:57
Speaker
Is there an improvement in customer satisfaction?
00:31:00
Speaker
How are you measuring that?
00:31:03
Speaker
Are you getting actual complimentary letters, letters of reference, commendation coming in?
00:31:09
Speaker
Are there less sick days?
00:31:11
Speaker
Is there less workman's comp?
00:31:13
Speaker
Are there cases where you're training security and law enforcement, less on-duty injuries?
00:31:19
Speaker
Do you have less workman's comp?
00:31:22
Speaker
So all this is laid out in a survey way ahead of time.
00:31:26
Speaker
And then the surveys are presented.
00:31:28
Speaker
The other thing is,
00:31:30
Speaker
of facilitator training is not just learning how to implement and maintain the VISTLR curriculum but how to evaluate if it's being done properly and how to evaluate the impact what are the measurables if we can't measure it we don't want to know about it if it's somebody's opinion i'm not much interested
00:32:01
Speaker
but I want to be able to measure the impact and what is it that we can measure?
00:32:08
Speaker
And usually it's gonna lead to some type of either improvement in the workplace or financial gain for the company.
00:32:20
Speaker
Not just customer satisfaction, but what about worker satisfaction within the workplace, which helps to retain these employees that they've invested in?
00:32:29
Speaker
And what about the employees that don't belong
00:32:32
Speaker
Have some employees been removed from the workplace?
00:32:37
Speaker
Sometimes that's not a bad idea.
00:32:40
Speaker
When many companies simply don't have the criteria that they need, that's why Vislar can help them do this, to evaluate employee performance effectively.
00:32:52
Speaker
And once they have the effective criteria for evaluating employee performance, now they can determine who should be there and who shouldn't be there.
00:33:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:04
Speaker
So there's a lot to this, but you've got the company that can do it.
00:33:09
Speaker
So let's, let's jump back to the delivery of the training.
00:33:13
Speaker
You walk in the class and you got a group of students there.
00:33:17
Speaker
And obviously there's some people that are, for whatever reason,
Managing Training Challenges
00:33:20
Speaker
they're excited to be there, eager to learn, you know, they've, they've, they see the benefit before they were walking the door because of, you know, what they've been told about the training, whatever.
00:33:30
Speaker
But, but,
00:33:32
Speaker
There's always other people that are not, you know, in any of those categories.
00:33:36
Speaker
So how do you take a diverse class where you obviously have some people that are eager and, you know, I think everybody that's ever been a trainer or an educator has this experience where there's some people in the class who just don't want to be there.
00:33:50
Speaker
And, and now you have to, you know, you want them to learn.
00:33:54
Speaker
You got these little groups you're forming, like you described.
00:33:58
Speaker
How do you get them engaged in the training to make sure they also learn by the end of the class?
00:34:04
Speaker
Well, first of all, let's not be too hard on some people who are less than enthused to be there.
00:34:14
Speaker
There's some things I believe we should consider.
00:34:17
Speaker
First of all, these people that we've just designated as less than eager.
00:34:25
Speaker
What has been their experience and training in the past?
00:34:30
Speaker
How effective was the training that they've had to attend all these years?
00:34:36
Speaker
There's a possibility it wasn't very good.
00:34:39
Speaker
Exactly, right.
00:34:40
Speaker
There's a possibility that it was a waste of their time.
00:34:47
Speaker
I have found, I have found us time and time again,
00:34:54
Speaker
that those people who are on the first day and the first few minutes of the class would just as soon not be there are probably some of the hardest working, most intelligent, and dedicated employees that the company has.
00:35:10
Speaker
But they've been so frustrated by poor training, lack of training, some cases mistakes that
00:35:22
Speaker
administration makes and managing the employee that they do have a crappy attitude.
00:35:30
Speaker
And those are the people that I actually like to see best.
00:35:36
Speaker
I love them because I can make this thing practical and relevant to them.
00:35:43
Speaker
And in a short period of time, you're going to see them actually become the best people in the class.
00:35:51
Speaker
Now, is there still a possibility that there's somebody that doesn't belong there?
00:35:55
Speaker
Possibly, but the evaluation criteria and your effectiveness in evaluating them is something that is unprecedented.
00:36:04
Speaker
They might just fail the class.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:36:08
Speaker
Some people fail.
00:36:09
Speaker
Everybody can't be expected to pass all the time.
00:36:14
Speaker
I would wonder, you know, one of the things that determines the validity of a written exam, if everybody passed,
00:36:21
Speaker
all the time just how good was that exam.
00:36:26
Speaker
So I'm not worried if somebody sits in that class and they got their arms crossed and leaning back and kind of a lower look on their face that first few minutes to the class.
00:36:39
Speaker
I understand it completely.
00:36:42
Speaker
And I love them.
00:36:44
Speaker
I love those people.
00:36:46
Speaker
And the key there is, and just
00:36:49
Speaker
put a little bit more to that?
00:36:51
Speaker
Because the key is you're saying that if you can show them that this class is going to be relevant to their work life, it's going to have benefits that they're going to gain, that they can get a clear vision in their head as to where they're going to be by the end of the class, they're going to rally to the occasion.
00:37:11
Speaker
Is that what you're saying?
00:37:12
Speaker
That's been my experience.
00:37:14
Speaker
Now, they might test you a few times along the way, you know,
00:37:19
Speaker
They might make some type of a comment, and I'm not talking about an inappropriate out of line type of comment that would be disrespectful to other class members, but kind of a challenging comment to you, the instructor, as to, you know, your effectiveness, your ability to be there, why you're even there in front of them, or some type of comment regarding, are you sure this is the proper technique?
00:37:42
Speaker
Or, hey, let me show you something I've been doing.
00:37:45
Speaker
Oh, I want to see it.
00:37:47
Speaker
I'm not going to diss them because you know what the odds are it's very similar to what we're going to teach today.
00:37:54
Speaker
Maybe we'll learn something.
00:37:58
Speaker
This is not a bad situation.
00:38:01
Speaker
I just, Randy, you're, you're, you're causing me to, there's a little story.
00:38:05
Speaker
I'm going to tell a brief story.
00:38:06
Speaker
There's a longer version of it, but I worked with a guy that was the engineering architect for a large company.
00:38:12
Speaker
He was the guy that developed almost every product and was, uh,
00:38:16
Speaker
the brains behind almost everything
Long-Term Benefits of Training and Evaluation
00:38:20
Speaker
this company produced.
00:38:21
Speaker
But he told a story about a previous company he was with where he had to go to some training.
00:38:27
Speaker
So he's an engineer, right?
00:38:28
Speaker
Very, very extraordinarily smart guy had to go to some training and it was training on how to use the company's phone system.
00:38:37
Speaker
Right now, this guy had been through a lot of bad training.
00:38:40
Speaker
So, and so you mentioned challenging the instructor.
00:38:44
Speaker
So,
00:38:45
Speaker
He's there.
00:38:45
Speaker
He's horribly frustrated by the training because in his mind, it's pretty stupid, right?
00:38:49
Speaker
I'm going to learn how to use this phone system, you know, and I have to be here for like three hours.
00:38:54
Speaker
This is back when, you know, digital phones first came into being.
00:38:59
Speaker
So during the break, he climbed underneath the table.
00:39:01
Speaker
Everybody had a phone in front of them because they had to practice calling each other and leaving voicemails or whatever.
00:39:07
Speaker
He climbed underneath the tables and he rewired all the phones.
00:39:11
Speaker
So they, when they called one person, it actually rang somewhere else.
00:39:16
Speaker
And so the instructor comes back, she was completely lost, right?
00:39:20
Speaker
Cause go, Oh, well, John, you call Bill and let's see what happens.
00:39:23
Speaker
And John would call Bill and Mary would get the phone call.
00:39:26
Speaker
And so it was kind of the extreme of challenging the instructor.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:33
Speaker
Well, that you have to curtail.
00:39:37
Speaker
It's only goes so far.
00:39:38
Speaker
Remember we're there to teach this class and if the behavior
00:39:44
Speaker
begins to compromise your ability to teach a class, well, you know, steps have to be taken.
00:39:48
Speaker
Oh, exactly.
00:39:48
Speaker
But I think in her case, she didn't figure out what the problem was, and he never admitted the problem.
00:39:56
Speaker
But anyway.
00:40:00
Speaker
Some IT guy was blamed for all that.
00:40:06
Speaker
But you remember that, right?
00:40:07
Speaker
Back when phones first came out, it was like, come on, right?
00:40:09
Speaker
You're going to teach me how to use the phone?
00:40:11
Speaker
But anyway.
00:40:12
Speaker
So...
00:40:15
Speaker
So very cool.
00:40:15
Speaker
So this, you know, I said the same thing on the Cushions call is this Kirkpatrick's model has been around for how long?
00:40:28
Speaker
Kirkpatrick.
00:40:29
Speaker
And now there's a company called Kirkpatrick's Partners.
00:40:34
Speaker
And they're still working with this.
00:40:37
Speaker
It's a very effective model.
00:40:39
Speaker
It's a
00:40:40
Speaker
I have personally not found anything better to use.
00:40:43
Speaker
And I think it's simple, easy to use, easy to understand.
00:40:47
Speaker
Just got to follow it.
00:40:50
Speaker
But, but again, it's the same question I've been through, you know, I'm an old guy like, like you been around forever, been through a lot of training programs.
00:41:00
Speaker
I just don't remember this discussion occurring previously in past lives, past companies.
00:41:08
Speaker
Right.
00:41:08
Speaker
It was the focus was largely on how did we do with our evaluations?
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:16
Speaker
Right.
00:41:17
Speaker
Right.
00:41:18
Speaker
And did we get good evaluations that, you know, also instructor B got better evaluations and instructor C. And it seemed like that's that was always the.
00:41:29
Speaker
The message versus thinking about these four levels of evaluation, which, again, it seemed like they're they're embedded.
00:41:38
Speaker
and validated for years and years and years, but they don't get discussed a lot.
00:41:44
Speaker
Why is that?
00:41:45
Speaker
What's going on?
00:41:46
Speaker
Well, there are a lot of really good instructors, but there are some that aren't.
00:41:50
Speaker
And there are some people who could be good instructors, but they've learned from somebody who is not.
00:41:57
Speaker
And the focus, the instructor really was, what can I do to get a good eval?
00:42:02
Speaker
Well, I'll mildly entertain them and I'll let them out early.
00:42:07
Speaker
and we'll take long lunch breaks and long coffee breaks, and I'll get a good eval.
00:42:14
Speaker
And the students are going, well, if we get a long lunch break and we get out early and long coffee breaks, and I just get to sit here and giggle and laugh a little bit, I'll give them a good eval.
00:42:26
Speaker
And the focus was not on training.
00:42:29
Speaker
The focus certainly was not on how are you going to be when you get back to work.
00:42:34
Speaker
What's going to be different?
00:42:35
Speaker
What will be different because you are here?
00:42:37
Speaker
That's the first question that needs to be asked.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
In that morning.
00:42:45
Speaker
How do you want to be?
00:42:47
Speaker
Well, I think you've heard that little clip that I found where there was some guy that had been studying, I think he's from some California university, but he made the comment that he said, you know, after 40 years of studying how people learn,
00:43:02
Speaker
And classroom training and whatever.
00:43:04
Speaker
He says it was something I'll paraphrase, but it was something like, you know, I know exactly what I need to do to get a good evaluation in class.
00:43:14
Speaker
And then I also know exactly what to do to produce real learning that
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:43:20
Speaker
people actually change their behavior when they're back in the jobs.
00:43:24
Speaker
And he said the problem is that those two classes are completely different.
00:43:30
Speaker
They don't have to be, but I understand what he's saying.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
Well, obviously if you, uh, if you work people all day long and, and, uh, they don't get out early and they don't get a long break and they don't, uh, they have to come back in five minutes after their coffee break and they're, they're working all day long.
00:43:49
Speaker
They might not give you a good evaluation, but that's at the end of the day, that's not the goal.
00:43:58
Speaker
The goal is to change their behavior when they're back at work and then create all those results you're talking about in terms of less workman's comp and lower turnover and less absenteeism and whatever.
00:44:09
Speaker
Our experience has been this, Al.
00:44:12
Speaker
If you create a practical and relevant training program, people buy into it.
00:44:19
Speaker
And now they're training themselves with their energy.
00:44:22
Speaker
No instructor can train anyone with that instructor's energy.
00:44:27
Speaker
but rather the student's energy, and they are really moving and working toward what's important to them in their mind, as far as their work or as far as their personal life, whatever our goal is today, you're gonna run that class right to the end of the day.
00:44:46
Speaker
So, and they're not gonna bat an eye.
00:44:50
Speaker
And if at the end, when you do that evaluation for the instructor on,
00:44:55
Speaker
How effective was this learning, you know, and all the different criteria that we always like to measure at the end of the class?
00:45:01
Speaker
You'll get good evals.
00:45:02
Speaker
You get very, very evals.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:05
Speaker
And it just does not pay in this day and age with tight budgets and all the different requirements that are upon us and the difficulty even in hiring employees and the importance of retaining that employee.
00:45:24
Speaker
You have to train effectively and you have to evaluate the training effectively.
00:45:30
Speaker
And you must effectively evaluate the impact of that training in the workplace and measurable criteria.
00:45:42
Speaker
Randy, I love it.
00:45:43
Speaker
As always, I always, I learn something every time we talk.
00:45:47
Speaker
So I appreciate your time today and I hopefully will get back together soon.
00:45:54
Speaker
So any final comments?
00:45:56
Speaker
No, just great visiting again with you, Al.
00:45:58
Speaker
Thank you very much for your time.
00:46:01
Speaker
Take care.
00:46:02
Speaker
Well, that wraps up another episode of Confidence in Conflict.
00:46:06
Speaker
I checked and learned that Kirkpatrick's four levels of learning evaluation was first published way back in 1954.
00:46:16
Speaker
But this model didn't become well known until Donald Kirkpatrick published the book Evaluating Training Programs in 1994.
00:46:25
Speaker
Interestingly to us here at Visslar, Dr. Kirkpatrick was actually a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
00:46:33
Speaker
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode.
00:46:35
Speaker
If you want more expert advice on how to prevent and better manage conflict, subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher.
00:46:42
Speaker
or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:46:44
Speaker
And if you like this episode, please write us a review.
00:46:47
Speaker
Also visit Vissler.com slash blog to get notes for this show, share your comments, and access additional conflict management resources.
00:46:55
Speaker
Take care and stay safe.