Raiders of the Lost Spark

I got to thinking last week after listening to Owen Ferguson (Product Development Director  at GoodPractice) as he spoke about how you can measure the level of engagement with an online initiative. It was a great starting point as in the day job I am working with others to migrate from one LMS to another and part of this is focussed on how to promote the new product and drive traffic towards it, but I started to go deeper. What if it isn't just the tool, or the product you place upon it, what if it's everything and worse than that, what do you do if the learner has lost interest in learning all together. What can you do when they have lost that spark and most of all who stole it?

So where was I? Ah yes, Indiana Jones. There he is, in some ancient temple in Peru fighting his way through perilous challenges before finally getting his hands on a golden idol..........well briefly, before his rival Rene Belloq snatches it away. That can be the learning journey sometimes, you work towards something but you never quite get what you were promised.

Everything you have ever learned has been stored away in your very own Ark of the Covenant data warehouse. You can recall a fraction of it from time to time but when you lose the spark you have no interest in anything new, you become a slave to what you are told rather than what you want. Our lives can be filled with so much "stuff" (Trademark Brian Costello) that we find ways not to learn. I see this on a daily basis as people are served up what we think they need rather than what will bring them to life.

So let's go back to Indy. Now perhaps the quest we first met him on didn't turn out so well but what follows is history, Indy gets to thinking? and the interest he has in everything he does drives him to learn more and more. He has goals and works towards them. That's the starting point when a learner loses that spark. What is their need, the real need, the one that creates interest. A training needs analysis for me never quite goes deep enough. Most TNA's are built around a skills gap to perform a job or role better. That is fine but they tend to come up with a series of initiatives that are one dimensional and do not fulfil the basic needs of the learner as an individual. If that is not met then you will fail at the first hurdle of engagement. Consider adding a new step, one that starts with the individual and find out their personal learning needs. Are they in the right role, are they challenged by it or have you asked them what is missing. Without these questions no amount of lovely shiny toys and tools will help. Once you have them then you can blend the personal and business need together.

You also have to make sure everything stays on track. If you build learning paths or journeys etc for a learning it is essential you build some checkpoints into the programme. I've been there, I have been on flashy talent and development programmes which promise the earth and begin with a bang but suffer from drop out rates, missed events and poor return on investment. A lot of the time the business gets the blame...."I have been asked to attend a really important meeting and have to cancel"....."Can I leave half way through the day to take a really important call" but the failure is the inability of the programme to explain the benefit of the learning, what it will bring to them and more importantly that it is about them and not the business. Set milestones, make the learning shorter, find out what time they can give and how they would like to learn and build your programme around that information. Strip the knowledge from the practical and roll them out in innovative and creative ways taking advantage of social and online avenues they would not expect from the traditional blurb.

Learning logs are a great way of engaging too, encourage people to keep track of all their learning but not just in a CPD style more like a diary. Getting them to really think about what they are doing. How can they connect this to who they are, what type of leader/person they want to be. How it links with what they do, the job, the people etc. Get them to chronicle where they want to go. This is a career map and one you can support. Especially as you have now worked out what they need.

"I knew you'd come"

Now it isn't a quick win, and you have to work at it, but work at it together and they will return to the learning fold. Don't make it flashy if it doesn't need to be. It should be simple and fit for purpose. Built by a carpenter for a carpenter if you wish. That's personal and that's return of the lost spark.

Da da da daaaaa da da daaaaa, da da da daaaaa da  da da da da !!

That Learning Dude @learningXDude