Monthly Archives: March 2020

On The Frontlines of Online Training

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As I sit here in Ohio under a “stay at home” order from the Department of Health, I’m reminded of the Monopoly game and the opportunity to draw the “land in jail” card: “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to jail.” I suspect that a lot of us feel like we just landed in jail without our $200 for passing go. Converting in-person training classes to online training occupies our brains and our work life. Organizations and businesses are scrambling to provide training for their employees to keep them engaged and moving forward when it seems that everyone is stuck in place. It’s no different in the real estate world where I work.

Although real estate services have been determined to be “essential services” in Ohio, many agents are not going on appointments, whether to list properties for sale or lease or to show prospective buyers and renters new homes. We’re living in an era of low inventory, and the current state of affairs has lead to even less properties coming on the market. (There are some people listing their homes for sale, however. People still need to move.)

There’s no better time for a real estate agent to sharpen their skills and work on their business, right? Brokerages and agents who adapt and learn during this time will be in a position to benefit from pent up demand when people reenter the market. Now is the time to ramp up learning opportunities, and remote/online learning can fill the need.

I will confess – I like presenting live, online training sessions. There is the challenge of engaging participants despite the distance. In most cases, I can’t hear or see them. How do I know that what I’m teaching is learned? This is the major difference between online and in-person training, and it scares most trainers who are accustomed to judging a student’s acquisition of the material by their immediate feedback, whether that feedback comes in the form of body language, questions asked, or passing a test. In the online classroom of webinars and meetings, we use other tools to judge students’ understanding of the material.

Trainers can still ask questions of the webinar participants to gauge their comprehension of the material. I have participants write responses in the chat box at regular intervals. I also have them respond to requests for input such as: “What topics do people look for on a real estate website?” The primary goal of this is to get the participants thinking about the kind of content they might provide to consumers on their individual websites, but this also serves as a group exercise to foster a kind of esprit de corps among the participants.

Polls give the trainer the ability to judge whether the participants have absorbed the material being taught and/or set the stage for what’s to come. I like to run polls to determine first where participants are in their understanding of the material I’m about to present. I can get reactions to a statement or have them indicate opinions. Polls can also help me determine if the material I taught “landed” with the participants. I have to always keep in mind what my purpose is when I construct the poll.

Because I can get very absorbed in presenting the material, I schedule breaks in the flow of the topic to solicit questions from the participants. Depending on the ease of use of the webinar platform you use and the size of the audience, questions can be written in a chat or questions box or microphones taken off mute for participants to speak. These are brief “check ins” for me as the presenter to make sure I keep participants’ attention and to help me assess what I need to repeat in the course of the training.

Some online training platforms such as GoToWebinar and Zoom let the organizer attach surveys to the webinar that can launch at the completion of the webinar or the next day. I ask participants to rate me as an instructor, tell me what topics they were glad we covered and which ones they would like more instruction on. I also give an opportunity for participants to contribute topics for future trainings.

I know I’m not a perfect trainer online just as I make mistakes in the classroom. I’ve learned to speak online so that participants get the message though. And right now, I’m glad I’ve honed this skill so that I can continue to train even if I can’t stand in front of a group of real estate agents personally.

The Brave New World of Training

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Whoever thought we would all be using the term “social distance” six months ago? By now, we know what it means to maintain social distance from one another, and it doesn’t include sitting in a room with more than 10 people. We have gone from assembling people in one place to share our expertise with them to scrambling for ways to reach our students and prospective students. It’s not easy, but there are ways to provide training outside of the classroom.

Yes, you can go online with classes, and schools, colleges, and universities are learning quickly what “distance learning” really means. Companies that specialize in online learning send me multiple emails telling me how they can help. I appreciate it, but I’m not the one who needs their assistance. 

I truly respect those trainers and coaches who have created an online presence that predates this situation. They have been on the forefront of learning in a digital age. They understand that teaching in an online environment requires skills beyond explaining something.

Watching a webinarIt is not simply a matter of taking your slide deck and talking through the slides, except now you’re doing it as a webinar. Live, online training without engaging participants falls flat. People tune out. As a trainer, you lose their attention before you’ve had a chance to give them real content. And then there’s the sound, screen sharing, and every other technical thing that can (and does) go wrong. Hmmm – maybe this isn’t as easy as everyone thought.

Live, online training can provide immediate feedback from participants. Examples include: using polls during a webinar, launching a survey at the end of the online training, or opening up the audio to let participants ask questions instead of typing them in the questions box. Let’s not forget the role of social media and its ability to reach people beyond the classroom (or webinar). Short videos, blog articles, infographics, and pictures can provide opportunities to teach something. An online “challenge” to people to create something and share it on a social platform invites participants to learn through doing and creates community among the creators.

As trainers, we need to be creative with how to reach and engage students at this time. When I started writing this article, I was sitting in an airport on my way home from a business meeting. I’m happy to say that everyone was doing a good job with the social distancing, washing hands, and using hand sanitizer and/or disinfecting wipes. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to be there, potentially exposing myself and future contacts to disease. I took a few minutes, opened my notebook, pulled a pen out of my bag, and started writing the topics I feel confident that I’m able to present online. I decided to focus on what I can do rather than what has been lost.

We can shut down our training businesses and look for alternate income streams while trying to maintain “social distance” until the current situation resolves. Or, we can embrace the technology and learn how to use it for our benefit. See you online!

 

Award or Reward?

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I loved getting awards. (Notice the use of the past tense here.) I used awards as a carrot to get me to do the work needed to achieve the particular level or award status. In a sales position, awards are often used to entice the salesperson to do more work. If you’re a recognition junkie, getting the award is your fix and you’ll do anything to get it.

I attended a company awards function today and saw people I’ve trained walk across the stage to receive recognition for their production last year. It’s gratifying as a trainer to see people who attended your classes and did what you told them to do receive recognition. (Perhaps I’m living  vicariously through those award winners.) The experience caused me to consider whether awards and training have anything to do with one another (beyond the proud moment).

Most of the award winners, if asked, will not cite their training as the reason for their success. Why is that?

I regularly teach real estate agents about the behaviors and activity they need to perform in order to reach their goal(s). For some people, the external measurement is what propels them to do the work needed to realize their goals. The goal is embodied in the external recognition of their work. I understand this very well. I used a sales award to focus my activity as a new real estate agent. When I achieved that goal, I knew I had also achieved my financial and business goals. They went hand in hand. With no prior experience in sales, the training I received played an important role in my achievements.

Training can help people understand their motivations and clarify their goals. Certifications and designations may be the end result of completing a training program that will ultimately lead participants to more business, advancement in their careers, and/or some particular recognition. Perhaps the content of the training serves to give them an advantage. Just by knowing something may give the participant the ability to do their work more efficiently or effectively.

Award IllustrationIn real estate specifically, we train agents to become better at what they do by teaching them the skills and behaviors necessary for a successful career. We don’t usually encourage agents to make an award their goal, but rather treat it as a by-product of the activity the agent must perform to achieve their goals. Most times we trainers don’t even discuss awards in the context of a class.

Goals can be different for different people. This is especially true in sales professions. Some may have a monetary amount as their goal (I need to earn X this year) and others may decide their goal should be an experience or object (a cruise for the family or a new car). It’s helpful to understand the people in the training class to determine whether using award levels as goals would be a significant enough reward for the students. There may be some for whom this is a positive benchmark for their activity.

I’ve been focussing on large, annual goals here. There’s a place for more immediate measurements of activity and achieving interim goals. If you’re teaching the same group of people over a span of weeks or months, wouldn’t it make sense to recognize them for achieving weekly or monthly goals? I think it does. The hope is that by setting small, weekly or monthly goals, the students will focus on taking the steps needed each day to achieve them. We teach our students an important lesson by doing this. We give them the tools to succeed in whatever they choose to do.

Awards ceremonies are fun, exciting events. They don’t tell us a lot about what it took for those receiving the awards to achieve the award. I think it’s training’s job to help our students be able to analyze their activity and measure their progress toward their goal. The award at the end is icing on the cake. The satisfaction from seeing my students pick up their awards comes from knowing that I did what I could to help them get to this point. Congratulations to all!

You Are What You Learn

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“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” Winston Churchill

Once upon a time, I thought that my students were like empty vessels, waiting for me to pour needed information into them. When they were full of whatever I poured into them, they would be able to do something, speak intelligently, or act upon the information. I was new to teaching adults, just able to drink legally myself, and scared out of my mind that I would say or do something wrong in front of my class. Many of my students were older than I.

My favorite classroom activities involved drills and simple games. I honestly didn’t know any better, and this is what I was taught to do with the students. They were learning a foreign language and needed the repetition. Never mind no one understood how to use what they were saying. That would be a lesson for a different day, in a different class. So, I kept repeating the verb conjugations and sentence structure. They did learn something, I’m sure. My students tested highest on the department exams. I knew what to teach them.

Fast forward several years to a different place and a different subject. There is nothing to drill these students on. They are more skeptical about the validity of what I’m presenting than those students learning a foreign language. I had to find new techniques and skills to reach these students. I had to understand that they do not always like being taught. For this group, learning how to must lead to application.

It makes sense to me that I have evolved in my teaching as I’ve grown older and observed how others teach. I couldn’t depend on the way I was teaching people over time. I had to accept that my students are not in class for me to fill them up with information that they should process on their own, outside of class. What I teach needs to be relevant and compelling. They want to learn, but they don’t like being taught.

This might seem evident, but I know instructors and trainers who are still simply lecturing to students and don’t seem to care whether what they say resonates with the them. They read slides from a PowerPoint presentation, droning on about whatever with little regard for the learners they are charged with teaching. If adult students and professionals are constantly told they know less than they thought they did, they will not respond to the message. Eventually the only people left in these classes will be the instructors and the few people who absolutely need to take the class on that day at that time. Adults vote with their feet.

LearningI choose to focus on application of skills and ideas. We discuss, we practice, we wrestle with the topic until we (notice it’s not I or they) work together to learn and become better at what we do. Each time I step in front of a group of people with the charge to teach or train, I need to be better at what I do than the last time. This is how I approach the privilege of being a trainer. I help people achieve something they want or need through my instruction.

I am most certainly a different teacher/trainer today than I was at the start of my career. I believe this is due to one small question that I ask myself when I get ready to teach: Why is this important? More specifically: Why is this topic/skill/tool important for the students in my class today? If I can answer that question, then I know that I can confidently stand in front of the group and lead them through the syllabus for that session. Asking the question does not absolve me from presenting the material in an entertaining and relevant manner. It does not mean I can just tell stories or read from PowerPoint slides. I have to engage my learners.

My students may be ready to learn, but they don’t like to be taught.