3

A Universal Structure for Skill-Building Workshops

The sole justification for teaching . . . is that the student comes out of it able to do something he could not do before. I say do and not know, because knowledge that doesn’t lead to doing something new or doing something better is not knowledge at all.

——Jacques Barzun¹

This chapter describes a universally applicable workshop structure for skill-building workshops that can help trainers integrate content and process in any skill-development area. This workshop structure is composed of units, modules, and components.

Units: The overall title of the material to be taught.

Modules: A section of a unit.

Components: The seven parts of a module.

Sorry about the jargon. We avoid it wherever possible but the important parts of workshops need to have labels to facilitate discussing these aspects of our work. Understanding the purpose and function of these major elements of a workshop can increase your training effectiveness significantly.

This is the only chapter in the book that may feel like a tough slog, but let us assure you that knowing the basic structure of a skill building workshop will benefit you over and over again as you deliver, redesign, or design training.

Workshop Structure

Units

A unit is the overall title of the material to be taught and is the largest structural element of a skill-building workshop. Each workshop has an introductory unit, a closing unit, and one or more (usually several) units in between. For example, a workshop on People Skills for Team Leaders has six units:

• Introduction to the Workshop

• Listening Skills

• Influence Skills

• Conflict Management Skills

• Cooperative Problem Solving Skills

• Conclusion of the Workshop

Creating an outline by listing the units of the workshop provides a trainer with a “big picture” view of the course he’ll be teaching. Subdividing a training session into units also helps trainers remember the importance of introductions (creating readiness for the learning ahead) and conclusions (summarizing what’s been learned, then encouraging participants to evaluate what they’ve learned and to figure out how, where, and when to apply it). Also, designing a workshop as a series of units makes it easier for participants to learn the workshop content.

Modules

Each unit is made up of several modules that package the content into smaller, more easily learnable amounts of information and skill development. For example, the listening unit in the course mentioned above has six modules:

• Introduction to Listening for Team Leaders

• The Body Language of Listening

• Paraphrase What You Hear

• Respond to Feelings

• Combine Listening and Speaking

• Conclusion

Components

The modules of a workshop typically consist of a sequence of components, which are the basic building blocks of a workshop. In a well-designed workshop you’ll generally find seven components, which, for each skill being taught, are sequenced in the following order:

Each component will be explained in greater detail later in the book—usually in a chapter-length treatment. In Appendix I, you’ll find Course Preparation Worksheets that you can use to guide your development of a one- or two-page outline of that component for any workshop you’ll lead.

In recent decades research has confirmed what many leading-edge educators have long believed—that physical movement, even brief moments of it, improves mental processing. Conventional training generally keeps participants sedentary for long periods of time, which tends to make them lethargic and less involved learners. However, when participants proceed through the seven components, they automatically experience brief periods of movement, which helps keep them invigorated for learning.

Multiple Rotations Through the Sequence of Components

Neurophysiologist Carla Hannaford writes, “When we first learn something, it is slow going, like beating a path through untraveled terrain.”² So to master a new skill it’s often necessary to cycle through several rotations of the components. One rotation is rarely enough to gain sufficient mastery of a skill to warrant using it in the workplace—or with friends and family, for that matter. For a skill like reflective listening, we find that it takes three rotations through relevant parts of the process for most participants to become proficient enough for the skill to become a useful part of their communication repertoire.

In the first rotation through the components the Evaluate step is omitted.

The First Rotation
Involve Tell How Show How Practice Coach Apply

The second rotation through the components usually omits the Involve, the Evaluate, and often the Apply components.

The Second Rotation
Tell How Show How Practice Coach

The third cycle through the components also omits the Involve component but usually includes the Apply and Evaluate components that are typically deleted in the previous rotation.

The Third Rotation
Tell How Show How Practice Coach Apply Evaluate

It’s worth repeating that, to learn many skills, three rotations through the relevant components are usually required. However, in our admittedly unscientific review of skill training programs, we’ve found few workshop designs that contain sufficient practice and coaching components for participants to acquire adequate proficiency to warrant their trying to put the skills to work in their back home environment.

Capitalize on the “Morning-After Experience”

In the morning after a day of training in which there are three rotations through the components, do whatever it takes to make time to squeeze in a fourth practice immediately after the introduction to the workshop day. And provide time enough for a quick debriefing. To greatly reduce the time required for this practice, it is not preceded by the other components that typically come before a practice, nor is it followed by the components that generally follow a practice. That’s why it’s termed a practice-only session.

In just about every workshop in which we’re able to schedule this no-frills, first-experience-of-the-day practice, nearly all the participants have a much more successful practice than any they had in the workshop previously and a much greater success than we initially expected.

Several months after we first experienced the effectiveness of the first-experience-of-the-day practice, one of us read the nineteenth-century French mathematician and theoretical physicist Henri Poincaré’s strategic use of his subconscious mind. Regarding his struggle to resolve a math problem, Poincaré wrote, “I turned my attention to the study of some arithmetical questions, apparently without much success. Disgusted with my failure, I went to spend a few days at the seaside.”Then, one day as Poincaré strolled along a bluff overlooking the ocean, the solution suddenly came to him “with brevity, suddenness, and immediate certainty.” In a chapter titled “Mathematical Creation” in his Foundations of Science (1904), Poincaré noted that when he was stymied by a difficult problem, he benefited from getting away from it for a while, as then the solution would often come to him. If, for instance, he went away to the oceanside for a few days, when he returned to the problem the answer that had eluded him came sharply into focus. Although Poincaré was referring to complicated and profound mathematical invention, the same subconscious process can foster increased learning in multiday workshops. We call it, the “morning-after experience.”

Here’s how the morning-after experience works:

1. Participants make a significant effort to learn a new ability.

2. The participants leave the workshop and, other than possibly doing a little preparation for tomorrow’s training session, they focus on other aspects of their life.

3. While their conscious mind is focusing on other things, and later as they sleep through the night, their subconscious mind is at work integrating the new learning into their repertoire.

So we recommend making it a rule, whenever possible, to arrange for a practice the first thing after the opening of the second, third, fourth, and fifth days of a workshop so trainees can enjoy the fruits of the “morning-after experience.”

An Engaging and Productive Blend of Consistency, Repetition, and Variety

People usually learn best in workshops that have the following attributes:

• They are structurally consistent.

• They entail sufficient repetition (in this case, several rotations through the pertinent components):

To enable participants to develop the skill to the point where they can use it competently.

For participants to feel confident enough about their level of skill acquisition to use these newly developed abilities in their real-life situations.

• They include ample variety to maintain interest and involvement.

Structural Consistency

All units are structured in essentially the same way. Similarly, every module is organized like every other module. Furthermore, each Component 1 is organized like every other Component 1, each Component 2 is organized like every other Component 2, etc. This structural consistency makes it much easier for a trainer to learn a new course or deliver a familiar one. Equally important, this repetition of structure enhances participant learning. And it makes it easier for training designers to create or revise a course.

Content Repetition

Repetition often is an essential element in learning but, as you’ve probably experienced, it’s often boring. And boredom tends to kill learning. In our Craft of Training workshops, when we recommend designing structural consistency into the organization of a workshop, someone typically asks, “But won’t all this structural repetition bore participants?” And someone else will likely add, “And won’t it bore the trainers too? They’ll surely find this approach too lock-step as well!”

Fortunately we can respond, “Not in our experience. Here’s why.” And then we say something like the following about content repetition:

Dynamic training relies on content repetition in order to facilitate deeper levels of learning and greater recall. But, in dynamic training, the repetition occurs several components later. For example, the Tell How component is always separated from the next Tell How component by three or four other components, as you’ll see by looking at the diagrams earlier in this chapter. And the repetition virtually always is part of a message that includes useful new information.

Variety

Although structural repetition doesn’t induce boredom, well-designed variety perks up a workshop. Develop a diverse assortment of examples for your presentations. When it’s time to demonstrate a skill, you may be able to alternate between video demos and live ones. And you can have participants work in dyads on occasion, in triads some of the time, occasionally in small groups, and once in a while in whole-group settings.

Consistently Excellent Results

Clients want to get consistently excellent results from training. Obviously, there’s no foolproof structure for training effectiveness. But this type of workshop organization comes closer than anything we know of for providing dependably high-quality outcomes. And, since this workshop structure is a very efficient path to skill acquisition, participants appreciate it too.

While some trainers are initially skeptical about this much structural repetition, once they have experience with this framework they usually make it their go-to workshop structure. In fact, we’ve found that trainers appreciate this consistency of structure, which makes their training much easier to learn and deliver. And they’re delighted to find that this training design generates high levels of participant involvement, creates hands-on learning which transfers well to participants’ back-home situations.