Write in the second person

As a reinforcement specialist, you know to always write in the second person. Wording like “Your market,” “Your learner,” “Your development,” or “What do you see on. . .?” and “How do you use . . . ?” is much more personalized than messages that use “The market,” “Our learner,” “The development,” or “What we see is. . . .”

Choose your words carefully

Another element of style is the way you emphasize certain topics. Your word choices influence whether a learner is touched by your message. Common mistakes are to say things like “Remember that . . .” or “You must focus on . . .” or “It’s important to use. . . .” in your reinforcement messages. Limit the use of these words or expressions. If something is not important or is not helping your learners in their personal development, don’t say it.

It’s the same as coaching during a Judo fight. My coach never used words like “It’s important” when he wanted me to change my approach during a fight. He just emphasized the core message.

Avoid “remember”

The word remember is a special word in reinforcement. We always like to limit its use. You don’t need this verb to tell your brain to remember a certain topic.

For example, let’s say that during your classroom training the facilitator trained your learners on a three-step model of how to overcome objections in a negotiation. In your reinforcement program, you want to reinforce this three-step model and create a nice series of messages. Let’s see what happens with the brain if one of your messages starts with the word remember.

“Remember the three-step model from your training. Don’t mix these steps, and be sure to follow the correct order.”

Seems good. The brain remembers the model, and you give focus points. Short and to the point, correct? Let’s see what happens with the brain in the next example.

“Follow the correct order of the three-step model.”

Do you think the brain will work hard to remember the three-step model? Yes, of course. It doesn’t need the verb “remember” to remember.

Let’s look at another example that combines the use of the verb “remember” and the expression “it’s important.”

“Remember the three-step model from your training. It’s important that you don’t mix these steps, and you must follow the correct order.”

This is what is called an “off-the-cuff” message. The writer did not spend a lot of time on the preparation and used simple words to emphasize the message.

Use assumptions

A third element that belongs in the style category is the use of assumptions. In your message, you assume that your learner is already showing certain behavior.

I like to challenge and stimulate the brain by using assumptions that encourage the learner to think.

• As a successful coach, you know . . .
• As a professional salesperson, you use . . .
• As a great leader, you focus on . . .
• As a unique person, you know it’s important to . . .

These examples tell the learners nicely that if they want to be successful coaches, they must know. . . , or if they want to be professional salespeople, they need to use. . . . .

By teasing the learners a bit, you stimulate their brains. Challenge your learners and stimulate that thinking process. Let your learners decide whether they fit the assumptions you’ve made about them.

Use an active bulleted list

Bulleted lists are used in classroom training, on slide decks during a presentation, or in workbooks for learners. Bulleted lists can be used to:

• Summarize points.
• Show the importance of a topic.
• Explain certain steps.
• Draw attention to certain points.
• Provide an overview.

Let’s take a closer look at bulleted points by using an example. This summary of points taken from a slide deck used in a classroom event explains key elements of active listening. Assume that the content used in this example is right. I know we could have long discussions about this topic, but focus on the active element rather than the content.

• Active listening includes:

• Acknowledging: Intention is to show you understand.
• Paraphrasing: Summarize or repeat, in your own words, the content of what was said.
• Empathizing: Reflect your understanding of what the other person is feeling and the reason for the feeling.
• Clarifying: Probe to find out more about what the person said or why she said it.

What is wrong with this list? Nothing. The content is solid and it’s part of the training event. But as a reinforcement message, it is not strong. It fails to address what the learner needs to do. It doesn’t activate the learner’s brain to see this list. It doesn’t explain how the learner should transfer this list into his daily work and start using it.

Two key improvements can activate learners’ brains:

1. Use numbers or letters. Brains remember numbers and letters much better than they do icons or acronyms.
2. Always ask learners to do something with the list.

Ask learners to do something with a list of points.

What can learners do with a list of points? Some examples of questions to ask include:

1. Which one is the most important?
2. Which order should they be in?
3. What are your top two?
4. What is most difficult and why?
5. Which one have you already mastered?
6. Rank all items.
7. Which one did you work on last week?
8. Select one you will work on next week.
9. Which one would your coach indicate as your need for improvement? Which one would you select for improvement?

Combine assignments and deadlines

In your reinforcement program, use lots of assignments. However, an assignment without a deadline does not trigger the brain to move. If you add a deadline, the brain subconsciously knows that an action is required.

An example of a poor assignment:

Use the active listening model to help your team achieve business results.

Are you triggered to start using this active listening model? No. Learners will read this message and leave it for what it is. This message does not create the behavior change and impact that you want to achieve with your reinforcement program.

Always add a deadline or occasion to an assignment:

• For the next week . . .
• During the next three meetings . . .
• The next two days . . .
• In your next sales call . . .

Your occasions or deadlines will trigger the learners’ brains because our brains are used to timestamps. Keeping track of time is one of the brain’s most important tasks. As the brain processes the flood of sights and sounds it encounters, it must also remember when each event occurred. But how does that happen? How does your brain recall that you brushed your teeth before you took a shower, and not the other way around?

For decades, neuroscientists have theorized that the brain timestamps events as they happen, allowing us to keep track of where we are in time and when past events occurred. Your brain timestamps everything and makes recalling events easy: you go back through your timestamps until you see which ones are associated with the event. This also occurs for assignments in the future. Our brains know when and where they need to be completed.

If you want to trigger your learners’ memories for an assignment, combine it with an occasion or specific timestamp. A deadline achieves two things:

1. It forces your learners to think about what it will take to accomplish the assignment. The learners need to think through the steps they need to achieve the goal. Each step requires a certain amount of time.
2. Specific assignments help learners prioritize what they work on and for how long.

Do you remember all the papers and projects you were assigned in school? You had to push yourself to finish everything—and sometimes stayed awake all night to finish an important paper. If we didn’t have deadlines with consequences, we would never push ourselves. The same is true for us as reinforcement specialists. We need to set deadlines for learners so they will push themselves.

A common mistake I see in reinforcement programs is an assignment that is too ambitious. It’s hard to estimate how long it will take to complete an assignment. Use Principle 7, “Place the Learner in the Center,” to think through the time required. Use the DO-DID-GO approach to help the learners accomplish the assignments before they are evaluated.

While writing your reinforcement messages, you can combine style and active elements to make your messages more powerful:

• As a successful coach (style), focus this week (active) on. . . .
• Like a great leader (style), you inspire your team during the next three meetings (active) with. . . .
• Rank this list (active) like a professional salesperson would (style).

Tip: Do not exaggerate. Remain credible.

Use media to activate the memory system

You already know about the relationship between memory and the brain’s energy and what role that relationship plays in learning (refer to Chapter 2). Memory allows us to update our knowledge and avoid mistakes. In the classroom or during an e-learning event, when you offer learners a novel environment, their brains scan the space, absorbing information. They must think in those situations, which generates memories that are easier to access during reinforcement. If memories are created via mnemonics (visual or verbal), you can use these to activate them. If you write your reinforcement messages, re-use these images, models, or phrases.

I see media used in many reinforcement programs. As you are selecting the media, ask yourself, “What value does it add to my program?” Avoid answers like “It looks nice,” “Without it, the message seems so boring,” or “Images are always good for engagement.”

Every phrase or media piece must have a function to improve the impact of your reinforcement program. Place the learner in the center. How does your choice help learners apply what they have learned? Remember that each phase of behavior change (Awareness, Knowledge/Skills, and Apply) needs different follow-up.

Not all media are suitable in a reinforcement message. Don’t retrain.

A good way to determine the key images or phrases is to write down what you can remember. Select a training or e-learning event you want to reinforce and write down the images and phrases you consider key:

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If you feel your involvement in designing the reinforcement program prevents you from having a realistic overview, talk to 10 learners from the pilot group that went through the training event. What do they consider a key image or phrase? Use their answers as you write the reinforcement messages. Ask for their input within a week after the training. As you know, people start to forget as soon as they leave the classroom. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve shows that people forget 70 percent of their training after 24 hours.

Use specific titles

If you use titles for your messages, use no more than 25 characters. What is the essence of each message? Don’t write complete sentences to explain what the message is about. Learners can scan through your titles and find the topics they want in the messages. Titles like “question” or “assignment” are not specific enough.

Ask one question at a time

You will also want some introductions to questions. In Principle 3, “Create Measurable Behavior Change,” we introduced a measurement plan that relies on good questions.

I have reviewed many designers’ introductions and questions, and I always find the same mistakes. The content is correct, but the message is confusing. Imagine if my Judo coach had asked me questions like these after a fight or training:

• “Did you feel strong, or was he stronger?”
• “Did you follow your diet and drink enough water?”
• “How did your weight training go, and did you see any progress?”
• “When is your next training, and what is your goal for that training?”

I probably would have had a hard time answering him, not because I didn’t know the answer but because the question was complex. What was the coach looking for? Don’t make it hard for your learner to answer. Avoid asking two questions at the same time. Focus on what you want to ask. One question per topic.

Make the questions specific

Another point is to avoid misunderstanding because the question is not specific enough. The one question you ask should be specific. You probably recognize these examples of open-field questions:

• What are your current struggles as a coach?
• What do you think are the differences between steps?
• Are those behaviors already in your action plan?
• How important is active listening to business results?

What do you think your learner will answer? How can you help learners to answer at their best? Take for example the first question “What are your current struggles as a coach?” It’s a good open-ended question; after all, it starts with “What.”

However, the rest of the question is too general. Is your learner struggling with finding a good parking spot each morning? Is your learner having troubles in his marriage? Is the learner not satisfied with the team’s performance? What struggles does the learner experience while applying new knowledge and skills? It’s up to the learner what the answer will be. Unless you use open-ended questions with multiple-choice answers, you cannot guide the learner’s answer. Unless you use open-ended questions for self-reflection, ask more precise questions.

Focus your reinforcement program on open-ended questions that require hard thinking, need evidence to answer the question, and elicit answers that have depth. Use questions that cannot be searched online and focus on the result or effect of the application.

• What is the impact. . .?
• What is the influence. . .?
• What is the relationship. . .?
• What if. . .?
• What would happen. . .?
• What could happen. . .?
• What is the result. . .?
• How can you apply. . .?
• What is the cause of. . .?
• What is the effect of. . .?
• How can you change or modify. . .?
• What could you do to improve. . .?
• How can you ensure that. . .?
• What might happen if. . .?

Open-ended questions should be used to promote critical thinking and otherwise create intellectual involvement.

If you use closed questions in your reinforcement program, make sure these questions always add value to the learners. A technically perfect closed question can be worthless. A closed question like “Do you understand?” is technically a good closed question, but it adds zero value for your learners. There are better ways to figure out whether a learner understands the knowledge or skills necessary for behavior change. Also, asking whether something has been done does not give you any insight on quality.

Avoid focusing on quantity

I have reviewed many reinforcement programs created by specialists in L&D departments in big organizations. These specialists all like to measure quantity: “How many meetings did you have last week?” or “How many times did you speak with your team?” or “How many. . .?” Or they even ask closed questions like “Did you have a meeting today?”

These questions are valuable for the organization to collect data, but how do they use Principle 7, “Place the Learner in the Center”? Questions about quantity are not wrong, but you must combine them with quality questions about your reinforcement program to receive meaningful answers and provide more depth for your analysis.

Craft short messages

It’s not easy writing reinforcement messages with a limit of 400 characters. Besides skipping all extra words, you also meet all of the other S.A.F.E. Model elements, like adding deadlines to assignments or using bulleted lists. Writing good, short reinforcement messages require lots of practices.

I set a limit of 400 characters for messages because this length keeps the attention of an average learner. You don’t want to lose their attention while they are reading your messages. Many writers claim that the average person’s attention span is only eight seconds, one second shorter than a goldfish’s attention span. Because holding a learner’s attention is an important element for good reinforcement results, I have spent quite a bit of time studying attention spans.

I cannot believe that my attention span during a fight was only eight seconds. What would happen if it were only eight seconds? Some trainings lasted two hours and, even then, I did not lose my focus. So where does the eight seconds come from? And what is attention anyway?

Other research shows support for a variable attention span far longer than eight seconds and dependent on many factors. Think about your own attention span. Can you watch a movie or read a book and pay attention longer than eight seconds?

Use short sentences

Another topic that relates to easy to read is readability. The Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test is probably the most commonly cited and used. The test uses a mathematical formula to determine how easily readers will understand the text:

• Sentence length as judged by the average number of words in a sentence.
• Word length as judged by the average number of syllables in a word.

The rationale is straightforward. Sentences that contain a lot of words are more difficult to follow than shorter sentences. Similarly, words that contain a lot of syllables are harder to read than words with fewer syllables. Aim for 8th-grade level, understood by 13- to 14-year-olds, using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests as a guide.

Challenge yourself to use a maximum of 17 words per sentence. This will help you to reach the average sentence length of 15 words at 8th-grade level. Avoid constructions with lots of lengthy phrases. It’s better to use two separate sentences than a long, convoluted sentence. Count your words and rewrite if needed. Make it a habit, a game, and your goal.

Use Table 16.2 to check your readability score and how well you are achieving your goal to reach the 8th-grade level.