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Owen Holt is a skilled training and development professional experienced in instructional design, course development, and training delivery. With a passion for creating learning programs, Holt has a proven track record of success in various leadership positions at Dell, Lithium Technologies, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, and Q2. He is an expert in training technologies; is a frequent conference speaker; and excels at developing employees, managers, and L&D professionals.

Owen Holt

July 2023 - TD Magazine

With the proper prompts, integrate AI dialogues into your content development toolkit.

Brainstorming With AI

One of the issues to consider when designing instruction is how much instruction to provide. This question isn’t always considered, though, and we either provide too much instruction (or not enough).This brief story will emphasize one aspect of this problem.Joanna, a new hire in food service at the local hospital, is using an online course in hand washing. The course contains key facts about germs and how hand washing destroys them, but also statistics about hand washing, facts about different types of hand sanitizers, and the history of hospital-acquired infections and how they spread. The primary message is that feces contains life-threatening germs and that tiny amounts often get onto hands after using the bathroom or handling objects that others have touched. People in the hospital often have compromised immune systems and if they come into contact with these germs, they can get very sick or die. Hand washing can prevent spread of these germs.The problem: There is so much other information in the course that Joanna doesn’t get the seriousness of the message. She mostly comes away understanding that it’s a “very old issue.” Joanna passes the quiz but misses the critical message.Consider people handling the following work tasks:Situation A: an accounting clerk in an accounts payable department has a vendor on the phone with a question she doesn’t know the answer toSituation B: an armed guard at secure military facility gate is talking to a driver who is acting aggressively and trying to hand him a wrapped package to deliverSituation C: an air traffic controller sees two planes on the screen who will shortly be in each other’s air space.We often build training as if everyone needs to know everything about everything. And it’s easy to overload working memory and make it so people learn less than we want them to.We say it’s the SMEs fault. They gave us too much content. But that’s like saying a poor building design is the architect’s fault. Oops it is! And in this case we are the architect. We need to make sure people learn what we need them to learn.Cognitive OverloadOne reason why we need to provide only what people need is explained by “Cognitive Load Theory.” Cognitive load theory states that we have mental “bandwidth” restrictions. In other words, our brain can only process a certain amount of information at a time. And one of the things that can cause overload is too much information. Figure 1 is a diagram that shows the three types of cognitive load.Figure 1. Three Types of Cognitive Load (Source: Patti Shank and Cecelia Munzenmaier, Writing Better Learning Content)When Learners Don’t Need to Know EverythingDo we need to train the accounting clerk in situation A on every answer to every possible vendor question? Probably not. For that matter, why shouldn’t we train everyone on everything?People don’t have unlimited time.The important information will be drowned out by the “just-in-case” information. See the example of Joanne’s hand-washing training. And no, it’s not because they remember 10 percent of what they read, 20 percent of what they hear…If there’s too much information, it’s easy to get overwhelmed (see Cognitive Overload section).I hear you asking, “Where will they get other information if they need it?”  This may be non-obvious, but they’re probably not going to go open their previous training materials to find the answers they need. So build performance support materials (or have them do it). Let people get help from their social network.But Some Workers Do Need to Know EverythingOn the other hand, the workers facing the issues in B and C don’t have time to look up or ask someone the proper response. They need to know what to do in these situations, and how to do it effortlessly--even if these situations don’t happen very often. We call this “automaticity.” Automaticity is the ability to do a task effortlessly without any conscious effort or attention. Making something automatic includes accuracy and speed. Automaticity frees the mind to do other things, such as assess the situation, determine what is important, and find alternatives. Benefits of automaticity seem to be consistent across cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks. But methods for training to automaticity for these different types of tasks are different (see resources). And training to automaticity requires a lot of work for the  training designer and the learner.We make fun of rote learning, but in some cases, it’s required—especially when dealing with the need for automaticity. The alphabet is an example of where rote learning is required in order to move on to more rote learning for reading proficiency and fluency. Not many tasks require the kind of automaticity described in examples B and C, but many do require the capability to recall information quickly, such as answering guest questions at a hotel desk while others are waiting or medical staff helping patients and families during pivotal moments.Imogen Casebourne wrote a good Science of Learning blog post about supporting the learning and remembering of this type of information.Key Point: If the task doesn’t require quick recall or the worker has time to look it up, it may be a waste of training time to add the additional recall practice.ReferencesThalheimer, W. (March 12, 2015) Debunk This: People Remember 10 Percent of What They Read, ATD Science of Learning Blog.Holt, B., & Rainey, S., (April 2002). An Overview of Automaticity and Implications for Training the Thinking Process, Western Kentucky University.Casebourne, I. (January 27, 2015). Spaced Learning: An Approach to Minimize the Forgetting Curve, ATD Science of Learning Blog

Science of Learning 101: The Case for Less…Generally

Unconscious biases and the influence of individual cultural backgrounds are two challenges to strengthening linkages among employees.

Are Your Own Biases Holding You Back?

I once had a nurse manager come to me and ask, “How do I tell a master’s-prepared registered nurse that sleeping at their workstation is unprofessional? In many of my previous management jobs, finding an employee sleeping at their workstation was a fireable offense. In this environment, the employee appears to see no difference between sleeping in a designated break room and sleeping at their workstation.”While it may not always be an employee sleeping on the job, managers in all sectors need to address a variety of unacceptable behaviors. But how can you do so without causing drama?When I ask people what feeling comes to mind when I use the phrases “talk about a problem” or “address an issue,” the most common response is “Ugh!” – which isn’t really an emotion, but you probably get the idea. So, first tip: recognize this as a simple gap between what you were expecting and what you are observing. Your job as their manager is to describe the gap and partner with the person to close it. Here are three suggestions for how to do that:Master Your StoryYou will be far more effective at holding this conversation if you can suspend judgement. For example, even if you believe everyone should know that sleeping at the workstation is unprofessional, hold open the possibility that maybe this person was trained or taught differently. Or maybe, just maybe, they slept at their workstation all through school and no one ever got up the courage to give them feedback about it. After all, it is easy to mistake silence for approval.Catch It EarlyThe time to talk about the bad behavior is the first or second time it happens. Imagine how easy it would be, the first time a new employee falls asleep at their workstation, to gently shake them awake and kindly say, “We want all our nurses to sleep in the breakroom, not their station. Let me show you where it is.” When you catch it early, you are kindly onboarding a new employee and making sure they know what they need to be successful.When you let the poor behavior go on for a while without addressing it, two things happen. First, your own irritation likely builds, fueling your negative story. Second, you make the issue bigger. Now it is not just once or twice that this has happened but months’ worth of bad behavior. When you make the issue bigger through delay, you are more likely to create embarrassment and subsequent defensiveness in the other person.Have and Share a Good IntentIf you use the first two tips, it will be much easier to use the third one. Before any gap conversation, stop and ask yourself: what do I really want for this person? For them, not from them. Asking and answering this question will require you to flip your perspective 180 degrees. After all, we step up to gap conversations because the gap is causing a pain or problem for us. We are acutely aware of how their behavior is affecting us. The question you must ask is: How is it affecting them?What do you want for them and how will sharing this help? It can be as simple as, “I want you to be successful here and that is why I want to talk to you about this.”When you care about someone, and they know you care about them, gap conversations become about improvement, not reproof.

3 Tips for Addressing Unacceptable Behavior in the Workplace

André Vermeulen is the CEO of Neuro-Link, an international consultancy specializing in the neuroscience of workplace learning. He is the architect and owner of the Neuro-Link brand and business system, which consists of various brain profile assessments to determine learning potential and brain-training solutions to optimize brain performance. As an international motivational speaker, André has presented at TEDx and numerous international conferences and events, including the ATD International Conference & Exposition since 2000. André has been a guest on many radio and television talk shows across the globe and hosts his own television show,  Breinkrag (Brain Power). André has published books and more than 30 articles in magazines and newspapers in Germany, the United States, South Africa, and Costa Rica on the neuroscience of learning, brain-based learning and development, and other wellness-related topics.

André Vermeulen

Julian D’Souza is the regional head—South Asia for The Conference Board. He is based in Mumbai and leads all activities for the Indian operation, including the council program, and spearheads efforts by The Conference Board to expand its regional footprint into Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Prior to joining The Conference Board, D’Souza served as area director for Ranbaxy Russia in Moscow and as business director of Ranbaxy Animal Health in New Delhi. He has also held executive positions at Siemens, AstraZeneca India, and Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis), and he has managed his own consultancy. D’Souza holds an MBA from the London Business School.

Julian Souza

The APTD ensures one practitioner that her skills aren't dated.

APTD Holders: A League of Our Own

Adam Grant, organizational psychologist at Wharton, bestselling author of Think Again, and host of the podcast WorkLife, will open the ATD 2023 International Conference & EXPO in San Diego, California, on May 22, 2023.

Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant Headlines ATD 2023 Conference

Participants in online meetings, webinars, and virtual training events want and need them to be great experiences. But what do great experiences look like? The business buzzword answer is that it’s all about participant engagement—and for once the buzzword is on track.A great online meeting engages all participants, while still achieving the meeting’s objectives. A great webinar that gets information to stick engages participants as much as possible with a large audience. And a great training event engages learners so that they retain knowledge, gain new skills, and see the desired behavior changes and performance improvements.Engagement in live online events looks essentially the same no matter what the context: meeting, webinar, or training event. Here’s a breakdown of the clear difference between an engaged “participant” and a disengaged “attendee”:Engaged Participants: Focused and attentive Active Enthusiastic and eager Spontaneous Curious and inquisitive Ask questions WillingDisengaged Attendee: Uninterested Passive Bored and frustrated Reactive Indifferent Goes through the motions ResistantPut another way, meeting facilitators need to stop running their online meetings like a typical marketing webinar, where they read PowerPoint slides to a large, mostly passive audience, only allowing for a few questions if there’s time at the end. It doesn’t work.Likewise, webinar facilitators need to stop assuming their webinars can serve as robust training programs. Such events have large audiences and don’t allow for collaboration, hands-on or other realistic practice, expert coaching, and so on—the interactions needed for robust training to take place. Facilitators are setting participants up for disappointment and failure if they expect anything more than knowledge-level learning from large-audience webinar events.And if training event facilitators are expecting rich learning outcomes—changed behavior and improved performance—they need to design live online training in a way that enables such results. Some basic guidelines for more effective results includes:limit the participants to a reasonable number (a maximum of 16 to 20) break out the audience into even smaller group activities engage via audio, chat, and whiteboarding.In other words, facilitators and designers need to think of the event in the same way as any other in-person training event.Well-designed online activities—aligned with and in support of the event’s goals—are critical to maximizing engagement. They provide structure and purpose to interaction and collaboration, and keep facilitators from becoming captive to the features of the live online platform tool.For instance, facilitators need to avoid using a poll just to break up what is otherwise a lecture-driven webinar or randomly asking a question in chat in the middle of an online training event. Otherwise, they are simply falling victim to “shiny object syndrome”—the “Ooooh! Aaah! That feature is nifty. I’ll use it!” response. Facilitators should not use a tool for the sake of using it. Rather, they should use it in support of the goals of the meeting, webinar, or training event.Here are some general types of activities for use in live online events.Warm-Ups and WelcomesAs with in-person meetings or classroom training events, participants need to prepare before they use the available tools. Welcome and warm-up activities are perfect for starting an online meeting, webinar, or training event. They ensure an on-time start, open the session with a purpose beyond asking participants to sit and listen, and help set the stage for interaction and collaboration. In addition, they function as early technical checks. What’s more, they help ensure successful communication process among the participants, the producer, and the facilitator once the event starts and content-focused activities need to begin. After all, teaching participants how to use the chat feature only distracts all involved when reviewing the meeting agenda or the training objectives.Ice BreakersAfter a Warm-Up/Welcome activity, ice breakers are vital to creating an environment in which participants feel at ease enough to share opinions, ask questions, and learn something new. Because the online tools are still new for many people (even after a solid welcome or warm-up activity), participants need an additional way to connect with others who may be remotely connected and geographically dispersed. Ice breakers in an online event ensure that the participants are truly comfortable, engaged, and ready to interact. And ice breakers are especially import¬ant for anyone who joined the program late; they now have a second chance to learn some of the tools and get involved.Content-Centered ActivitiesWhether you are facilitating an internal or external virtual meeting, a large-audience webinar, or a more intensive virtual training event, great activities are a key to interactivity and engagement. The goal is to convey information in a way that will stick or practicing new skills, such activities can be the most memorable and impactful segment of the event. They should also be the centerpiece of the meeting’s agenda or the webinar’s or virtual training’s instructional design.ClosersOne of the biggest mistakes made in an online event is failing to leave enough time to properly bring the session to a close with a memorable wrap-up activity. Planning a closing activity for the online event will leave a lasting impression, one that ensures that the time spent in the event was well worth it. Closing activities engage participants to contribute their own thoughts and ideas on how they’ll take the knowledge and skills learned in the online event into their own environments.CelebrationsRecognizing important milestones, or celebrating holidays and birthdays provide themed opportunities to throw “virtual celebrations.” Such activities can inspire online participants and make them feel honored to have been part of building and maintaining a virtual team. Enjoy, create, and celebrate!****Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from the new book by Kassy LaBorie and Tom Stone, Interact and Engage! 50+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings, and Webinars. Check it out for more examples of activities that have proven to increase engagement and results, as well as additional virtual classroom, meeting, and webinar tips. Click here for a free chapter of this book.

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