Jargon and acronyms can hinder learning

Have you ever struggled to read a document and found yourself lost in the jargon?

Every industry develops its own jargon and acronyms to speed up communication, but often jargon and uncommon words act as gatekeepers to new knowledge. They are used to prove the writer or speaker belongs to an elite group and to exclude others from that group. This is counter-productive to clear communication and cost-effective solutions.

At one course where I was part of the delivery team, the term: ROI came up. I immediately explained that ROI meant return on investment and basically was a calculation to find out if something was worth doing. The course was a pilot and aimed at floor staff who were not usually involved in calculating ROI but we felt that including it was really important because understanding ROI gave meaning to many of the decisions made by management.

An observer-participant from middle management commented that he’d wished someone had given him such an explanation years ago when he was first promoted to a position where he attended management meetings. He admitted that he had no idea what they were talking about but just nodded his head and agreed. He was too scared to ask because he didn’t want to face the shame of not knowing, or risk having other managers think he wasn’t able to cope with the promotion.

The course continued with both observer participants and regular participants working towards an investigation of a production issue. The aim was to carry out a team investigation and report on their findings. Solving the problem was NOT the goal, but most of them, with the help of their on-site teams, did come up with a cost-effective solution. ROI featured in their significant savings calculations that reached into millions of dollars each year.

Those participants would have paid back their course fees many times over! They will also share with others on the floor the importance of ROI.

Audio is a powerful tool

Training resources are moving into sophisticated, intuitive virtual worlds that cost more and more to produce. The 'reality' of these worlds is said to simulate real life and provide real life opportunities to learn.

I believe what these virtual world creators ignore is that power of the mind to create its own 'virtual world', and that sometimes putting too much reality in front of the eye shuts down that powerful mind tool. I had this brought home to me when we were developing resources for a New Zealand level 2 national qualification - that's the training aimed at people who have just left school and are moving into a technical trade at minimal skill level.

The industry we were working with also identified literacy as a problem for some workers, and there were 'work cultures' that glorified the macho male, heavy drinker or soft drug-taker as heroes. Our brief was to try and make a change in that culture - lol!

To make things even more challenging, the budget was tiny compared to that required for a virtual world project. The best we could do was to adapt existing video and use voice-over and supplementary group activities directed by a worksite trainer to get across these concepts.

I even wrote a 'soap opera' following a team of workers through some real life issues. This was recorded by students at a local radio training centre. So you can see how budget the project was!

Anyway, I was invited to see the material piloted with a group of workers drawn from several worksites and the 'soap opera' was duly played, while I cringed in a back seat, dreading what their reaction would be. And that's when I learned the value of the individual's imagination to personalise training.

The story was about Gary whose personal circumstances had gone down hill dramatically. His behaviour at work and towards his team mates had deteriorated, but one team member bucked the trend (which would have been to retaliate and further alienate Gary) and enrolled the team in trying to find out what was going on. The result was a positive team solution, naturally.

It was the reaction and discussion that this generated among the team of men in the training room that astounded me. One guy in particular had linked parts of the story to his own circumstances and opened up frankly to the others. It was a truly memorable moment.

Pondering it later, I realised that NOT using video, so that the story was 'out there happening to someone else' had enable this guy to internalise the story and put his own cast of characters into what he was hearing and 'seeing'. The lessen for me was that pictures may sometimes get in the way of the message. - Heather Sylvawood - EdutechKM Ltd

Now's not the time to trim training

Invest Wisely
So often organisations facing tough financial times, as the world's markets appear to be creating at the moment, look to cut budgets in two areas - the advertising budget and the training budget.

This reaction is so short-sighted. In tough times the two vital things you have to make sure about are that:

1. People know about the value of what you have to offer so they choose your products or services
2. Your employees are committed to working their butts off to make the best product or service in the most efficient way

If a company has downtime, then use it to give your employees further training. Invest time in developing their so-called 'soft' skills:

• Communication
• Team work
• Report writing and presentations
• Problem-solving

Downtime means there is a better chance of taking employees off-line in a group, and group dynamics can improve through an enlightened choice of training activity. And surprise, surprise many of the training tools on the Net are 'problem-solving' activities. They're the activities that naturally include the other three skills.

But the big bonus for companies who see a lack of work as an opportunity to improve is that they build loyalty. Employees will start to utilise their problem-solving skills to do what the company desperately wants to do - survive. You'll find the 'bright sparks' in your organisation.

"Bright sparks are at every level of your organisation. Don’t overlook them, engage them in forward thinking. Bright sparks don’t know the limits so they push the boundaries and that's what moves the whole organisation forward. - Heather Sylvawood, EdutechKM Ltd"