Blog: Make training stick

It is exciting times at Menzies Law, as we are about to launch our open courses for 2015/16. It started me thinking about why some things make it into the workplace from the classroom and others don’t. I went back to an old favourite of mine “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. They identify six things that make things “stickier”. They are simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and story. Here is a simple check list that you might like to use to assess your existing training events and any trainers you currently use:

• Simple – is the training logical? Have you made complicated things easy to understand? Have you pruned the ideas to get to the essential core? And have you created a variety of activities to support different learning styles?

• Unexpected – what are the unexpected implications of what you are trying to get across? Can you give a dramatic glimpse to your audience through use of film clip or other media rather than just plodding through things incrementally?

• Concrete – are there lots of opportunities to practice steps in a process or demonstrate different behaviours?

• Credible – do you know your stuff and can you strut in a workshop?

• Emotions – Do the participants understand the benefits of this training – e.g. how better performance might be rewarded, how following a process effectively might protect them from unfair dismissal claims, etc.? Can you make them care?

• Stories – can you bring theory alive with examples and stories?

Our delivery team are all experienced legal practitioners and accomplished facilitators. We understand that you are busy people and our events are designed to help you implement new procedures and ideas and get it right first time. We want to help make things stick.

Look out for our new open programme – launching soon.

Sarah Hunter
Learning & Development Manager, Menzies Law