In a recent chat, a colleague I respect said the word ‘engagement’ was anathema. This surprised me, as I’ve been quite outspoken about the need for engagement (for one small example, writing a book about it!). It may be that the conflict is definitional, for it appeared that my colleague and another respondent viewed engagement as bloating the content, and that’s not what I mean at all. So I thought I lay out what I mean when I say engaging, and why I think it’s crucial.
Let’s be clear what I don’t mean. If you think by engagement it’s adding in extra stuff, we’re using a very different definition of engagement. It’s not about tarting up uninteresting stuff with ‘fun’ (e.g. racing themed window dressing on knowledge test). It’s not about putting in unnecessary unrelated imagery, sounds, or anything else. Heck, the research of Dick Mayer at UCSB shows this actually hinders learning!
So what do I mean? For one thing, stripping away any ‘nice to have’ or unnecessary info. Lean is engaging! You have to focus on what really will help the learners, and in ways that they get. And they do. And then help them in the ‘in the ways they get’ bit.
You need contextualized practice. Engaging is making the context meaningful to the learners. You need contextualization (e.g research by John Bransford on anchored cognition), but arbitrary contextualization isn’t as good as intrinsically interesting contexts. This isn’t window dressing, since you need to be doing it anyway, but do it. And in a minimal style (as de Saint-Exupery said: “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away…”).
You want compelling examples. We know that examples lead to better learning (ala, for instance John Sweller’s work on cognitive load), but again, making them meaningful to the learners is critical. This isn’t window dressing, as we need them, but they’re better if they’re well told as intrinsically interesting stories.
Finally, we need to introduce the learning. Too often we do this in ways that the learner doesn’t get the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Learners learn better when they’re emotionally open to the content instead of uninterested. This may be a wee bit more, but we can account for this by getting rid of the usual introductory stuff. And it’s worth it.
Now, let’s be clear, this is for when we’ve deemed formal learning as necessary. When the audience is practitioners who know what they need and why it’s important, then giving them ‘just the facts’, performance support, is sufficient. But if it’s new skills they need, when you need a learning experience, then you want to make it engaging. Not extrinsically, but intrinsically. And that’s not more in quantity, it’s not bloated, it’s more in quality, in minimalism for content and maximal for immersion.
Engaging learning is a good thing, a better thing than not, the right thing. I’m hoping it’s just definitional, because I can’t see the contrary argument unless there’s confusion over what I mean. Anyone?
I agree with your perspective on engagement, Clark. In the higher education circles I travel in, critics of engagement link it to entertainment and pandering to the student audience.
I think the real challenge lies with tapping into learners’ intrinsic motivation because the individuals within the learner group will vary widely on what will motivate them and what they will find engaging.
As I offered in my comment on your previous post, this is the gap or space where design research methods and a huge dose of humility can serve subject matter experts and learning designers well as they plan educational interventions of all kinds.
I think I see where your colleague was going. We tend to get beaten about the ears by “employee engagement” as a critical KPI and that term tends to get broad-brushed over everything to do with talent management & development. At the worker level, I think trying to quantify “engagement” is a dubious metric at best.
Of course, there are a lot of factors that contribute to whether or not a person is “engaged” in any activity…including which side of the bed they woke up on that day. Ensuring we provide compelling examples in our learning efforts is, of course, essential, but we also need to consider how we can challenge assumptions of the learner…and that includes everything from the nature of the activities to the whole scope of delivery (in other words, flip the experience around, shake it up, and see how you can “do” it differently.”
Mark, I’m the person who was critical. Here are a few reasons why.
1) People have real work to do. In many cases, learning is something they need to fit in. Sometimes they barely have time to do it. They’re not given any time but they’re expected to learn in between 500 new things. So NO, they are already “engaged” in what they have to do to make a living. Give them exactly what they need when they need it. Tada. That’s what they want.
2) This employee engagement stuff is a fad. Orgs treat their employees like widgets and wonder why they aren’t “engaged?” It’s because they aren’t stupid. They know that the company could care less about “them.” But they are often are still engaged in their work… see 1).
I could go on and on. 1 and 2 are related. If you treat people poorly, they won’t engage with the org as much but they often will engage with the work because of intrinsic motivation unless you keep getting in their way.
I’m starting to write about this and its effects. L&D needs to stop with tricks. People are far too busy to deal with learning tricks. Go out and talk to people. Support THEM in getting their work done and learning the absolute barrage of things coming their way every day. Learning programs are not the only way or even the best way many of the times. Look what is on their plates.
Great comments. I want to be clear here: the employee engagement stuff is not what I’m talking about. And it is important, even if most corporate approaches are superficial and ultimately ineffective. And I’m not saying use formal learning when it’s not needed. Absolutely agree with that as I’ve said early and often. But when formal learning is needed, focusing on the elements of engagement:meaningful to learner and organization, contextualization, appropriate challenge, etc is the next best thing to mentored live practice.
On one hand, I agree completely with Patti. People do have real work to do and we should setup supports that makes that work as painless and productive as possible. Lots of the “learning stuff” we throw at them isn’t helpful no matter how much we design in flow-state or considerations for motivation.
However–here’s where I contradict the previous paragraph–when we do NEED learning, the challenge should be set to the right level, paced and scaffolded right, and built around relevant goals. Here, I’m in Clark’s camp.
I don’t think engagement is a fad in the “work engagement” sense. The way we focus energy on trying to affect it might be, but I do think it’s a thing. But like happiness, breathing, learning, etc.. it’s largely internal. We put an awful lot of energy in to a few of these things when we could be better spending it elsewhere. While I think engagement is intended and defined differently for learning experiences, the same principles could be applied.
Want me to feel engaged / connected?
– Don’t waste my time
– Don’t insult my intelligence
– Give me what I need to get the job done
– Give me time and space to expand my horizons
– Recognize my readiness for new challenges and offer opportunities for growth
– Don’t be a dick (as an institution or individual) / be fair, sensible, and consistent
– Don’t hire fools / hold folks accountable if they are fools
– Provide timely feedback / recognition / appropriate rewards
– Listen
I imagine these are fairly universal. Did I miss anything?
Where I might differ is the “hows” and the general business tactics that tie into all of this. Steve offered a lot of hows and I agree with most of them. Most orgs do a terrible, absolutely terrible job of hiring and general management. Then we end up with having to work around all that crap and it makes life miserable and there’s tons of waste, including training waste.
Most L&D people don’t tie together L&D issues with business issues. That’s a huge mistake in my view.
I’m on board with this blog. My favourite words – “Lean is engaging!”
There is potential to make this a mantra for any new learning professionals… This mantra also supports a number of the comments that have been made, whether they were in support of ‘engagement’ or challenging the concept of ‘engagement’. It’s a difficult word (engagement) because of the breadth of its use in the business landscape. I feel like this blog and the robust comments are an important step toward ‘clarity’:)
Engagement is critically important. Our learners come in with various levels of motivation for being in our training, and they are constantly pulled by all manner of distractions (e.g., email, texts, deadlines, family or personal issues, etc.). Design in relevant engagement, deliver it in unexpected ways and you capture and hold their attention. Rinse-lather-repeat and they walk away with a memorable learning experience – and with knowledge that they actually do remember and can apply.
More research I’m reading today tells me that the learning that they chose to take on is naturally engaging. THEY chose it. Ours is not engaging and is most times a distraction. We need to make it lean and in most cases, not training.