Your Training is Boring

I love going to concerts. The music, the lights, the pageantry...it is all developed to inspire one thing in the concert attendees...that one thing...goose bumps. You know the things that rise up on your body when you are part of something inspirational.

I recently went to a Josh Grobin concert and was blown away at the level of inspiration that I felt while listening to the finale. The song was "you raise me up". I know...we have all heard it a million times before but the moment the song climaxed with the key change and the crescendo of a fabulous choir joining in...and the instruments playing as one rather than that of individuals...and the lights matching the passion of the music step for step...I stood there and was overwhelmed with goose bumps as I was inspired and moved and engaged.

As I left the concert, I thought, when was the last time I felt even a fraction of this while participating in a corporate training event. Was the last elearning piece I completed inspiring me? You know the one with a non enthusiastic voice leading you through a list of bullets that animate a little too much (apparently someone learned how to use powerpoint) and the clip art that doesn't really match the content and reeks of decades ago technology. Nope, I didn't think so.

Did the developers that created this look at it once completed and say..."I can do nothing more with this, it is inspiring"? Where was the last line of defense that reviewed this and let it through to the poor team members? Where was the learning executive saying..."no more boring, ugly, mediocre crap comes from our group".

If operations, and sales, and finance, and IT allowed a fraction of the sort of junk come out of their group that I have seen come out of learning teams, they would be fired. Yet somehow within learning, we are satisfied with drivel.

And we wonder why learners complain.

Go to a concert, watch a movie, listen to an orchestra, watch a good sports team...and see the orchestration, the preparation, the attention to detail that goes into a production or event that gives you goose bumps. I for one am done with the uninspiring, unprepared, poorly executed crap that we attempt to label as training. I am committed to change the landscape of training.