The fundamental test of any training program is whether the skills taught during the training are remembered and properly applied if and when they are ever needed. While it’s unrealistic to expect total retention and transfer of the material, it’s not too much to expect that you would be on the passing side when real life hands you a stark pass/fail test.
It’s a shame when someone receives training in an important topic and forgets a large portion of it when they transfer the skills to their work, because training is expensive: there’s the cost of the training itself, the time that it takes people out of the field and away from their jobs, and—most importantly—the performance gap caused by incomplete application.
But when lives are at stake, it becomes worse than a shame—it can lead to tragedy.
Yesterday’s SunSentinel carried an article describing the training failures comparing the relative performance of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the Coral Springs PD as they reacted to the scene of the February Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Although the BSO were the lead agency, Coral Springs officers effectively took the initiative, even taking the keys from the BSO officer who remained outside the entire time.
Here’s the part that troubles me as a training professional:
“Although all BSO deputies had active-shooter training, they couldn’t remember much about it. One deputy claimed to not remember at all, whether it was 10 or even up to 20 years ago, saying “it was a long time ago.” A check of his records found it was only two years ago.”
Presumably, this deputy (and most of the others, it seems) took a full day out of his life to attend training on a topic that was directly applicable to his job, and it passed through his life as if it had never happened.
A spokeswoman for the BSO gave the excuse that despite training, it’s difficult to know what will happen when people get put under stress. There is some truth to that, but it doesn’t explain why:
“By comparison, the Coral Springs officers who rushed into the high school consistently praised their training and “had no difficulty in explaining the proper response to an active shooter.”
What was the difference? Why did one organization get acceptable results from its training investment, and not the other? The full report is not available yet, so one can only speculate. Were there different training providers teaching different approaches? Was the training positioned differently? The frequency? The support given by management before and after the training? My guess is that we’;; find multiple factors and explanations; I only hope that people learn from their mistakes.
It’s always a waste when one is given a golden opportunity to learn and does not take it. Will the right people learn the right lessons from this horrible tragedy?
I launched Practical Eloquence eight years ago this month, and since then I’ve produced 672 articles, one full-length book and an e-book, 31 podcasts, and recently approximately 40 videos.
At the time, I wrote that I had three reasons for starting my blog:
- To get noticed in support of my marketing and selling efforts
- To become a better trainer and coach
- To make a difference in the lives of others
Certainly those three reasons still apply today, although if I ever calculated the actual financial return from all the time I’ve put in, it would probably be far below minimum wage. Yet, while I haven’t gotten rich from writing this, I’ve certainly enriched myself in other more important ways.
But as the years have gone by, the ink has flowed and the keystrokes have been tapped, there are three other reasons that have emerged to not only sustain but also to reinforce my efforts.
First, I’ve met smart, caring and outstanding people in many different walks of life and spots on the globe. I’ve corresponded with a lot of them, spoken to others on the phone, and even had the pleasure to meet some in person, but the dialogues we’ve had have been fun, they’ve been instructive, and I trust have left both parties better off. (Hard to think of a better description of effective communication that that!)
The second reason is that I can’t not write. If I go just a few days without putting something on paper (and yes, I like to start almost everything I write on paper first), I find that my head gets filled with a lot of ideas, observations and questions—and I frequently find myself waking up way too early with an immediate yen to get something down.
The lesson in this, of course, is that willpower is hard, but if you do something routinely and determinedly for enough time, you no longer need discipline.
The third reason, and this one was totally unexpected to me, is that some of the advice and admonitions I’ve given out have actually rebounded and stuck to me! In other words, there have been times when I’ve stressed that my readers should do something, and I’ve caught myself and realized that I don’t follow my own advice as much as I should. Cognitive dissonance can be a powerful spur to personal improvement.
So, yeah, I definitely plan to keep writing, keep learning and keep making new friends—and I hope you keep reading.
General George Marshall helped save the world when he delivered an impromptu three minute speech that convinced Franklin Roosevelt to increase military spending on the eve of America’s entry into WWII. It took him just three minutes to deliver a forceful and effective speech on a critical topic, and if he could do that, surely you can sell your business proposal in four.
I wrote a previous post about the Four Minute Men who helped to mobilize public opinion during the first World War, and in this post I want to bring it to your day to day work level and urge you to accept the challenge to design your next important business presentation to fit into a four minute window.
It won’t be easy but if you can pull it off, you—and your audience—will benefit hugely from greater clarity, creativity and credibility.
Brevity drives clarity, because it forces you to skim off the crud and the clutter that can hide your meaning. The discipline of fitting your idea into a tight package forces you to think very carefully about every word and sentence to be sure that it fits with your message and adds value to your audience. It also forces you to reveal the bare bones structure of your logic. That serves as a road map that your listeners can follow to figure how you’re getting from A to B in the neatest and cleanest possible way.
Constraints force creativity. It’s no accident that some of the most sublime words in English are written under the severe constraints of poetic meter and rhyme; and it’s also well known in software circles that coders with hardware constraints produce more elegant and cleaner code. As a recent Inc. article states: “With constraints, you dedicate your mental energy to acting more resourcefully. When challenged, you figure out new ways to be better.” It works because it forces you to dig deeper into your own mind for the good stuff. Our brains are lazy, so our first thoughts on anything as we begin our initial “data dump” are necessarily the easiest, which also means the shallowest and sloppiest.
Finally, Brevity makes you credible. The simple fact that you’re expressing creative ideas clearly is going to be a refreshing differentiator to your listeners, but you also get two added benefits: first, you will know your stuff cold, which means you can express it more fluently—you’re not going to be stammering and spewing out filler words. and especially—you won’t have to use your slides as a crutch. Second, it makes you credible because you sound like you know what you’re talking about, because you’re using plain and direct language.
Of course, there are some downsides to a four minute presentation:
- You won’t be able to spend a lot of time touting your credentials or telling your corporate story.
- You won’t be able to crack too many of your favorite jokes.
- You won’t be able to pack your deck with tons of slides that you’ve lovingly crafted.
Seriously, there is one important concern you might have, and I do need to address it. While you can certainly get the big picture across in four minutes, a lot of proposals hinge on lots of small details, especially when you have a room full of diverse stakeholders. And those take time.
And I actually agree with you. I’m not saying that those four minutes will be enough for the actual decision, but they are critical to starting off your proposal on the right foot. Ideally, a presentation is the setup, and the prelude to the real conversation and deliberation that goes in to making important decisions. Besides, I firmly believe the 80/20 rule applies to presentations; you can give them 80% of the value in the first four minutes and use the rest of the time to give them the additional 20% that they want answered before they decide.
So, prepare a crisp four minute presentation, but then be prepared for the deep dive and the tough questions that you’re almost guaranteed to get.[1]
But if you’ve been clear, creative, and credible—and you haven’t wasted anyone’s time doing it, you will go into the deep dive with a huge advantage.
[1] By the way, even if you’re expected to give a 60 minute presentation, put together a 4 minute version first, and then set it aside. I guarantee that the second will flow so much more easily, and will be much tighter as a result.
Can you really change the world in just four minutes? Can anyone?
I’m going to tell you a story about a group of people who set out to do just that, how they did it, and how you can too.
One hundred years ago, America went to war in Europe to make the world safe for democracy. In a democracy, war requires not just the consent of the people, but their active participation and support. The US created the Office of Public Information and put it in the hands of George Creel, a newspaper editor from Mississippi. Creel recruited 75,000 volunteers to go out and speak to their communities, in theaters, churches and lodges. Their job was to sell war bonds, and their tool was the four minute speech.
Why four minutes? Because even then, attention spans were short, and if you could not get your point across in that time, additional time would simply create waste for both parties. Because the discipline of fitting your message into four minutes is a wonderful way to sharpen your thinking and clarify your expression. Because it’s roughly 600 words, or two double-spaced pages of type, and there’s a lot you can pack into that space.
So, how do you distill a complicated idea into just four minutes? Here are my top three suggestions, with a little help from George Creel himself:
- Be crystal clear about what you want your listeners to do, and why they should do it. They should know what is in it for them, and it doesn’t have to be—and in fact many shouldn’t be—just about practical or monetary gain. Some of the most influential and inspirational speeches tap into higher and more fundamental human motivations. People didn’t buy war bonds for their return; they bought war bonds to make the world safe for democracy.
- Structure your ideas logically. As Creel advised: “Divide your speech carefully into certain divisions, say 15 seconds for final appeal; 45 seconds to describe the bond; 15 seconds for opening words, etc., etc. Any plan is better than none, and it can be amended every day in the light of experience.” A three part structure is ideal for four minutes. 30 seconds for your opener, a minute a piece for each point, and 30 seconds to bring it home. Or make it a story, and chunk the four minutes into the situation, the conflict, and the resolution.
- Prepare carefully, rehearse often, and refine relentlessly. If you want your audience to care, you have to show that you cared enough to give them your absolute best. As Creel told his volunteers: “Let your friends know that you want ruthless criticism. If their criticism isn’t sound, you can reject it. If it is sound, wouldn’t you be foolish to reject it?” Ironically, it takes more time to prepare shorter speeches, but the exponential improvement in the quality and value of your presentations is well worth the effort.
I began this by asking if you can change the world in just four minutes. Every speech is about change, or else why deliver it? Unless you’re speaking to entertain, or to gratify your own ego, every speech or presentation should leave your audience better off at the end than they were at the beginning. If you can do that, you may not change the whole world, but you can change their world, even if only in some small way.
I urge you to take the four minute challenge.
