‘Why You Need To Design Learning Around The Exit Sign’ – Sean D’Souza’s Article

How many days does it take to recover from conducting a workshop?

Back in the year 2001, it used to take me about a week. Three days
after the workshop, I’d be utterly exhausted. And it would be
another four days before I could really crawl back to work at
normal speed. And it was because I was doing something terribly
wrong.

I designed my workshops around speaking

You know what I mean. The kind of workshop where the speaker loves
his voice and slides so much that they keep going and going. And
going. And going. As you can tell all this ‘going’ had a downside.
I would get exhausted and the audience was not far behind. In fact
I noticed one curious thing as well. The more information I gave
them, the more they kept looking at the ‘exit’ signs.

It makes no sense: Why look at the exit signs?

If you ask any of the participants the reason why they’re there at
the workshop, you get a quick answer. They’re there to learn, to
absorb and to cram as much information as they can.

Yet the moment you say something like “…And now we’ll go for a
short break” you feel this sigh of relief. And if you’re watching,
you’ll see a glimmering smile on the participant’s faces as well.
It’s clear that they liked being outside the class more than being
inside.

So we designed our workshops around the exit sign

But how do you do that? If the goal of the participant is to learn,
how do you just let them roam free? That would cause a lot of folk
to be upset and ask for their money back, right?

Not at all. You see there’s a difference between letting an
audience roam free, and letting them roam free with a purpose. When
you roam free with a purpose, it’s because you have an assignment
to complete. You’re still out of the range of that blah-blah
speaker, and you’ve got an assignment to complete with a group of
other participants.

We call this our 1:1:1 system

In the first ‘1″ part, I speak for about 20 minutes. Then I give
the participants an assignment. They spend the next ‘1″ part doing
the assignment. They then come back to the room, and we discuss
issues relating to the assignment in the final ‘1″ part. So instead
of being chained to their seats, the actually learn. And more
importantly it gives the brain some time to relax.

The brain doesn’t work too well with constant stimulation.

All constant stimulation does, is force the brain to keep alert.
This turns out to be counterproductive both for the trainer and the
participant. But given time to exit the room at regular intervals
lets the brain process the information, and then come back
refreshed.

The fact that the concepts learned are discussed by the group also
enables the brain to break up the learning at one level. And when
the participants come back and discuss the concepts, the learning
is broken up even further, allowing for even greater assimilation.

Incredibly, participants loved this system of 1:1:1

Participants would often mention that they learned more in the
corridor than in the classroom itself. And as a trainer that should
be like music to your ears, because it means your concepts are
going home, instead of bouncing right over the participant’s heads.

So we took this concept a whole chunk further

We started taking a whole day off. Yup, if the exit sign works, why
not go whole hog? So when we conducted The Brain Audit workshops in
the U.S. and Canada, we had a three-day workshop with a treasure
hunt on Day 2.

Why would you pay for a three-day workshop, pay for an extra night
in the hotel, plus food costs when the real workshop is only
two–and not three days in reality? It’s because you learn better.
And the results were fantastic. The more we allowed the
participants to play with the concepts, the more they learned.

And there was a big upside for me as well

Because I stopped yakking so much I didn’t have ten thousand slides
to prepare. And I was less tired. I found, to my surprise, that not
only could I do two-day workshops, but once was able to do a
seven-day workshop from one end to another. What’s important to
note is that at the end of seven days, the participants were fresh
and still raring to go.

Hmmm, makes sense in retrospect, eh?

We go to a workshop to listen, absorb and learn. And if the teacher
just yaks, then all we’re doing is listening. There’s very little
absorption and almost negligible learning. And yet if the workshop
is designed around the exit sign, we all have the opportunity to
listen, absorb and learn.

So the next time you feel like yakking endlessly, take a look at
that exit sign.
Because you can be sure your participants are looking at it anyway!

P.S. People love the exit sign more than you think. If your
workshop is supposed to end at 5pm, tell the audience that if they
finish their assignments on time, everyone can go home by 3:30pm.
Then watch their faces as the smiles light up. Try it. You’ll be
amazed at how your participants adore the exit sign.

But don’t believe what I have to say. Just look at your audience
when you talk about the exit sign. That’s all the reassurance
you’ll ever need to know that the exit sign works better than you
ever imagined.

Now it’s your turn. Share your business workshop experience or
horror story here