Encouraging Engagement from all Attendees on Learning and Development Programmes

At many workshops intended for learning and development purposes, I’ve often felt there is a range of different types of attendees – particularly if people have been made to attend!

There are the 4 P’s:

• The Prisoners – who are sat there screaming in their heads ‘let me out!’
• The Protestors – who say out loud from time to time ‘ but that won’t work!’
• The Passengers – there for the ride, not really committed but also not disrupting proceedings.
• The Participants – there to learn!

Peter Block, author of the best book on consulting I’ve read, Flawless Consulting, has offered these questions at the start of a learning and development workshop to encourage engagement:

• To what extent do you intend to get value from this workshop? (score out of 10)
• To what extent are you intending to engage personally to achieve this? (score out of 10)
• To what extent are you prepared to take risks to learn? (score out of 10)
• To what extent are you prepared to take responsibility for the learning and development of others at this workshop? (score out of 10)

Carefully crafted questions can work wonders. Perhaps use them to get a discussion going at their tables before you get going? Might they be helpful to you?

I’m grateful to David Gurteen for sharing the questions. Contact David at http://gurteen.com