Liz Norris, General Manager and Karissa Fletcher, Marketing Manager at the Be Learning booth at AITD 2012

AITD 2012 was a fabulous experience for the Be Learning team. Despite the relentless rain throughout the two days at Sydney Technology Park, a record number of delegates attended demonstrating that Australian organisation’s strongly support the innovative developments and a growing digital presence in learning.

Be Learning was an integral part of AITD 2012 in various ways. Of course we were showcasing our creative learning offerings, however we were equally keen to participate, learn and network with other like-minded professionals. We passionately tweeted throughout and we were keen to capture and play back the entire experience through our social media forums.

Stacey Edmonds showcased her deep-expertise and passion around Online Games for Learning to a packed house. In true Stacey style, her presentation was informative, thought provoking and gift wrapped with her quirky and fun sense of humor. The audience asked countless questions that opened the floor to rich valuable discussions and new perspectives on game mechanics and how games can be used for learning. Stacey used real examples which allowed the audience to connect to how this actually could become the future in their workplace (and it’s closer than you think!)

Here is Stacey’s inspiring presentation. To access notes please see the presentation on Slideshare.

We also created this teaser trailer for AITD… do tell us your thoughts on the same.

Many of the Be Learning team attended AITD and with so many fabulous sessions to choose from we used the divide and conquer strategy to ensure we participated across all three categories at the conference; Learning Strategy, Training Techniques and Technology & Resources.

Other highlights of the event were;

• Dr Roger Collins on ‘Reinventing professions to remain relevant and impactful’. Dr Collins challenged the future of the most fundamental aspect of any profession, our identity. He questioned, “Is the Learning & Development approach suitable for the future? Is what got us here, going to get us there? Are our roles in Learning what they need to be?”

• Charles Jennings gave us ‘Alice Through the 70:20:10 Looking Glass’ The 70:20:10 model is compartmentalised as:
–70% learn & develop through experience
–20% learn & develop through others
–10% learn & develop through structured programs & courses

• Dr. Jason Fox and Dr. Amantha Imber facilitated an interactive afternoon on ‘Innovation & Games’. The duo was enthusiastic, intelligent, thought-provoking and successfully used activities to bring to life the value of games and the power of an effective and unique approach to innovation.

Be Learning were thrilled to be part of such a successful; gathering Learning & Development professionals from all over the Asia-Pacific region. There is so much potential and value in the work we do every day and it is through this collective power of people that Australian businesses will continue to grow, innovate and thrive into the future.

Imagine communication skills workshop where instead of jumping straight into good old ‘open and closed questions’ technique, participants listened to a song…

To see what we mean check out Be Learning’s Principal Consultant and Singer/Songwriter Brett Robin Wood on YouTube. Here’s a preview:

Inscribed in the psyche of Be Learning is the desire to bring creativity to the way in which we as humans learn. We are passionate about the relationship between engagement and action. We genuinely believe that creating an emotional reaction to learning through laughter, fun, enjoyment and happiness will engage people’s hearts and minds and inspire them to make positive change directly impacting business results.

Be Learning provide creative learning experiences for organisations with the aim to build a high performing business culture where there is dignity, meaning and fulfilment as well as the ever important bottom line result. We believe the use of music and song is a genius way to wake-up people in their learning, get their hearts engaged, as well as their heads, stimulate thinking and feeling to provoke lively discussion leading to insight rather than just old habits of thinking recycled.

Come on a journey with us and learn more about how music and conversation can help your people move from problem to possibility.

Contact Be Learn­ing’s Principal and Singer/Songwriter Brett Robin Wood on 02 9383 4280 or email at brettw@belearning.com.au

If you would like to enjoy some more Brett Robin Wood music, you can hear it or buy it on itunes.

It is one week to go and I am excited to be making the final preparations for ASTD 2012 in Denver, Colorado. I have been  looking through the program and it is scattered with people that I have read, taught and wrote programs around during my career as a Learning and Development Consultant.

I am really excited about our booth and having the opportunity to meet a whole new community of practitioners and present Be Learning to the US market. 

We are looking forward to having some fun and spreading some new ideas.  Look out for my video blogs from the event and tweets about hot topics from talks and seminars that I am attending.

Watch this space and I’ll speak to you again from ASTD! — Miriam Tassone

ASTD = American Society of Training and Development

This week Be Learning will be showcasing at the 2012 AITD National Conference. We are passionate about using social media to build connections with our clients and associates. We believe in the power of conversations! Our resident social media whiz kid Deepti Sachdeva will be at AITD capturing the whole event in real time.

Here are some of our Top Tips for harnessing the power of social media during sales and marketing events such as the AITD conference:

1. Commenting is the new way to communicate – comment on the tradeshow event pages and connect with the Event Organiser’s social media pages.

2.Tweet about the reasons attendees should visit your booth! Tell them about the value-adds, products, competitions, freebies. All things that they are interested in.

3.Use Facebook and Twitter to encourage conversations with clients, customers and other interested parties prior to, during and post your marketing event or conference.

4. Don’t make it just about you! Share relevant information on highlights of the event such as interesting workshops, seminars and keynote speakers. Building awareness is the key.

5. Use Slideshare to post presentations by your subject matter experts. Share your deck on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin!

6.Use social media tools to highlight what is new and up and coming in your industry. Open the discussion for new ideas and thoughts to be debated amongst your industry peers. Share the knowledge!

7.Harness the power of video by creating pre-show promotions and teaser-trailers that can be shared on YouTube. ‘Viral content’ is the buzzword –tap into its unlimited power!

8. Run online competitions during the event to increase traffic to your website and social media pages. Give people a reason to ‘follow’ and ‘like’ you!

9. Utilise social media tools to continue the conversations and connect with new contacts and potential leads after the event.

10. Create audio, video and photography showcasing the event highlights and people and share these through your social media.

11. Blog about your exhibit. Include who is attending, who will be speaking and what is unique about your offering.

12. Harness the power of Linkedin to connect with new people you meet for follow up — make lasting mutually beneficial relationships. Start new discussions on topics of interest relevant to your industry. Encourage you client managers to do the same.

13. Curate content on subjects that you want to build awareness around. Give people a reason to ‘follow’ and ‘like’ you!

14. Get everyone in your company involved! The more the merrier!

Follow us on Twitter @BeLearning and our Facebook page for updates from the ground at the AITD conference on April 18 & 19!

Hope to see you all there!

Be Learning are thrilled to receive international recognition for the team’s relentless creative energy to ensure our films reflect real situations, make people laugh and engage the audience through people and their stories. Congratulations to the teams at Caltex and Be Learning who worked hard on creating the film.

The World­Me­di­aFes­ti­val cel­e­brates excel­lence in cor­po­rate film, tele­vi­sion, web and print pro­duc­tions on an inter­na­tional scale.  A World­Me­di­aFes­ti­val award is one of the high­est hon­ours in visual com­pe­ti­tion with over 550 entries from more than 25 coun­tries.

Did you know that online gamers recently deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that has thwarted scientists for a decade?

It is time to sit up, take notice and consider how your organisation can use games as an integral part of your learning and development strategy.

Come visit Be Learning’s booth at the AITD National Conference and be entertained by Stacey Edmonds’ (Head of Film and Digital at Be Learning) workshop on the Gamification of Learning. 

Take a sneak peek of what Stacey is presenting and visit her teaser trailer on YouTube

For more information and registration to AITD 2012 National Conference on April 18 and 19 at The Australian Technology Park Sydney click here

The Be Learning team looks forward to seeing you there.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” — Martin Luther King Jr

I’m writing a chapter for a book called “emerging trends in leadership”. Part of the chapter examines the inner work of leaders-particularly the ability to hold a creative tension between strong intention (I will cause outcome X to come about because I am the master of my life) and surrender (the life in which I participate is complex and way beyond my ability to control so I will stay open and see what emerges). It’s so vital that Leaders can pursue the plan, the strategy, the target. It’s also vital that they can respond and even surrender to the unpredictable, unfolding reality of the present moment, and yield to the chaos until insight emerges out of confusion.

This is very much inner work. We must face the shadow sides of intention and surrender (respectively, our inner “control freak” who just want to get her own way and our inner “doormat” who just wants to bury his head in the sand). Paradoxically, by recognising these shadow selves, we gain access to our better selves. The recognition that we are in “control freak” mode is the understanding that the situation is calling us to let go and relax into ‘allowing’. The recognition that we are in “doormat” mode is the understanding that the situation is calling us to claim our authority and step into ‘causing.’ Mastery comes with the giving up of the crazy notion that we’ll ever get the balance “right” but rather enjoy the ride as we veer from assertiveness to aggression, then recalibrate into healthy surrender, then slip into unhealthy passivity, then readjust back to reclaim assertiveness. It’s called ‘being human’ and it’s a wonderful journey.

Adam Kahane has written a book called Power and Love, and another, solving tough problems. They explore this balancing act of power and love. His writing is a wonderful mix of idealism and realism. Adam’s conviction has been forged in the fire of some of the world’s most complex and conflicted situations. He has facilitated dialogue in South Africa during the struggle to replace apartheid; in Columbia in the midst of the civil war; in Guatemala in the aftermath of the genocide; in Argentina when the society collapsed… and more. He shares his failures (misguided, well meaning and revealing) as well as his successes (emerging from the insights and adjustments made following failures). Highly recommended.

Here’s an excerpt from solving tough problems. It captures wonderfully the “surrender” part of the equation.

“My favourite movie about getting unstuck is the comedy Groundhog Day. Bill Murray plays Phil Conners, a cynical, self-centred television journalist who is filming a story about Groundhog Day, February 2, in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He despises the assignment and the town. The next morning, he wakes up to discover, with horror, that it is still February 2, and that he has to live through these events again. This happens every morning: he is stuck in reliving the same day over and over. He explains this to his producer Rita, but she laughs it off. He tries everything he can in order to break this pattern – getting angry, being nice, killing himself – but nothing works. Eventually he relaxes into appreciating the present, and opens himself up to the town and to Rita.Only then does he wake up to a new day and a better future.

Many of us are like Phil Connors. We get stuck by holding on tightly to our opinions and plans and identities and truths. But when we relax and are present and open up our minds and hearts and wills, we get unstuck and we unstick the world around us. I have learned that the more open I am – the more attentive I am to the way things are and could be, around me and inside me; the less attached I am to the way things ought to be – the more effective I am in helping to bring forth new realities. And the more I work in this way, the more present and alive I feel. As I have learned to lower my defences and open myself up, I have become increasingly able to help better futures be born.” – Adam Kahane

I wish you all well in the dance of intention and surrender!

If you like this post; You may also enjoy reading  Inner Life, Outer Results (October Edition)

I wonder more and more these days whether there exists some kind of mental or even physical addiction to work.  I was training a workshop recently in which one of the participants was constantly checking his Blackberry, even though I had asked everyone at the beginning of the day to turn off their phones or put them on silent if there was an urgent reason they needed to be contactable.  Later that morning he and I did a role play and afterwards his peers were giving him feedback.  While his peers were speaking directly to him he was checking his emails!  I had a chat with him at morning tea and let him know the impact of what he was doing.  He tried to stop after that and the situation did improve somewhat although he was still checking his emails regularly – just more discreetly.

He’s not the only one though.  I notice when I’m training the higher up in the corporate food chain the participants are, the harder it is for them to put their smart phones aside and for that matter, stay or even attend the workshop. How many workshops have I been in with high flyers in big corporations where their assistants come in and whisper in their ear and out they go never to return.  And, at the certain risk of generalising, I now assume the attendance rate will be as low as 50% if the workshop is aimed at General Manager level or higher.  I understand this.  They are dealing with important and urgent matters that need to be dealt with asap and, given their expertise or their client relationship or their responsibility in the matter, they are the only person who can solve it.  But I also notice their attention span is severely limited even when they are in the room (and yet again I am generalising – but I will keep going anyway).  When I am in the front of the room training I feel such pressure to be super engaging because I can see clearly when the participant’s attention wanders and the subtle move of the Blackberry under the table. I am competing/vying for their attention and too often I lose.  When it comes time to go into break out groups or do an activity, often up to 1/3 of the room leaving only to return ½ way through the discussion or activity and find it difficult to catch up and so the opportunity for learning is reduced. Have a look at this YouTube link which talks about the downside of constantly changing tasks.

And trainers are not always the best models of behaviour.  I was working with a big multinational investment bank and we were doing a Diversity Workshop.  As is typical with Be Learning we were performing some Forum Theatre scenes where we acted out various case studies where people were dealing with issues of diversity and the purpose was to try and promote inclusive behaviour in the workplace. After we acted out the scene I would then facilitate a robust discussion about the themes and issues played out by the characters.  The actors would often remain on stage during this discussion and would remain in character and interact with the audience when questioned.  I was in the middle of facilitating a particularly lively discussion when I turned around to see one of the actors, centre stage, checking his iPhone. And, no, I don’t think it was a character choice! He then did it again later that day when the Head of Human Resources, our client, was making a speech to the attendees and the CEO.  I was very embarrassed and stunned that the iPhone couldn’t be put away for the duration of the 90 minute session.  The pull must have been very strong for him.

And I am certainly not immune. I don’t like being separated from my computer.  I left it at work once overnight and felt very anxious and uncomfortable as I walked out the door.  I also can’t leave it too long without checking my emails or I start to feel anxious. Only at Christmas do I stop thinking about checking for a day or two, only because of the knowledge that others are on holidays and it is very unlikely there will be any emails – especially Christmas Day.  Nonetheless I have a default set up which forwards all my work emails to my Hotmail account just in case I can’t get on the network and retrieve my work emails. Which means I spend a lot of time deleting! But it’s my preference when faced with no access to the VPN.

Once again I am consulting the oracle, Google, to find out about email addiction in particular. At the first site I investigate there is a great article written by someone who compulsively hit their ‘check email’ button at least 100 times per day.  The addicted person writing the article (it made me smile) was a psychologist and they were investigating email addiction, why it occurs, and what can be done to counteract it. Apparently it is not a physical addiction but it seems it’s very real psychological behavioural addiction and attributed to something psychologists call “operant conditioning” which, simply put, means we do it because we sometimes get ‘rewarded’ when we open an email.  The fact it only happens sometimes is the reason why we are conditioned to check our inbox so often. It’s called ‘variable interval reinforcement schedule’ (say that ten times quickly).

If the ‘rewards’ happened every time we checked our emails or if they stopped altogether the rewards would be consistent i.e. always good or always bad.  Then our curiosity would be sated and we wouldn’t feel compelled to check just in case there was reward, we would know the outcome before we checked.  Operant conditioning was first discovered in experiments with lab animals using a reward and punishment system.

One of the effects of email addiction is a relatively new condition called ‘Blackberry Thumb’ which is caused by the repetitive movement of the thumb as it scrolls or taps out messages. Another term coined to describe the addiction is Crackberry.

I don’t have a Blackberry but I do work a lot on the train with my laptop.  I don’t use a mouse.  Because I have got so used to it I often don’t use a mouse even when I am at my desk or working from home.  I find after doing a big tender or program design which requires many hours at the computer that only after a week or so I have very sore joints in the thumb and forefinger of my hand that operates the touch pad.  With lots of people using laptops now in transit or replacing the standard PC station with laptops and working longer hours the ergonomic and RSI implications are great.  Besides the physical impact of email addiction there is also a potential impact on general physical health such as weight and fitness.  As mentioned in Work Life Balancing Act Part 1 relationships, stress levels, and face to face communication can also suffer.

So what can we do about our email addiction if we have one…..?

Because it’s a fundamental psychological process happening to our animal brains it means the behaviour happens automatically, or in spite of our conscious selves telling us we should do otherwise. So how can we ‘uncondition’ ourselves?  We don’t want to remove the rewards, so instead we need to weaken the strength of the link between action and reward.  For example – we could delay the amount of time between checking and then receiving the new email.  This will have two positive outcomes.  One is, we no longer receive the instant ‘hit’ and the second is that if we wait a bit longer, the likelihood of having a reward in there each time is much greater. While this may seem contradictory, it actually lessens the strength of the compulsion to check because the outcome is certain. Practically speaking, this could be achieved by doing some simple things like turning off email alerts. You could also select your email inbox to update every 15mins or every 30mins instead of the default it is probably on which is every 3 minutes.  Did you feel anxious when you just read this?  I’m smiling because I felt anxious when I wrote it.  That’s our operant conditioning at work. This solution probably wouldn’t make a big difference to your recipients but it will decrease the constant checking we do or the instant replies which can interrupt the flow of our work.  It will decrease the anxiety we have when we don’t check.

Another more radical alternative is to attend the Thousand Berries Rehab Clinic….

Good luck!

Check out further links at the end of the article if you want to read more on this subject and also look at my references…. In the meantime I am laughing out loud because in the middle of writing this I am constantly checking my inbox and replying to email alerts.  Ahhhh…..the humanity.

This post is written by Claire Jones, Senior Consultant, Be Learning

Not too long ago I was in a car with my father dri­ving along Sus­sex Street in Syd­ney CBD at 9:30pm. We were on our way back from the the­atre after see­ing a play.  My father com­mented on a long line of taxis out­side one tall city build­ing whose offices were all lit up. The the­atre we had just come from had 2 taxis wait­ing out­side at the end of the play.  This build­ing had about 12. I knew the build­ing was a top tier professional services firm and com­mented that the taxis knew where to wait for busi­ness – not out­side the hotels or the­atres but rather out­side big cor­po­rate busi­nesses.  Min­utes later, fur­ther down the road, we saw another unusu­ally long line of taxis wait­ing out­side another build­ing – it was the head office of one of Australia’s largest retail banks. Yes – they really do know where the busi­ness is. I won­dered about what kind of expec­ta­tion of work prac­tice exists in these two major cor­po­rate businesses.

That in turn led me to reflect on Be Learning.  I had been working on a medium sized project for a month or so. A major client had commissioned us to design and deliver a project focussing on flexible work arrangements. My involvement with the project was firstly, in researching and writing the case studies and scripts for the forum theatre scenes, and additionally designing and delivering the program. The project’s specific focus was inclusive practices in the workplace and how to manage flexible work arrangements.  It was looking at how their business could create the sort of environment where people would be supported to work flexibly and the advantages and challenges related to this.  It looked at whether their leaders were role modelling work/life balance.  It also examined the rewards and recognition in place to check which people’s business practices were being held up for praise.  It asked — what are the expectations we have of ourselves and others in relation to our work practices?  What is the culture in our workplace?  How big is the gap between the culture we practice and the one we want to create?  The program’s objective was to hold a solutions forum to come up with ways to create the kind of environment where people are supported to work flexibly and where managers can drive the generous policies and targets the company has created to make it a better place to work.

I was very interested to see what would come out of the workshop as I have personally struggled a great deal with work/life balance. I have requested support numerous times from my manager in managing my work/life balance.  I have 2 children ages 6 and 11, I work an average of 10–12 hours a day, 4 days per week and commute up to 20 hours per week. Ironically, I was particularly struggling balancing work and home life while I was working on the project I outlined above which was looking at work/life balance!!  I remember hitting the send button at 4:20 a.m. one morning as I emailed through the first draft of the script to the client and laughing out loud at the beautiful irony.  The relevance of the topic was hard to miss as I was sending through scenes containing characters that were sending emails at all hours of the night.  My colleague and I had an hour long conversation one Saturday morning about the reworked program design because it was the only time we could find when we were both free.  Isn’t that absolutely perfect?  I smiled and promised myself to better manage my time and workload next time while secretly underneath I didn’t believe my own promise.

So why am I telling you all this? Perhaps just to share my challenge which I know is shared by many others. Perhaps I am hoping that we can all help support each other and encourage one another in this balancing act.  It won’t work if only some of us achieve work/life balance.  Our own balance is precariously dependent on others also maintaining a balance. So it’s a bit like a 3 legged race — in order to be successful we have to be in step with each other.

But then again I fear I am being far too simplistic.  I heard a fascinating interview on ABC Radio National a couple of years ago about people’s working preferences in relation to work/life balance.  Some people prefer to keep their work and home life completely separate (Separators). They feel more in control this way.  Others would prefer to mix it up (Integrators) e.g. to look at work emails while at home and look at personal emails while at work.  They feel more in control this way. And others (Volleyers) are Separators for most of the year except at certain peak times when they become Integrators e.g. Accountants at tax time. They feel more in control working this way.  Get the picture? The radio interviewee said that regardless which one we were, it was important we recognise and communicate our personal boundaries to others. I am definitely an Integrator.  What this means is that I really enjoy the flexibility of being able to work from home and then being able to do personal stuff from work.  The danger for us though is that we often don’t define our boundaries, either for others or for ourselves.  The lines get blurry and the balance often tips in favour of work rather than personal.

I did some digging around on the internet trying to find out how Australia is placed to the rest of the world in relation to our ability to manage work/life balance.  I came across a report at Relationships Forum Australia entitled ‘An Unexpected Tragedy’:

The past 3 decades have been a time of unambiguous economic prosperity for our country.  But this success has come at a price. Working patterns have altered to such an extent that Australia is now the only high income country that combines:

• Average working hours that are at the top end amongst high income nations
• A strong tendency for work on weeknights and weekends, and
• A relatively large proportion of the working population employed on a casual basis”

The various impacts cited as resulting from the impact of long working hours, working nights and weekends include:

• Relationship breakdown
• Obesity
• Heart attacks

During the last couple of months or so while I have been especially thinking about this topic I have come across a number of people whose health and/or relationships have been seriously affected by the lack of balance between their work and personal life. That is certainly my own personal experience as well.  Given the seriousness of the outcomes you would assume we would change our habits!

But that doesn’t always happen.

Given my personal investment in this issue I decided to try and make a list of the reasons my work/life balance was out of whack. The logic being, by making myself aware of the reasons, I might be able to start addressing some of them.  I am quite willing to admit, from the position of being my own personal amateur therapist,   that my reasons might not be correct and also that they might be completely different to someone else’s, but if you find some similarity, you might like to join in the discussion or may find something in this article of use.

So, here’s the list of possible reasons……

• I may be either physically or mentally addicted to work (or both!!)
• I may lack planning which means that I either have too much work to do in a given timeframe or else I am not working efficiently enough
• Maybe I am a slow worker and spend too much time attending to detail at the cost of efficiency and budget
• Maybe work is exciting to me and makes me feel good about myself therefore I work more to have even more excitement  and feel even better about myself
• Maybe I am a megalomaniac and in order to satisfy my need to control everything I end up taking on more tasks than I should while pretending that I’m not taking on too much so that I don’t have to delegate my tasks to others and lose control
• Maybe everyone in the company is in the same position as me because we are a growing business and that’s just the way things have to be for now until we get more people and train them and streamline our processes
• Maybe there have been unreasonable deadlines set – either by myself or others, either internally or externally
• Maybe I am being delegated too much work by others who don’t always understand what’s involved

So in the coming months I’ll go through the list and talk about each point and see if I can come up with any solutions.  If you have any comments or ideas you would like to be included please send them to me at Claire@belearning.com.au and I will include them.

This post is written by Claire Jones, Senior Consultant, Be Learning

Fire, Snowball, Mask, Movie: How Leaders Spark and Sustain Change in Harvard Business Review

Be Learning has had the pleasure of working with Professor Richard Badham in recent years.  He has shared his creative brain and extensive experience in the area of leadership in organisational cultures. Richard has created metaphors to describe what we do and we have in turn worked on bringing concepts to life in his leadership programs.

For the last two years Be Learning has partnered with The Professor and Macquarie University (MGSM)  in creating Phronesis, a research group for the ongoing reflection and innovation to collectively explore business education in the 21st century.

Be Learning are looking forward to being inspired by Professor Richard Badham for many years to come.

MGSM’s commentary on the article can be found on its website.

For more information about Professor Richard Badham read here.