A Glance Into The Future Of Learning: An Interview With Ben Gianacakos

Welcome. readers, to my new series of entries on interviews with people in the L&D field. I hope to provide a voice for a wide range of viewpoints in the field, and perhaps provide some background to my visitors who don't have experience in the L&D space, or are looking to get some more!

For the few interviews I've done, I have to say that this is among the most interesting. Ben has some very innovative takes on L&D from the perspective of someone who has moved through the L&D hierarchy and gained non-subject experience to complement it. Some great ideas below!

Ben Gianacakos is an experienced professional in the field of learning and development, and a proponent of the idea of lifelong learning. Currently, he’s a Learning Manager with Amazon, developing learning strategies for the Global Human Resources Department. Originally in a facilitation and training role within the United States Navy, Ben honed his skills with a formal degree in the subject, and has since completed an MBA as well.

What got you into training/learning development in the first place?

A desire to help others reach efficient behaviours, based on my early experiences in training: Often, training devolves into simply reinforcing processes. Strong learning should focus on modifying learning for the individual.

I’ve also noticed gaps in business ability in the emerging field of learning: Learning professionals fall back to basic ideas like not being able to apply ROI to learning, or bridging the gap between senior management and the learning department, and this needs to change – Learning and Development needs a seat at the C-Level table to create a better understanding of what we can offer. 

Of the current or emerging technologies in training, what grabs your attention?

Right now, I’m excited about microlearning on mobile platforms. Mobile is an underdeveloped space: Everyone uses it, there are many possibilities, but there hasn’t been much capture there. The challenge in successfully using mobile learning is that the space requires marketing and metrics tracking designed for that particular format. Because mobile learning can occur on or off the job, there hasn’t yet been accurate risk assessment in deploying mobile microlearning to hourly staff.

What aspect of learning and training is most often misunderstood in organizations?

I think that some of the greatest pitfalls in learning are the fear of failure, and a desire to placate business leaders.

As I mentioned, Learning and Development doesn’t have visibility in C-Level discussions. There are no Chief Learning Officers, and very rarely VPs or Chief HR officers. Learning doesn’t have as much value as it could because from a top-down viewpoint, learning is seen as a cost centre – It’s something that needs to be done, a function of the business. As a result, the classic approach is to minimize the cost and streamline the function. If we can change the viewpoint to show that learning is a driver for performance and is actually a profit centre, then learning will occupy a more prominent seat at the table.

On another level, it’s hard to develop and reinforce a learning strategy at a macro level. Alongside that, it’s hard to prove in financial terms the direct correlation between learning and efficiencies in the workplace, increase in employee engagement, and the retention and progression of employees within an organization.

Is there a particular skill or experience that has helped you the most in your current position?

My experience in facilitation has given me that mindset when working with a wide variety of clients – Facilitation involves planning out what are essentially extended meetings, considering the information and how it is delivered as well as what questions will be asked. This process is really helpful in consulting with stakeholders across the organization whether in individual or group consultations. Also, my engineering background lends itself to data analytics and modeling from engineering background.  Learning right now is moving towards the “Track it, log It, model it” idea, and having a background in engineering helps to determine and track metrics.  

What do you find to be the most in-demand skills for personnel in training/learning development?

Graphic design

Curriculum Design – Building good learning.

E-Learning Authoring Tools (Storyline/Captivate)

Javascript

Data analytics from metrics provided by the LMS

How to Build Better Learning

Building learning isn’t easy. It’s a painful process to define expectations, settle the scope, and assemble content, any one of which can be a major stumbling block for stakeholders. With that much involved, companies want to build learning that can be quickly executed, revised, and evaluated. Building good learning that is targeted to an audience and provides information they can immediately use, can often be at odds with one or all of those three targets. 

The compromise is to put learners into classrooms, and deliver all the information, foie gras style, stuffing the information into the learners in the name of efficiency: This is the chalk-and-talk - Put some points onto a whiteboard, and talk about them at great length. 

Ever read Harry Potter? Look up Professor Binns’ Magical History. Probably the most genius metaphor for bad learning that I’ve encountered. 

So, how can we make it better?

Today, let’s talk a little about a concept you may not be aware of called Affective Shielding. This is a bedrock concept in the field of educational psychology, and it’s quite simple: Under stress, you can’t learn. 

I tutor students on an occasional basis. Math (though not my specialty), and English. What I notice regularly is that if learners don’t understand a particular step in the process, the rest of it is noise. In one case, I was working with a student to solve word problems in mathematics, a sore point for many learners. 

The stumbling block was how to extract information from the word puzzle: The learner knew the process to solve the mathematical problem, but pulling the data was the problem. In being constantly unable to solve the problem without outside guidance, my learner became increasingly frustrated, and with the frustration came cognitive overload, and a corresponding inability to get any new information in.

How can this be prevented in your learning initiatives?

The answer is to break down your content. That doesn’t mean creating acronyms and job aids for everything and anything, rather following these three pieces:

1) Simplify: Clarify your wording, and avoid excessive detail - Figure out what’s nice to have, and remove or simplify it so that it doesn’t distract learners. Avoid formal language where you can, because you want your learners’ brainpower to be dedicated to figuring out the process, not untangling the words. Instead of looking at the whole word problem, scan sentence-by-sentence for any numbers. Filter anything that’s not important. Write down what is, and why.  

2) Model the Process: Role-Playing. Scenarios. Group discussion and charting. Modelling the process from start to finish, no matter how you do it, is incredibly important. To make it easier, follow the Golden Path: In your process, choose a scenario where everything happens according to plan, and show your learners. But what about when things go wrong? That can come later - Right now, you just want them to know how things work. In an ideal process, create a simple word problem that has all the numbers clearly listed. Walk through how you find them with the learner, and explain the steps. 

3) Immediacy: Learning is useless if it’s forgotten. Break down the learning, show how it works, and allow learners to exercise the process immediately (And make sure to remind them of the process occasionally via e-mails or postings), and you will have learning that sticks!

Until next time, feel free to find me on LinkedIn (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/thelearningguru) or on Twitter @LnDGuru and let’s talk about what I can do for your organization’s learning needs!