Last month I discussed the questions we need to think through before starting training of the new breed of volunteers. This month we’ll explore ways for training to be most effective for today’s high-powered people.

How Long Should Training Sessions Be?
Consider this general rule that I came across somewhere along the way: The ability to maintain learning attentiveness, or focused attention, is affected by fluctuations in brain chemistry. This occurs at 90-minute cycles throughout a 24-hour day. Our brain learns best when learning is interrupted by breaks of 2-5 minutes so it can diffuse, or process, information. Now I have no idea who wrote that rule, but for me 90 minutes of lecture is way too long unless the person talking is dynamic and the training is filled with stories that are relevant to what I want to learn. My experience is that most listeners tune in about every 5 minutes or so, and if they like what they are hearing, they stay with you. If they don't, they use the training session to do other work, plan, or just daydream.

The length of the training session should be adapted to the objective of the training and the learner's ability to grasp the material. Last month I suggested very specific questions to determine just what training your volunteer needs. For most training sessions, I find that I can adapt the rules I use for half-day and full-day workshops. I follow these four rules when I am facilitating full-day workshops:

Rule one: Keep presentations down to 5 to 10 minutes.
Give a motivational talk for about 5-10 minutes (20 max). If I go 20 minutes, I evaluate what I am saying every 5 minutes to make sure it is interesting.

Rule two: Follow up the presentation with a video, exercise, or role play demonstration.
After my introduction I show a video, do a group exercise, or get a volunteer to role play with me to break up the learning activity. After the video or exercise, I facilitate a discussion or give a case study depending upon the group.

Rule three: In half-day or all-day workshops, give 15-minute breaks every 90 minutes.
I always have a 15-minute break about every 90 minutes. People need to get up and walk around. In addition, during breaks the more quiet people ask me questions, and I get great feedback.

Rule four: Whenever possible, use case studies for learning. They involve all three learning styles, and each member of the group will participate according to his or her style: analyzer, doer, or watcher (discussed last month).
I was leading a workshop last month and used the following training exercise, shared by Jonathan McKee in the book he and I co-authored called The New Breed. I then asked each group to come up with a similar exercise which they could present to the group.

Jonathan’s Training Exercise: The Roll Call
A while back, I was in Los Angeles visiting my friend Brian, a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department. Brian asked if I wanted to go on a "ride along," and I gladly accepted.

So there I was—in the heart of Los Angeles, in the middle of the night, riding shotgun in a police car. (Brian had to keep telling me to stop playing with the lights and siren!) I loved the experience. But the evening didn't begin by jumping in a car. It all started with roll call.

All the police on that shift gathered together in a room before they headed out to the streets. During this 20-minute meeting, about 15 minutes of it was continuing education.

One officer shared an experience that two officers had the previous day: A fight had been reported in the street. When officers arrived on the scene, a trail of blood led to the door of a house, with blood also on the doorknob. The two officers knocked on the door, but no one answered.

The sergeant running the training asked, "Can we enter?"

Officers from around the room started answering. They discussed probable cause. The sergeant gradually revealed other details. The consensus in the room was that they could enter. The sergeant said, "That's what we did." Then, on a whiteboard, he drew the interior layout of the house, drawing X's where people were sitting on a couch. "What now?" he asked.

People from around the room shouted out answers: "Ask to see their hands."

"We did." Then he circled an X on the couch. "But this guy wasn't moving at all." Then he drew another X on the couch, and said, "When officers looked closer, they noticed a 3-year-old kid sleeping right here next to the man. Now what?" he asked.

The discussion in the room was intense, because the situation wasn't just made up in someone's mind. It had just occurred the day before. And the more the officers got into it, the more the sergeant disclosed about the situation. This was a real-life experience turned into a teaching opportunity. The officers were able to objectively evaluate the good and the bad in the situation. Most important, they assessed what could be done better next time.

As we left the meeting, I asked Brian how often they did these training sessions. His answer: "Every day."

With that example to get everyone thinking, ask your groups to come up with a typical role play or case study to use as a training exercise. Then select the ones you want to go through. For each one:

• Describe the scenario to the group.
• Divide them into groups of three to six, with instructions to come up with a teaching opportunity that the group could use with volunteers.
• Have each group present its case to the room.

I have used this exercise and have had great results. The advantage is that the learners are actively working on the exercise and leave with a case study that they can use.

How do I know if my volunteer is learning?
Without feedback you don’t know where you stand. I love the story of the speaker who got some really interesting feedback after his speech. A person came up to him and said, "I have been fascinated as I listened to you speak. Can I ask you a question?" The speaker thought he was going to get an insightful question and was excited about hearing it until the person asked, "Are those your real teeth?" We never know what is going on in people's minds. They may look like they are getting it all, but their thoughts might be a million miles away.

My favorite way of finding out what people in my classes have learned is to ask them to apply the information to a test case or situation that I present to them. I was training a group of volunteer managers recently about how to deliver a difficult message to volunteers who are hurting the organization. I gave them the following exercise:

Bill is a volunteer who is late to all of your meetings. When he comes in late, he always seems to be disruptive and wants to go over things that you have already addressed. You ask Bill to stay after the meeting to talk. When everyone has left, what do you say to Bill, and where will you deliver your message?

By developing such a case study, you are not only able to hear just how the volunteer leader is using the techniques you have taught, but you are also able to assess just how skillfully he or she is able to handle this situation.

Who Can Best Deliver Our Training?
Realize that your best volunteer worker may not be the best trainer. Ferdinand F. Fournies has some very helpful suggestions in his book Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed to Do…And What to Do About It. Let me adapt some of his thoughts to the volunteer world:

• Designate one person to train new volunteers, and send that person to a train-the-trainer workshop.
• Create a manual for the instructor that will guide and standardize the training of new volunteers.
• Provide detailed reference manuals for volunteers that will support learning and performance after the training.
• In all tasks where failure is important, give volunteers simulations of the actual work so they make their mistakes where the cost of failure to you and them is minimal. (Why do airline pilots learn in simulators? Mistakes are costly! Role playing is the poor person's simulator.)
• Create a test for all new volunteers so you will know whether learning has actually occurred.

So what’s the bottom line? As Zig Ziglar said, it’s "better to train someone and lose them, than to not train them and keep them." Great advice for all of us.