A dozen financial services managers have gathered for a day of professional development. The goal of the day’s training — getting employees to buy into a common company vision — isn’t so unusual. But the technique is.

The managers are working with a group of actors. Once they have learned the “lesson,” they are cast in a workplace drama, opposite a professional actor taking the part of a difficult employee. “They engage in a character simulation,” says Peter Gardiner-Harding, founder of Focus Management Group Ltd., the Toronto-based firm that organized the event. “The actor plays the archetypal difficult employee. He’s provocative.”

The managers are participating in a method of learning that is becoming increasingly popular among companies hoping to enhance the leadership, teamwork and business skills of their managers.
“Experiential” or “event-based” learning can take the form of role-playing, cooking classes, rowing, wilderness excursions — but it is all about learning by doing, by making a visceral connection.

“Everything in learning theory tells us that
when we connect emotionally, the learning skyrockets,” Gardiner-Harding says. “It’s a level of learning that’s much deeper than the cognitive.”

But some training experts caution that although experiential learning programs can be effective, they have their limitations.

John Swain, a partner with Toronto-based Mercer Delta Consulting Ltd., a firm that provides corporate development services to national and multinational companies, is a believer in this type of training, but not without reservations. “If you can provide an experience in a well-designed learning environment, nothing is more powerful,” he says.

But the effects often melt away when participants return to their offices and run up against a company culture that undermines the values — leadership and entrepreneurship, for example — promoted by the event.

The learning “event” is just one tool in the kit, Swain says, and it can’t be expected to fix problems within the organization. He champions a more integrated approach, believing organizational problems should be addressed from a “big picture” standpoint.
Companies need to develop training and development programs that have defined goals — so the goals of the program correspond with those of the company. The programs should use a number of teaching methods, including lectures, self-study and event-based learning, and offer concrete rewards for positive results.

There is no doubt, however, that managers learn some effective coping skills. In Focus Management’s events — called Plays that Work — managers such as the financial services executives above are taught, and buy into, the various lessons: don’t approach employees in a judgmental fashion; find out why they’re struggling; and determine how they can overcome their difficulties. But when the managers interact with the actor, they tend to revert to their old coping strategies, which is exactly what they were just taught not to do.

Gardiner-Harding says the jarring experience is necessary — it forces them to make an emotional connection, to understand that there is a difference between what they learn in a classroom and how they respond in real-life situations.
From that moment of recognition, they begin to learn, he says.

A former accountant, Gardiner-Harding founded Focus Management 16 years ago, combining his love of acting with his business knowledge. The firm tailors improvisations or role-playing to individual client companies in order to teach behavioural skills to their employees. It has expanded across Canada and is hiring additional actors.

Learn-to-row day

There are other ways to learn by doing, of course. A learn-to-row day, for example, can be an effective way to build team spirit. “The great thing about rowing is that everyone in the boat is equal,” says Chris Matthews, co-ordinator of the Toronto Argonaut Rowing Club’s corporate rowing program.

In its one-day events, the rowing club teaches groups of 20 to 30 people about the sport, its equipment and basic rowing technique. The group then is broken up into eight-person teams that compete in a race.
The club can tailor the activity to reinforce team-building or leadership skills.

Rowing Canada, the sport’s national body, doesn’t have a formal corporate rowing program, but is looking at partnering with OARS, a U.S.-based company that has built a sophisticated corporate development program using rowing as its base. OARS currently brings in top executives from firms for learn-to-row days taught by members of the U.S. national team.

“[Executives] instantly realize it’s about teamwork because if people don’t do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it, the boat literally doesn’t go anywhere,” says Nick Matthews, Rowing Canada’s Toronto-based director of marketing.

@page_break@Talking to the athletes about their training regimes also gives executives tangible examples of the focus, dedication and discipline required to achieve goals.

While Swain agrees event-based programs can be powerful learning experiences, he fears the lessons they teach may not be long-lasting — and he has learned that from experience.

In the late 1980s, he ran a business that staged adventure-based corporate events.
He used activities such as high-rope courses, in which participants swung from ropes suspended at great heights, crossed deep chasms on rope bridges and did other frightening — but apparently safe — activities. The lessons were powerful and memorable, but the effects often melted away when participants returned to their offices and ran up against the corporate culture.

Swain moved into consulting in the early 1990s because, he believes, organizational problems must be addressed in an integrated manner. Now, when he’s designing a program for a client company, Swain begins by taking a look at what a day in the life of an employee at the firm is actually like: the challenges, the obstacles and the point at which things break down.
Then, a program is built to address the specific issues causing the organizational difficulties.

The program should include opportunities for employees to find out how they are doing against pre-set criteria or standards. That way, they can measure their progress. It should also include a feedback mechanism.

“And I would be sure to build in some experiential and activity-based work.” he says. To be effective, he adds, the type of learning event should fit the firm’s overall objectives.

How would Swain build a program to motivate financial advisors? He again stresses looking at the daily challenges financial services professionals face. “The activities should be intellectually stimulating and challenge their abilities for innovative problem-solving.”

This might include orienteering through a challenging map course, or a soccer game in which half the team is blindfolded and depends on instructions from “sighted” team members.

“A training event for advisors must teach or reinforce tangible skills, such as leadership and teamwork,” he says. IE