Waving Not Drowning
Mental agility is the new watchword for staff at the Common Services Agency. Here Anthony Landale reports on a new training initiative that is helping staff to deal with the practical problems of information overload.
Mental agility training at CSA helps staff to navigate rapid change
Ratcheting up the pressure on staff never works for long. But soft-soaping employees does not get results either. So just how can organisations help overloaded staff to improve their performance?
At the Common Services Agency (CSA), the body that plays an active role in NHS Scotland by providing support and advice for Scotland’s health and patient care, they believe they have found the answer - mental agility.
…simply expecting them to work harder or longer to deal with this isn’t a long-term solution. They need to work smarter…
Lisa King is Organisational Development (OD) Manager for the CSA and she outlined the thinking behind the agency’s initiative. “One of our core missions is to develop people so that they are ‘fit for purpose’, she explained. “People at the CSA don’t only work hard, they face constant change and that means continuously taking on board new ideas and information. Simply expecting them to work harder or longer to deal with this isn’t a long-term solution. They need to work smarter.
“The approach we are taking is to influence the culture and promote those values of self-motivation, personal responsibility and leadership which can make a difference. That’s what all of our core development programmes are aiming at - helping people to see that it is up to them to manage their working lives whilst, at the same time, supporting them by providing leading edge thinking and productivity tools,” she said.
…the reality is that today’s employees have to absorb more information, at a faster rate, than ever before…
Now this sounds all fine and well but how does it translate to real life? The answer to this lies, in part, with the partnership that the CSA has developed with the UK’s leading company in accelerated learning, Illumine Training.
Clive Lewis is MD of Illumine and he highlighted the challenge and the objectives of the mental agility initiative. “The programme that we designed for the CSA distils some of the most powerful thinking and performance tools currently available. What we do on this workshop is teach participants about Mind Mapping, speed reading and memory techniques - we do it in a way that is practical and engaging and, most importantly we ensure that people not only understand why these techniques work but also know how to apply these new tools by the time they leave the course.”
So far around 200 CSA staff have voluntarily chosen to go through this programme - this is no sheep-dip approach - and these numbers alone suggest that it is meeting a very real need.
“The underlying issue is about information overload and the CSA is far from being alone in facing this problem - in some organisations it is so severe that they have even tried banning email in an effort to free-up managers. However, the reality is that today’s employees have to absorb more information, at a faster rate, than ever before. So do organisations let their people drown or can they help them to digest information more efficiently? That’s what this course addresses head on,” said Lewis.
Mind Mapping is, of course, a technique that many people will have heard about. However, not nearly enough people in business use it. Perhaps the use of colours and the graphic feel of this approach puts traditionalists off but, if so, then they are missing out on an extraordinarily effective business tool. Mind Mapping is proven to help in a range of business applications including project planning, creative idea generation, report writing and learning and, quite literally can provide a breakthrough in personal productivity.
“In a recent survey, 80% of respondents said that they suffer from information overload,” said Clive Lewis “and Mind Mapping is one of those tools that can streamline a lot of thinking activity. It’s a great way of recording and storing information, not only by making that information visually memorable but also by generating associative thoughts. In essence it’s a thinking technique which parallels the way the mind works.”
At CSA the OD division is certainly helping to pioneer the way forward. Lisa King and her team recently gave a presentation to the Staff Governance Committee and used Mind Mapping as the way in which to present the OD perspective. “The directors of the committee hadn’t come across it used in this way before and they were really surprised at how effective it was - not only in capturing their attention but in accurately representing the whole subject area,” she said.
So this is one of the planks of mental agility. But it is not the only one. In terms of dealing with the sheer volume of information that they are required to read and remember, speed-reading is another ‘must have’ skill for CSA managers and staff.
“Again we are pushing at an open door here,” said Lewis. “People want new ways to help them assimilate the volume of information that they are sent and speed reading works. We hardly have to make the business case for speed-reading but not surprisingly people want to know some of the mechanics behind it. We tell them how the brain and the eye actually work to see information and we give them practical ‘power browsing’ exercises involving the reading of a book in just ten minutes to demonstrate that they can do it. Of course the potential benefits of processing information so fast aren’t lost on anyone.”
The final piece in the puzzle - on this programme at least - has been the focus on memory. It’s all very well processing information but how do you get at it when you most need it?
Now in some senses this is familiar territory for trainers and learners. We all know how much material is forgotten in the first few days and weeks after it has been taught - and that is why the best training courses include memorable exercises and activities both to engage the attention and anchor the learning. But Illumine have made this something of a speciality.
…“A good memory is not something that is only available to a fortunate minority. Once we understand why we forget and how to remember then it becomes possible to construct practical strategies for remembering whatever we need to”…
“Sometimes people feel that their memory lets them down; they forget things that they feel that they really should remember. So what can they do about this?” asked Lewis.
“A good memory is not something that is only available to a fortunate minority. Once we understand why we forget and how to remember then it becomes possible to construct practical strategies for remembering whatever we need to. The focus on this course has been to explain the principles and rhythms of memory and to introduce a simple but powerful memory system that has proved to participants that they do have a powerful and retentive mind.”
Now this sounds like a lot of learning to deliver in just one day - and while that may be appropriate given the business issue - is it working for participants?
”It is obviously beneficial for people to come at this course already warmed up,” explained Lewis. “With this in mind we ask delegates to complete a few short exercises before they arrive that are designed to get them thinking about their brains and learning. They are also asked to select and bring along a couple of books that they can work on during the day. This starts to stimulate their curiosity.
“The physical environment is also important and two of the favourite locations for this training have been Celtic Park in Glasgow and Edinburgh Zoo. When people arrive for the course there is baroque music playing, Mind Maps® for people to look at and juggling balls available for those who prefer to be active first thing. This all encourages people to be receptive to new ideas,” he said.
Lisa King is confident that this enriched learning experience is spot on for the subject and the attendees. “In a word the training is interactive. Everyone is expected to get involved and everyone does. There is nothing on the course that is particularly demanding intellectually but that does not mean that it is all easy. People are being challenged to think in new ways, to break their habits and to apply new techniques. Clive does not just present this material; he lives it and that’s part of the reason he is so effective. He knows his material and he is superb at engaging people with different needs.”
…practise, as part of learning boosts confidence, energy and skill levels….
Lewis agrees that the effectiveness of training does not rely only on the techniques - however exciting they may be - it is all about helping people to learn. “There isn’t one approach that works for everyone,” he said. “We put an emphasis on the fun in learning but not everyone will want to play with the juggling balls. We respect that the way people see the world is unique and we encourage people to have different perspectives. We also cater for different learning styles. Although most of the learning comes through ‘doing’ we ensure that the information is presented visually and verbally. And although it is impossible for people not to compare their performance with those of their colleagues - particularly with something like speed-reading - we stress that there are clear reasons for the different rates of improvement that people make. The real objective is to open new doors of understanding and ensure that everyone feels good about their own performance.”
It is not surprising to hear that the feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. This is creative training at its best - energising, enjoyable and effective. As with the example of the Mind Mapping presentation, employees are finding new ways to apply the learning to real work scenarios and Illumine are following up the day through a series of ‘tips and hints’ emails that reinforce the material covered on the day.
However perhaps one of the most relevant pieces of feedback has been the number of participants who have reported that they have passed on their skills to their children. This is an acid test for trainers and learners alike. Do people take away what they learned in the ‘classroom’? The answer here seems to be a resounding Yes. In fact the unspoken conclusion appears to be that they only wish they had been taught this accelerated way of learning much earlier in their lives.
Tags: Accelerated Learning for Trainers (Training), Common Services Agency (CSA), Memory techniques, Mental agility, Mind Mapping, Performance, Public Sector Specific