You may not be a professional speaker, but you ARE a professional who speaks!
Most communicators in Health Sciences aren’t professionals in Learning and Development – but they find themselves needing to train others.
And when it comes to training others virtually, where do professionals in health sciences pros get tripped up or miss golden opportunities?
In this interview, Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT walks us through her three-part framework that'll get a subject matter expert from good to great in the virtual presentations and classes.
The biggest mistake non-trainers make (and how to avoid it!)
Why your biggest asset as a health sciences professional is exactly what to bring to your virtual training
Liz's vote for the #1 tip any virtual trainer can succeed with
And more!
Of course, she and host Roger Courville trade plenty of stories, too!
Learn more about and from Liz at www.virtualtraining.pro/learn-virtual-mastery.
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Series: #ThoughtLeaderConversations Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/
Keywords: #virtualtraining #virtualfacilitation #presentationskills
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Unedited transcript
[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: You may not be a professional speaker, but you are a professional who speaks? My friends, most communicators in health sciences aren't professionals in learning in development either, but they find themselves needing to train others. And when it comes to training others virtually, where do professionals in health sciences get tripped up or miss golden opportunities? Or what should they do? Where should they double down?
Well, hello and welcome to just that virtual facilitation skills for non trainers in health sciences. My name is Roger Courville, and welcome to another episode of Thought Leader Conversations sponsored by the crew here at Virtual venues where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team with a blue chip crew who will help you achieve excellence and results by focusing on something other than tech. Now, today we've got a treat for you and Liz Wool is with me.
Liz Wool, C C R A C M T, chief Learning strategist for the Wool Consulting Group, and founder of the Rock, your virtual training stage course, podcast, something like that.
I'm Liz. We're gonna get around to talking about that. That's, uh, I know you have a brain full of stuff, but before we get there, Liz has over 30 years of experience in clinical research. 25 years in education and training for both corporations and nonprofit organizations. Recognized subject matter expert in workforce development and training, and clinical research delivers online, onsite, or some combination thereof.
Welcome to Thought Leader Conversations, Liz. I.
[00:01:34] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: Hi, Roger. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a treat to be here with you, but also to help people in this space. Very excited to be here. It is,
[00:01:48] Roger Courville, CSP: and I'm glad you take a little time to, uh, well, I know your heart, you have a heart, a giving and serving heart, and I'm glad that you're here to share.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and why you're interested in virtual facilitation skills for non trainers in health sciences?
[00:02:03] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: Oh, thank you, Roger. Actually, I am so passionate, as you said, with my heart and helping people. In fact, I'm a helper of firmer personality. I was a nurse for many years, so I started with patient education and family education and really found that I had a great knack for that.
And I went into training roles and what I. A lot of the things that I use to train patients transcended into training people in the medical research field, whether it be hospitals or companies or pharmaceutical companies, and I really found that I have this capacity. It's actually the gift to take complex topics and simplify it, and that's what I've done now.
With training and virtual training is taking all my years in standup training as well as virtual and hybrid and simplify it because I'm now providing Roger, and this is hot off the presses, a five month virtual mastery training and coaching program, deep immersive into topics that. Would take you months and months to get, but you're gonna do it quicker, smarter, and easier in this program with myself and some other experts because it's not hard Roger, right?
It's just about learning that framework that will work. And you know, Roger, I think you and I are of the same gene genome, I guess is because. We learn and we want to share because we've had the oops moments that I call it Right. More than one. I know, I know. And I love to share my oops moments because people see us here as truly, you know, wow, they're polished.
Wow. They're this, they're that. And I can tell you, I've had my oops moments and secret note here. Don't tell anybody who's listening outside of your ears, everybody. I still make those oops moments, and I just go, man, man, what did I do? But you know what? I don't beat myself up over it. And that's one of the things I really wanna get across to people.
It's called progress, not perfection, in this virtual training space. You
[00:04:26] Roger Courville, CSP: know, I love that progress, not perfection. And I'll tell you why. In a world of on demand content, right? Go look up the statistics on YouTube or any place where you think of content that's available 24 7 on demand. You find lots of high polished professional stuff and you think I.
Oh my gosh. Either I can't do that or I could do that, but it's gonna take me a lot of time. And one of the unique things about doing live virtual training, I've seen this over and over and like you have been doing this long time, is that authenticity. Trumps perfection every time, because when you're real, people can tell you come from the heart, and that doesn't mean that you don't trip up sometimes.
But you mentioned like taking complexity and deriving the simplicity. Well, that that's something that I. Any subject matter expert has to deal with, whether that's, um, you know, nurse to patient or that's mid-level manager to senior executive, and now I've gotta simplify it because I've only got 15 minutes to make my case and I can't explain every single nuance or whatever that might be.
But authenticity trumps perfection every single time.
[00:05:45] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: That is so true because of the fact that in the three-step framework that I teach people who are really non-traditional trainers, right. You don't have, you know, the certifications that I have or the schooling or anything like that. Right? But you have a passion to share or you have an interest.
To share. You wanna help guide people to be their best, to be transformed. That's really what training is all about. Oh, I'm teaching them knowledge, I'm teaching 'em a skill or how to do something right for their role or for something else. But it's really about guiding them through that journey in a very specific way on how people process information, learn it, and kind of like practice it.
You know, everybody. I tell the story that. For me to give you a shot, I had to give it to an orange. I was supposed to give it to myself, but I never did. I was too chicken. Then I gave it to a classmate and then I was observed to give it to a patient. So when you think about that whole progress, not perfection thing, and just knowing that you're gonna try it, you're gonna do it, you're gonna iterate.
But in nursing, you can't iterate. You have to do it right. But that's really where I want to help people understand this, is that you can learn it. You can do it because. I always say this, right, Roger. And I think we underestimate because we're subject matter experts and we really know our stuff. But come into this virtual space.
Yeah, you gotta up your game. You gotta change your game because of virtual, right? And so I always say the number one success factor, I gave you a little teaser there a minute ago, is actually you, the trainer. It really is you and driving on your authenticity. How do you show up? Do you say like, hi, nice to see you.
Happy to, you all are in class today or, hi everybody, I'm so happy to see you all. Hi Joe. Hi Mo. And I can't remember the name of the other third STO of the Three Stooges, but. We wanna emulate as if we have people around us, that body language, that smile, that human connection across the camera. And it takes us time, doesn't it?
Time to get out of our heads and actually into the camera and saying, I'm seeing a room full of people.
[00:08:23] Roger Courville, CSP: The good news is it's not hard, but it is different and I, here's how I tend to illustrate this, and I would love to hear how you do. You can tell a story in a movie, and you could tell a story in a book, and it could be the same story to the same audience, but we understand that the discipline of a book versus a movie are very different.
Not arguing one is right or wrong. They're just different because it's a different form of media. Unfortunately, uh, this is particularly true in webinars and it's particularly true in some segments where like there's continuing medical ed or, or other forms of, of, I'll just call it info barf that we've seen so much info barf over PowerPoint that we think that's just acceptable.
And then we wonder why people are checked out and working on reports or email while they're in the middle of the class. And it's not hard. But here's the thing, when we train in person, we talk, we have PowerPoint. But when I ask people, okay, when you train in person or when you attend a training in person, Is someone talking over PowerPoint, the most engaging human connectedness, part of that learning experience.
And of course everybody laughs and goes, no. And I'm like, well then why do we do that online? I'm not saying you don't talk over PowerPoint. Sometimes there's just a whole lot more to the human connection than just simply info delivery. Curious, Liz, how do you think of. Creating human connection when a, in a virtual facilitation sense.
[00:10:06] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: You know, this is such a great topic because it's multi-layered. It's really multi-layered. So the, I share with people, the connection happens before the class. Instead of sending a reminder, I want people to get to know me. I'll do a short video, I'll embed it. I'm gonna say like, hi, so excited you're coming today or tomorrow, whatever.
I'll even send a reminder emails as well if you have, if you have their phone numbers, their mobile numbers. Send them text message reminders, but don't just say what you're gonna learn. This is going to be a great class. We're gonna talk about. Communication skills, but we're gonna go deeper than that Everybody.
We're gonna bring in the scenarios that you run into and I give them the job and I give them some of the challenges and say, we're gonna work through that. So when you leave, you can feel like, and then I get really, I show my energy. Some people don't wave their arms like I do. I say like, you know, get a little emoji or something fun and say, And you are going to walk away with feeling so confident that you are going to be able to handle those challenging people inside of your customer service call.
And then the other tip too, and this is really great 'cause this comes into how I put a course together, is I designed in the very beginning that human connection in the first 15 minutes, Because I'm like you, Roger. I want my virtual experience to emulate an in person. In person. I go in and introduce myself to everybody.
Everybody's saying, hello, how are you? Then I would facilitate for like 10 or 15 minutes having people take a moment, write down what do they wanna learn or what are some of the challenges, making it a very important connection point. Have them share it together, and then I would put it on a flip chart.
It was a small class go to everybody. I put that into my virtual training classes. Roger. For some reason, people think because it's virtual training, we don't need that. And so that's where you start with that connection. So you start before, and then when people are coming in, you are actually connecting with them with your voice.
And we really don't use our voice enough. And you and I have talked about that, but really that variety and that genuineness and looking at the camera, and 73% of the people polled said a person who smiles, they trust them more. So that's how I start it, and that's how I started. And then I build it. Then I actually have other ways that I build it in too with purposeful participation.
[00:12:57] Roger Courville, CSP: Nice. Well, I know you have a three work, uh, a three part framework to share today. Mm-hmm. And if you just happen to have. Tuned in or fast forwarded, or you just dropped in. One of the ways to, one of the things to know about Liz is that among her many certifications and experiences is being a certified instructional designer.
Now, that is a very purposeful way for how do we take subject matter expertise and transform that into not only the content, but the form of engagement. So she's gonna give you a little, uh, a little taste of that. More importantly so that you don't have to get a Master's in education to, to figure out how you're gonna take what you know and get your next webinar or training session done.
Liz, I'm curious, when you've seen people make mistakes, what are those common mistakes that kind of make you groan a little bit? That would be really easy to avoid?
[00:13:58] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: Yeah. Well first of all, I would say you, you referenced this earlier, is the slides, right? Um, I did all the words when I first started because that's what my company did.
But I've never been one to read all the slides. So I was in person. I would put them up and you know, I would talk to it. And one of the things we've learned is the first tip is if you are doing some type of compliance training or something like that where you. I cannot not put all those words up there, especially for financial, you know, compliance training.
I'll actually put it in there in blocks and let them read it. As opposed to talking to it. And then I will talk to it. Then I will give a story, or I'll have someone else say, have you run into a situation whereby they weren't, they didn't do this right. You know? And you know, was anyone willing to share?
And the way we do that ask to share is I will have that on the slide. I won't read it. Then what I do the next time is, is to facilitate questions and to get people to process information. Everybody processes a little bit differently. I, family members are process a lot slower than I do, but I also think as I talk, so drive a train, kind of crazy.
So, but what it's is, I put the question on the slide. Then I have people think about it. Then I say, if you've had this situation, can you give me a green check or a red check? And that's a reaction button. And then that brings in, if they see a green check, then they, then you have an idea that they're willing to share because now you're building that connection with people and.
Let's say you're not teaching something that has to be compliance training. I've learned different techniques for that, and I did these techniques way before I went into virtual training. One of my favorites is fill in the blank, especially when people think they know it all. And then also, you know, I would use the platform tools to say, you know, what are, and I have very directed questions and have people use the annotation tool because I want them thinking and doing just like they would in class writing on paper or writing in a flip chart.
And I like those techniques because they're engaging. They're thinking, and these are things, it's because oftentimes if we're so used to, especially being in an academic organization or an organization whereby it's you're, you're used to giving a talk 'cause you're giving presentations for business, but you're not a trainer, you.
Don't want to talk all the time because in the virtual space we have found Roger. I mean, there are different recommendations out there by leaders. Leaders, fantastic leaders in our industry. Now people say there's been no research on this, but I'm like, yeah, I can kind of understand why there's been no research.
'cause I've, you know, I've watched you over the years, but. We've learned to not talk for more than five or 10 minutes on something, right? To really bring in conversation, to bring in cognitive to gim processing time. Now, there's no research on that, and so what I say to people is you really have to look at your content and say, what's a good point for me to pause?
What type of connection do I want to make? Because that I don't think people are really thinking of is that time to process and to think. And so when I look at this, it's really, as you said, the slides, it's really about talking too much. And there's a great book by Harold Dolovich and you probably have, you know, this book probably well, really well.
And I, this is the book I tell everybody to buy. It's called Telling Ain't Training. And I love that book because the one tip he gives, and I use this all the time, so this is a helpful tip for people. Before you teach something, ask them a question about that topic, put them in a breakout group and have them give you, get, get the answer.
We now call that participant centered learning, et cetera. But what I love about that step is that it gets people involved. It gets their critical thinking going, and no, you are not going to run out of time because what you have them present, you add, you expand, you do some course correction. But teach it.
You say like, oh, this teach this course, did this, this, on this. And so really design. So that's really important. The slides and the design and checkout. Harolds Dolovich is telling Inc. Training. It was published many years ago with International side of Performance Improvement and Association of Talent Development.
And those are really, I think, the low hanging fruit for a lot of people that they can implement right away. A but I would also say is that. We can talk about this more Roger. Let's have a dialogue on this is about, I call it the big why. Why are you teaching it? Why should they care? And how are you gonna help them transform and tell them they've been transformed?
[00:19:31] Roger Courville, CSP: I love that. And I'll share with you why, uh uh, by way of even an anecdote, and I'm just gonna kind of generalize this anecdote because I've had this conversation with trainers many times.
People go to war for a mission, right? People who are mission and purpose driven will go do crazy things, including putting themselves in harm's way. And maybe it's not war, maybe it's parenting or whatever that is, right? Eight. And if that is true, then some part of what we need to do is think about the nature of motivation.
Now that doesn't mean you're a motivational speaker, but when your why is bigger than your how you'll go figure it out. And unless, and I'm, this is me kind of having this conversation with trainers 'cause I've done a lot of training trainers when their why is bigger than their how. They're gonna go figure it out.
And more importantly, it also gives you freedom to not be, not have to impart every last detail of what you know, because here's a, here's a little secret. You can't impart everything that you know in four weeks worth of training, let alone four hours or something of that nature. So the question is, how do we give them a framework to think about it so that they can then go find information on their own or know when they need to go deeper?
And where and how they go deeper. And I know that's one of the things that you do. Well, tell us about your, the framework that we're gonna talk about if you, when you give trainers.
[00:21:14] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: So thank you for that. And I would definitely say that I. I had to learn Roger not to tell them everything I knew. 'cause I so wanted to help them.
And when I first started training, oh, my timing was awful. Um, we didn't have a facilitator guide, right? I mean, I had a five day course. The binder, I put together, the binder myself. It was probably about a four inch binder. And I practiced and I practiced and I practiced. And I just love helping people. I love seeing the light.
Bulb. Right? And even in virtual, if the camera's aren't on because they're sick or their baby is sitting on their lap sleeping 'cause they're up all night sick, they're there. But I see them participating in different ways and you know, we'll always kind of like private message people off camera. Like, Hey, are you okay?
How are you doing? 'cause we look at that as a personal connection point. Not that they're ignoring me, but we take care in people. And so the face step framework starts with that big why, and then really starts at that motivation. How are we gonna motivate them? And really being purposeful with. All of our communications, the pre-course, the video, the welcoming, the reminders, but that takes us knowing our audience and their life and their pain and their challenges, and that takes purposeful time and attention because of the fact that organizations are so busy and trainers are so busy, and we feel that we don't have the time.
I always recommend to everybody, you know, who's watching this and listening to this. Um, Podcast, take the time to get to know them, take the time to know their world and the reason I am so successful and I get, you know, fabulous feedback and that makes me feel so good. And yes, the one person who gives me feedback, I will evaluate it to see how I can improve.
Yes, an N of one for process improvement. I will look at that because. Someone's being honest right now. You always filter it, you know? You know, is this real or not? But I always look at it and it took me a long time not to take that so personally because I was a nurse, right? Everything's personal when you're a nurse, but it's really important to be able to do that.
So really it's that design, it's that visualization. It's not the slides. And one topic that we really don't have time to talk about today is that visual presentation of your slides. Just research that on the internet, visual presentations, visual designs. I mean, I know that the DwightT group does a very good job at having a program on that.
There's a certification of, there's a, um, association of Presentation Specialists as well for higher level folks. But everybody, you really need to get away from the words. You need to really research that. If they're interested, they, they can contact me at Liz, at Virtual training, Wiz or liz@willg.com because everybody.
People process information visually, not with words. And those are the elements of that design, the why and the visualization, but also knowing that role and knowing what they do, where they have to be so that I can teach the course in that sequence that they need. And so that's, that's the first step and the second step.
Taking that and taking that big why that, how they're gonna be transformed, how are they gonna do it? And knowing all those steps that they're, of what we're teaching is what I call purposeful participation. How am I gonna interact with them? It could be at an emotional level. It could be like, Hey, how are you feeling today?
I actually put, put that up. As one of the icebergs, the beginning of my class when I'm teaching multi-week courses, and I know I'm working with a group that's really busy and really stressed. I'll make those, you know, you know, warmup sessions really about check-ins emotionally or check-ins about stress or something like that.
But it's also about community connection with each other. Breakout groups, you know, in the beginning. It's also about connection, about keeping their energy up right? Getting them a little motivated. We come back from break. I. You know, and so doing something fun there. We do trivia. We do word wss and they sounded really silly to me when I started training 'cause I'm a nurse.
I'm such a scientist. And then when I took my my certification course, it's like, this is really cool. This is really great. It breaks that monotony of the virtual space and what's really in purpose, important about purposeful participation is also recognizing that some of your audience. Are going to be shy and introverted, and even if they were in person, they'd never talk.
And for some reason Roger in the virtual space. I've actually, you know, had to, um, when I've done public speaking, I've had to get people away from measuring a successful course by how much people engaged on the screen. Mm-hmm. I was like, No, I really wanna see what's happening in the breakout groups. I really wanna see what's happening in the case studies, the scenarios.
I really wanna see their critical thinking. I really want to understand that. So I build in with my purposeful participation along with annotation and chat boxes and answers and open mic. I go into anonymity tools. This really helps when you train internationally as well, when you have a hierarchical organization.
I love my word clouds, whether it's as a poll, whether it's putting up an answer because everybody has a voice and I can tell you Roger, I do a four hour, I call it speed date compliance training. And people, I mean, I'd have to like rah rah rah people to do the polls to maybe 70%. But when I started putting in word clouds, Roger, I was getting, I get about 95%.
Because it's anonymous. And so I want people to think about their purposeful participation as how are you going to get the introverts and the shy people, you know? We have a lot of different facilitation techniques we can use. We tell people at the beginning of the course how we're gonna interact and say to people beforehand instead of just calling someone, Hey, Sally.
I go, now I'm gonna ask a question of the group, and Sally, I'd like to invite you to share your thoughts on this. Invite you. Share your thoughts. To me, that is much more of an invitation than an edict, and so a lot of those purposeful participations comes into the third tier, which is you, the trainer.
Showing up, being enthusiastic, being prepared, being over prepared, looking at the research, et cetera. I mean, I typically over prepare because I always think of something that somebody could ask me that I wouldn't know, and I wouldn't be giving them good service if I didn't know the answer. And yeah, I know that's kind of silly everybody.
I know this kind of silly, it's, you know, perfectionist, intensive care unit nurse, what can I say? But that's so important and everything that I started out this podcast with and that community and really getting a sense, especially for people who are off camera, checking in with them as a trainer. I mean, I really think that people are amazed that we're checking on them and we're not.
Chopping the acts on them for not participating. Also, the trainer really needs to understand the organization 'cause we get the multitaskers that we talked about. And yes, it can be one of two things. It could be that I'm boring or it's a boring topic. However, if I'm in class and it's a boring topic, they would still sit there, but I could still kind of see they were listening, right?
So when I'm seeing a lot of multitaskers, I recommend that trainers, wherever they sit in any industry, to talk to management about that because of the fact that that's a behavior that we as trainers only have so much influence over, and that the organization. Doesn't want to come in and and knock people down, but really inspire them to say, hi, we're investing in you.
Important to. We wanna help you be the best that you can be and talk to 'em about their goals. And we're having this training, and I understand that a lot of people are not participating in the class. And I wanna get your, your, your viewpoint on how the classes are going, because that's gonna put people on notice and then whether they say it or not, and, you know, we, you know, But it's putting them on notice because we're investing in them because a lot of people feel like this is being thrown on them versus changing the narrative to say, we're investing in you.
What do you need to be successful? They need to be given permission to not get imd, to not get an urgent email. Now, these are not the people that are floating off the Instagram that I'm told about. Okay? These are the people who are actually working. Because I say to them, everybody, this is what you wanna put in your emails.
And even at the beginning of your class say, okay, everybody have you put in, have you started up your out of office reply message for class that you're in training for the next three hours? Bingo. Number one. Mm-hmm. Do you, if you're in an office, you have a sign on your door, please do not disturb. I'm in training.
Have you informed your team and anyone else that would wanna get you that you're in training and you'll apply to them afterwards? Those are the things that I think we as trainers, as consultants, can help with. Because if we can get people to think like, I don't have to multipass, I can really focus on me, that's gonna help a lot too.
So that's the three step framework. The design, the big why, the purposeful participation. And I forgot to say something about the purposeful participation and you know, I, I grew up learning, um, a learning theory. Everybody called Bloom's Taxonomy. And it's a, you know, it, you know how you put things together based, based upon do I understand it?
Or now I do. I have to be able to do it afterwards. It has multiple layers in it. And there's a great diagram on the internet called Bloom's Taxonomy Circle or Wheel. And what that provides to you is for each type of, you know, thing that you're learning, whether it's understanding, synthesizing, evaluating, it gives you an activity to use.
Bingo. Not everybody, you haven't been training. Look at that. It's, it was like Nir. I mean, I got that when I was in Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and development from our boss, and we were like, oh. Wow, this is like so cool. That was before I went, went for my certifications I think, or right after.
And then what you do is everybody, you then map it to the tool inside of your platform, and that's how you emulate that in-person class. And then as a trainer, how you facilitate, how you welcome people, but how you care for people. I think we're so stressed now Roger, that we've forgotten that as trainers, we open this segment with serving others, being there to help them, but it's also about the care.
And when they feel that care and that concern. So for example, you know, if you have somebody talk about challenges and they're really talking too long, you're thinking, oh my God, they're talking too long. Gonna run out of time, shift it from being listening intently. Active listening is great, but I say, listen intently.
And what I mean by that is not just the words, but listen to their voice. Look at their body language, see if there's stress there, because then you can then reflect back and you can guide them. And also oftentimes I just say to trainers of any ilk, be available for your staff and your students afterwards.
Just say it. Does anybody take me up on my free consulting from conferences, Roger, or public workshops? Nobody does, but I care that they know they have an open invitation.
[00:34:07] Roger Courville, CSP: I do the same thing. Here's my mobile number. Call me waffle. And interestingly, sometimes people's like, oh my gosh, don't you get inundated, don't you? You know, doesn't that interrupt your day? And I'm like, it's no interruption when somebody calls for help. Exactly, because that's what we're all here for. If we're not helping someone, I don't get paid to.
I mean, we're all in the service business one way or another. Right. But, uh, that's just me. And, um, and to your point, not that many people take you up on it though. I've had people like call me two years later going, Hey, is it okay if I call you? I'm.
[00:34:52] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: It's our shared passion play, isn't it? It's totally our shared passion and everybody don't be overwhelmed if you offer that because you know what? You're gonna feel so good. You are gonna feel so good. You are gonna say like, oh, Liz, I'm so busy. I dunno if I can feel good about that. But I can tell you when you offer it and you see the light bulbs or you see the facials, It's worth it.
It's worth it because we can help people as much as we can, and then we wanna support them to come into this environment and forget everything outside. I really think that's our, that's, that has to be our passion as trainers and as training consultants, is that we help guide the people inside of the organizations that hire us.
What we work for, to say we care about our people. How can we change this messaging?
[00:35:46] Roger Courville, CSP: Broadly speaking, I think most of the people who, who we ever work with in their heart, Wanna do good work and want to help people. Absolutely. And, and to be fair, sometimes the pressure is coming from somewhere else, that, that shapes the, the, the shape of their day.
And now they feel like, well, if I don't get X or Y done. Yes. Um, you know, I'm gonna disappoint my boss, which is a cultural thing. And you mentioned, you know, right. Sometimes needing to talk to, talk to, um, management. I'm a fan of sometimes thinking about how do I create an experience beyond the video, beyond the slides I've worked with, I've done, I've done stuff where there was purposefully a hard copy of.
Of a workbook or something. Mm-hmm. So there was a tactile element. Even though they're doing stuff right. I mean, I, I could just as easily create something that they could take notes on digitally. Yeah. But I want them to pick up a pen. In this particular case, yeah. I've had 'em stand up and do a stretch break and we'll put on a little music and, and does everybody stand up and do yoga with you?
No. Uh, I literally was teaching a voice exercise once and, and had people stand up so they could sense the difference. And I, I have an exercise that I worked through with people when, uh, helping them. Find their resonance. And so I had people stand up and then I got this, this one gal types into chat. I'm in a Starbucks and I did it anyway and people are looking at me weird, but it was fun anyway.
Absolutely. Absolutely. But you might imagine. That class was just, just on fire at that point because now maybe not everybody did it, but somebody just had a good experience and that is infectious. And you mentioned earlier that peer-to-peer connection, whether you put people in a breakout room or facilitate some thing that is a little more naturally like what we do in groups, it doesn't take much to do.
Something that really stands out relative to. The typical talk at you webinar, and frankly I'm gonna be gentle here because you know I'm working on my doctorate, but frankly, academic fields, I. Often are beset with the lecture mindset. Yeah. Even though we know lecture is the least efficacious form of knowledge transfer.
Right? Yes. And we've talked
[00:38:25] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: about storytelling. We've talked about examples and scenarios and our oops moments or something that we've seen because it makes it real. That's why. The slides are a guide, right. With keywords and things, and I, you know, I do the workbooks too, Roger, and I might have more details in the workbook.
Right, right. Than the slides. So they'll have it like a little textbook when they go back and they'll able to use it. But we also know that when you write notes, you're processing. Mm-hmm. You're not just receiving the information. So I like the fact that you get up and dance and everything, and that's a really a critical point.
So thank you for bringing that up because you want to have some fun disruption, I think about purposeful participation as associated with the big Y and connection and just not going off. With just whatever you think. I mean, you wanna think about it, but yes, I call it the toolbox. If I just gave a very significant, you know, 20 or 30 minute conversation breakout group, and I knew they were working really hard, I'll put in a five minute break before the break.
And then I'll come back and go, alright, everybody, let's stretch. Let's stretch together. And as you were saying, dance and put up some music. I have them put up the playlist. But yes, you have to have that toolbox and you really have to know your content to know what level of thinking they're gonna be doing.
Right. Yeah.
[00:40:03] Roger Courville, CSP: Uh, I like, and I've done this too. I haven't, I don't do it every time, obviously depends on the client and the context, but I like what you said when you have. Whatever your leave behind is. We you, we were talking about a physical workbook. When you hand that to someone, sometimes people's fear is, oh, they'll just read ahead on the slides and then they won't pay any attention.
But if you do it right, what you'll find is that you by yourself, the flexibility. To refer to it and, and point them to where they can come back to it. Now, you don't have to cover every detail. And importantly, and to me this is the powerful part for attention. Like we were just talking about, if I can make this hour or three hours that we have a break, something that, that, that isn't just.
Okay. I'm in class, but it's actually something that gives a little respite mm-hmm. Before they go back to fighting the alligators that, that are waiting for them. I, I think how can we, how can we help people look forward to the next session when we come back tomorrow or whatever that is Exactly. So, so that.
So that they want to show up. And it's amazing what happens when you all of a sudden create an environment where people want to learn. They'll come out of the woodwork, right? If somebody doesn't wanna learn, there's nothing you can do to help 'em. And if somebody does wanna learn, there's nothing you can do to stop 'em.
That's what I
[00:41:42] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: wanna get to. Exactly. Because one of the things, um, that really helps with that, Is looking at what you're teaching and not try to, what I call, cram everything in in a certain period of time. Now, I do compliance training. People tell me what they want. Four hour, I go. So you want the speed date, you want the awareness?
Yes. But I have so many stories, but I do that thing where, you know, these are people who say they know it all. And I do that, you know, go into groups, work on that together, come back, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they love it. They love it because it's tapping into their knowledge. Tapping into their experiences, tapping into all these things that we know from adult learning principles and theories.
But I think also what's really important too, is that when we're looking at what we want people to do afterwards, That really guides it, right? So I've had to learn over the years. I'm one of those slide trimmers. Okay. I'll make the best outline, send it to my client, they will approve it, and then I'm putting it together and I'm like, what was I thinking?
I know in the virtual space, Hey everybody, spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Everything in virtual takes longer. I slow my cadence down. I, you know, I really use my voice and my cadence. I pause differently because of the fact that I know some, there can be a delay. Somebody has a bad wifi, and I wanna be able to make sure that there's a delay in them hearing it, they're hearing it.
But also every digital tool that you use takes time, time, time. And so that's one thing I always, you know, tip people on is practice with your digital tools. In fact, Roger my, um, whole touch point on breakout rooms. Five minutes in, five minutes out to do a word cloud, three to three minutes to get it up there.
Okay? So again, but everybody, if you don't look at that digital timing, You're not gonna get where you want to be. And so don't put too much in there and purposely plan what you want to connect with them on how you want them to process the information, how you want them to actually apply it and work through it.
Because really, you know, yes, we teach some of the foundations, et cetera, right? But we wanna sparse that up as well.
[00:44:29] Roger Courville, CSP: Liz, where can. Someone listening to this, learn more about you and what you've got to what you've got to offer.
[00:44:36] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: Thank you so much, Roger. Well, I'm on Liz's Virtual Training, Wiz on Instagram. I'm on Liz's Virtual training. Wiz Facebook. What do you think? I'm on YouTube Virtual Training Wiz. And then I'm as Liz Wool Virtual Mastery and Coach on LinkedIn.
So I think I'm in every social media group out there, but I, I actually love this so much Roger that I actually have live stream broadcasts every Thursday on LinkedIn and that stream to, although it doesn't stream to Instagram, but it streams to YouTube and Facebook, so you can capture it there. It's up all of my videos, all my live streams.
Broadcasts are up for about five days afterwards, and then, then we take them down. But if anybody misses anything, they just have to contact me. So I do that. I post ev, I post every day about a two minute short video clip. And the reason is, is because I heard this from my business coach. He says, Liz, you're a virtual camera person.
Why aren't you just doing videos? I'm like, oh. Okay. Very different than other people would do, but I love to do the videos. You know, it's a quick, it's like, oh, hey, here's, here's a tip from Liz, because every day I'm giving you a virtual training secret. Something you write down, you tip it, you can use it.
Right away, and we're gonna be having Sept September 22nd, 23rd and 24th. I'm inviting the audience of 2023 to my three day weekend workshop that's gonna help you create raving fans, revolutionize, like what I've been talking about today, how to plan, deliver, and inspire. The people you serve into their transformation with a three day workshop on Zoom and people register for that.
There is a small fee of $96, but for three days. Very excited to help people go deeper in what we've been talking about. So they're gonna walk away with a nice toolbox of where to take this further and. People wanna hear about our virtual mastery coaching program that's five months long immersive. That really does take you really deep into this with me and other people and we we to the point where you're gonna master everything in about five months to really get to where you want to go.
And we have group coaching in that, et cetera. So that's everything that I provide and share with people and serve with people. And we're very excited to be launching this again, um, this year. So, all right.
[00:47:16] Roger Courville, CSP: Final question. What's the question that you would've loved to be asked then I didn't ask?
[00:47:28] Liz Wool, CCRA, CMT: I would say, Liz, I'm so uncomfortable on camera.
I hate being on camera. You look so calm. And I'd say, oh, contrary. When I first started, everybody, I'm gonna give you a little, little note here. Think about me looking at a camera. Saying Hi everybody. Liz Wall. So excited you're here and everybody, I'm gonna turn off the camera so we can pay attention to the slides.
That was the worst thing for me to say, but that was my honesty and I would say go and to get comfortable on camera. Go into your platform, record, practice, practice, practice. Have somebody with you who knows you, who's going to be honest with you to share with you how to improve your presence. Then how to improve your delivery.
Record yourself now. Roger. I have been recorded many years ago when I was in person. I never watched the video. Never watch the videos. The first time I had to train the trainer course. But here in virtual, you have no choice. When you're looking at it and you're watching it, you have to look at yourself, right?
So it's a really different animal. So that's the one question, if I can ask you one other thing. Can I say one other thing that really I, I get a lot of questions on is people struggle with people's cameras off. And so I would say with that, it's multi-layer, communicate expectations up front. Talk to management, inspire people to have their camera on.
But you know how I get the cameras on the beginning. I'm doing that community building. I go, okay, everybody. Okay. I mentioned to you that we're gonna have the cameras on, and you know what? I know some of you probably feel like, oh my gosh, Liz, I look so awful. Or, the house is such a mess. I just wanna be off camera.
But I'm gonna be participating. I go, go in and use an avatar or go in and pull up a picture of your favorite background because that gets those people engaged. In a way that's kind of fun. So I've been having people love my avatars in Zoom. I mean, it's just amazing. So those are the two. So I took, I took two.
Thank you. Letting me take two.
[00:49:56] Roger Courville, CSP: You bet. And again, thank you to Liz Wall, whom you can find a virtual training pro or virtual training wiz, and a whole bunch of different platforms. And thank you again to our sponsor today, virtual venues.com. Where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team.
And we will catch you on the next episode of Thought Leader Conversations.
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