We all know the drill. You walk into a presentation at a conference the title and summary of which looked really relevant and interesting. You find a table with a path to the exit just in case. One other person who you never met sits down at the same table. The speakers introduce themselves. You settle in. Then the panel moderator says something like this is going to be an interactive presentation so there are going to be some table exercises. And we are going to start with a fun little game.
Please. I’m a grown up. I don’t need fun little games. I don’t need interactive exercises. I came to hear the panel who hopefully know more about the subject than I do. I don’t want to spend an hour with someone at the table who knows the same amount about the subject matter or even less than I do.
But that keeps happening more and more. I think all too often it’s a lazy out. Let the audience, who by the way aren’t prepared to talk about the topic, do the work. It’s enough to make a curmudgeon shout get off my lawn.
The Lawyer Training Conundrum
I bring this up because I attended a recent panel presentation on how to adopt effective training techniques for lawyers and legal professionals. Except it wasn’t a panel discussion. It was one of those sessions full of interactive exercises that go nowhere and you learn next to nothing.
But I was interested in the topic because I know how important tech training is for lawyers. And because there is little doubt that effective technology training for lawyers is particularly hard. They don’t want to sit through it. In part it’s because they are busy and in part it’s because many of them bill by the hour. So sitting through an hour-long presentation just means they have to work another hour to make up for it. And I can guarantee if you start a lawyer training session by saying we are going to do some interactive exercises and start with a little fun game, you have lost your audience already.
It’s true that most of the training sessions I sat through were pretty dreadful. They were typically led by IT who, bless their hearts, often didn’t speak the same language as the rest of the people in the room. The presenters generally would go through each and every feature even though most of us sitting there had no use for half of them.
The sessions were boring. There was no explanation for why the new technology was purchased. Often that purchase was at IT’s urging with management suffering through the same kind of session we received. So it was never really clear what problem the tech was going to solve.
And then to top it off, there was no thought given to what would happen after the training session. No thought given to how to encourage day-to-day use. All of which is to say the audience was lost from beginning to end. And losing your audience for tech training has some pretty significant consequences.
Most of the time, training would not be needed unless the firm or legal department hadn’t invested some big bucks in some new technology. So if the lawyers and legal professionals don’t learn how to use it, implementation fails, and no one is happy. And the next new technology that comes in the door is given the stink eye.
Know Your Audience
To make it better, it would be tempting to think that an interactive session with a little fun and games might help. I understand the theory why presenters might want to try this to encourage audience participation. They want to hear from the audience about their concerns and issues so they can address them. That would be a noble approach when it comes to lawyer training since it focuses the training on the real problems lawyers are having instead of trying to cover each and every feature of the tech to reach everyone in the room.
But interactive isn’t the answer. To lawyers and legal professionals, the most valuable thing they have is their time. You start with something that they think is going to waste that asset and you’re done. And I can guarantee you that the majority of lawyers and legal professionals will head for the exit figuratively if not literally at the first mention of interactive exercises.
So what’s the answer? Start with the idea that less is more. To be a good presenter and an effective trainer, you need to know your audience in advance. A good presenter will know what’s on the audience’s mind before they open their mouth. They talk to those likely to be in the audience informally before the sessions to learn their concerns and issues. They don’t need interactive games to figure that out. Then they focus their talk on those concerns, not everything they can think of.
The same is true for effective lawyer training. Understand that to your audience, time is money and respect that. Understand what problem lawyers and legal professionals have that the new tech will address and focus there. Talk to them in advance to get more information so you can make the training relevant.
Create accessible videos and materials that lawyers can use when they get back to the office. Get a lawyer to do part of the training not because they are a lawyer but because they will understand the problem that the tech will address and talk to the audience in ways that will resonate.
Good training just like a good presentation requires some work. Don’t rely on parlor tricks and interactive games to do that work for you. You will lose your audience.
And by the way, the presentation I mentioned above? I was glad I took a seat with an easy path to the exit. At the word interactive, I was gone.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.
The post Interactive Exercises For Lawyer Training: Get Off My Lawn appeared first on Above the Law.
We all know the drill. You walk into a presentation at a conference the title and summary of which looked really relevant and interesting. You find a table with a path to the exit just in case. One other person who you never met sits down at the same table. The speakers introduce themselves. You settle in. Then the panel moderator says something like this is going to be an interactive presentation so there are going to be some table exercises. And we are going to start with a fun little game.
Please. I’m a grown up. I don’t need fun little games. I don’t need interactive exercises. I came to hear the panel who hopefully know more about the subject than I do. I don’t want to spend an hour with someone at the table who knows the same amount about the subject matter or even less than I do.
But that keeps happening more and more. I think all too often it’s a lazy out. Let the audience, who by the way aren’t prepared to talk about the topic, do the work. It’s enough to make a curmudgeon shout get off my lawn.
The Lawyer Training Conundrum
I bring this up because I attended a recent panel presentation on how to adopt effective training techniques for lawyers and legal professionals. Except it wasn’t a panel discussion. It was one of those sessions full of interactive exercises that go nowhere and you learn next to nothing.
But I was interested in the topic because I know how important tech training is for lawyers. And because there is little doubt that effective technology training for lawyers is particularly hard. They don’t want to sit through it. In part it’s because they are busy and in part it’s because many of them bill by the hour. So sitting through an hour-long presentation just means they have to work another hour to make up for it. And I can guarantee if you start a lawyer training session by saying we are going to do some interactive exercises and start with a little fun game, you have lost your audience already.
It’s true that most of the training sessions I sat through were pretty dreadful. They were typically led by IT who, bless their hearts, often didn’t speak the same language as the rest of the people in the room. The presenters generally would go through each and every feature even though most of us sitting there had no use for half of them.
The sessions were boring. There was no explanation for why the new technology was purchased. Often that purchase was at IT’s urging with management suffering through the same kind of session we received. So it was never really clear what problem the tech was going to solve.
And then to top it off, there was no thought given to what would happen after the training session. No thought given to how to encourage day-to-day use. All of which is to say the audience was lost from beginning to end. And losing your audience for tech training has some pretty significant consequences.
Most of the time, training would not be needed unless the firm or legal department hadn’t invested some big bucks in some new technology. So if the lawyers and legal professionals don’t learn how to use it, implementation fails, and no one is happy. And the next new technology that comes in the door is given the stink eye.
Know Your Audience
To make it better, it would be tempting to think that an interactive session with a little fun and games might help. I understand the theory why presenters might want to try this to encourage audience participation. They want to hear from the audience about their concerns and issues so they can address them. That would be a noble approach when it comes to lawyer training since it focuses the training on the real problems lawyers are having instead of trying to cover each and every feature of the tech to reach everyone in the room.
But interactive isn’t the answer. To lawyers and legal professionals, the most valuable thing they have is their time. You start with something that they think is going to waste that asset and you’re done. And I can guarantee you that the majority of lawyers and legal professionals will head for the exit figuratively if not literally at the first mention of interactive exercises.
So what’s the answer? Start with the idea that less is more. To be a good presenter and an effective trainer, you need to know your audience in advance. A good presenter will know what’s on the audience’s mind before they open their mouth. They talk to those likely to be in the audience informally before the sessions to learn their concerns and issues. They don’t need interactive games to figure that out. Then they focus their talk on those concerns, not everything they can think of.
The same is true for effective lawyer training. Understand that to your audience, time is money and respect that. Understand what problem lawyers and legal professionals have that the new tech will address and focus there. Talk to them in advance to get more information so you can make the training relevant.
Create accessible videos and materials that lawyers can use when they get back to the office. Get a lawyer to do part of the training not because they are a lawyer but because they will understand the problem that the tech will address and talk to the audience in ways that will resonate.
Good training just like a good presentation requires some work. Don’t rely on parlor tricks and interactive games to do that work for you. You will lose your audience.
And by the way, the presentation I mentioned above? I was glad I took a seat with an easy path to the exit. At the word interactive, I was gone.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.
The post Interactive Exercises For Lawyer Training: Get Off My Lawn appeared first on Above the Law.
