More Jolts! Activities to Wake up and Engage Your Participants

By Sivasailam Thiagarajan

Praise for Thiagi's first Jolts!

"If you facilitate group learning or change management, you won't want to miss this one!"
—Elaine Biech, author of Business of Consulting and Training for Dummies

"A valuable addition to any trainer's bookshelf."
—Jean Barbazette, president, The Training Clinic, and author of The Art of Great Training Delivery and Managing the Training Function for Bottom-Line Results

"As a Charter Member of BFT (Borrow from Thiagi) Club, I've been adapting Thiagi's training activities for decades. . . . Use the jolts from this book as a way to instantly and successfully engage your participants with your topic."
—Steve Sugar, author of Games That Teach

In his popular first collection of games, Jolts!, renowned trainer and game experts Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan (writing with Tracy Tagliati ) handed trainers well-designed games to engage and energize participants, clarify complex ideas, and solidify concepts in participants' minds.

Now Thiagi zaps us again with More Jolts!, a collection of 50 brand-new, ready-to-use jolts that share new ways to capture participants' attention; smooth transitions; keep participants alert even after a break; tap the wisdom of the group; and spice up lectures with relevant activities. The book even identifies the jolts that can be seamlessly incorporated into your next e-learning project or interactive webinar.

Brief, engaging, and easily adaptable to your purpose, More Jolts! gives you everything you need to pump up the energy and effectiveness of your training programs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jul 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781118330395

Book preview

Preface

Fifteen years ago, Thiagi introduced the concept of jolts to the training field. Two years ago, Thiagi and Tracy wrote their first book on jolts. During this time they made seventeen presentations at international conferences about designing and using jolts. They also conducted several one-day workshops.

It is now time to update and share new principles and procedures that we have learned about jolts. So here’s our second book on this flexible training tool. All the jolts presented in this book are field-tested. We want to thank the participants in our workshops and the talented trainers and fabulous facilitators who have sent us feedback about how they tweaked them.

These friends have confirmed our belief that jolts result in an engaging process and valuable outcomes.

Sivasailam Thiagi Thiagarajan

Bloomington, Indiana

Tracy Tagliati

Thousand Oaks, California

PART 1

Jolts: What, Why, and How

Chapter 1

What Is a Jolt?

The best way to learn about a jolt is to experience it. Here is a jolt called Number Series.

Look at this series of numbers:

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ?

What number comes next? Try to figure out the answer.

Write the answer in the book or on a separate piece of paper. Or just think of the answer.

Don’t read the next paragraph until you have completed this task.

The next number is 32. You figured this out because each number in this series is double the previous number.

Let’s try another task.

Look at this series of numbers:

2, 3, 5, 9, 17, ?

What number comes next? Try to figure out the answer.

Don’t read the next paragraph until you have completed this task.

The next number is 33. You figured this out because each number in the series is double the previous number minus one.

17 × 2 is 34.

34 − 1 is 33.

One more time. What is the next number in this series?

8, 5, 4, 9, ?

Don’t read the next paragraph until you have completed this task (or want to cheat).

If you have not figured out the answer and if you want a clue, here it is.

Here’s a clue: Spell out the numbers like this: eight, five, four, nine.

Does this help you figure out the pattern?

Review the words, figure out the pattern, and write the next number.

Write the answer in the book or on a separate piece of paper. Or just think of the answer.

The next number is 1. You figured this out because this series contains single-digit numbers arranged in alphabetical order (when spelled out).

That is the end of the Number Series jolts.

You are probably a little resentful because we tricked you with two similar tasks and then gave you a third task that is different.

That is the learning point: Don’t assume that all tasks are exactly the same. Don’t become complacent and think that the strategy you used to solve one problem will work with all problems. Remember, as Marshall Goldsmith says in the title of his best-selling book, What got you here won’t get you there.

So This Is a Jolt

Now that you have experienced a jolt, we are ready to give you the official definition:

A jolt is an engaging learning activity that lasts for a brief period of time and illustrates one or more important learning points.

Here are some additional facts about jolts:

Jolts provide insights. A typical jolt does not teach a skill. Instead, it helps you experience an important principle in action and provides you an aha moment.

Jolts are highly engaging. They capture your attention by startling you. They maintain your attention by intriguing you and by providing an emotional impact.

Jolts force you to think—and to share. During the activity, jolts encourage you to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. After the activity, during the discussion, jolts encourage you to share your insights with other participants and to discover that different people have different perspectives.

Jolts are brief (but debriefing discussions are lengthy). We define a jolt as an activity that lasts for less than 5 minutes. Many of the jolts in our previous book and in this book last for an even shorter period of time or less than a minute. However, the debriefing discussion that follows a jolt may require a lengthy period of time. For example, we start our conflict resolution workshop with a 2-minute jolt. Then we spend the next two days debriefing this jolt and learning relevant principles and procedures.

Jolts are metaphorical. You can use the same jolt to drive home different learning points. For example, we used the Number Series jolt to emphasize the need for solving each problem from scratch rather than re-using an earlier strategy. We can also use this jolt to illustrate the importance of lateral thinking, the fact that numerals represent words, the advantages of being flexible, the consequences of persistent behavior, the influence of the context, and the usefulness of thinking about how we think.

Types of Jolts

While all fifty of the jolts presented in this book share the features listed in the previous section, they may differ from each other in several ways.

Here’s a discussion of different types of jolts:

Positioning. The Number Series jolt is an example of an entrapment jolt. This type of jolt lulls you into a false sense of security and leads you to misuse a specific strategy. You are enticed into making a mistake and, later, you are encouraged to learn from this mistake. In contrast to entrapment jolts, enlightenment jolts help you discover important principles without leading you astray.

Number of participants. A jolt may require just one participant, a pair of participants, a team, or a larger group. The Number Series jolt involved just you, a single participant. We could have asked you to work with a partner, thereby increasing your level of engagement and understanding through the conversation between the two of you.

Media. Jolts can be presented through a variety of media, including video and audio recordings and different types of printed materials. The Number Series jolt used text to provide you with the necessary instructions.

Activity. Jolts may require different types of activities of the participants: listening, thinking, reading, recalling, talking, drawing, debating, and undertaking physical activities. The Number Series jolt involved reading and thinking.

Modifying Jolts

The fifty jolts in this book represent a variety of types. Once you are familiar with a jolt, you should be able to modify it to a different type to better suit the resources and constraints in your situation. For example, you can use a set of PowerPoint slides to present the Number Series jolt when you have a larger group of participants.

As you read through the jolts in this book, remember that you can tweak them in different ways.

Chapter 2

Why Use Jolts?

You are probably already convinced about the effectiveness of jolts as a training tool. To help you strengthen your beliefs and to persuade other people about the motivational and instructional impact of jolts, we have collected a list of field-tested benefits in this chapter.

Active Learning

Keep them active. Proven laws of learning suggest that people learn best when they are actively engaged in the process. Jolts keep everyone meaningfully engaged, rather than passively listening to a lecture.

Establish an active tone. Jolts set a positive tone for the training session. Participants realize that they will have to play an active role in the learning process.

Training in motion. Several jolts get people moving around. This replaces the boredom from sitting down and passively listening to a lecture. Physical movement in a jolt energizes the participants.

Relevant Learning

Jolts are relevant. The training topics and the learning points included with each jolt ensure the choice of the most appropriate activity for reinforcing a specific training goal.

Emphasis on relevance. Jolts are not hit-and-run activities. They are always followed by a debriefing discussion that relates the activity to the workplace.

Automated debriefing. Instructions for each jolt include debriefing questions to increase the relevance. In addition, a variety of debriefing games enable the participants to actively debrief themselves.

Jolts encourage discussions. Because of the novelty of the jolt, participants are anxious to share their reactions and insights. This frequently relates the jolt experience to the participants’ workplace experience.

Motivational Impact

Surprise attack. Jolts break participants’ expectations. Most participants anticipate a slow and dull start to the training session. In contrast, involving participants immediately in a jolt takes them by surprise.

Captivation. Jolts grab the participants’ attention and provide a springboard for launching into the training topic. Intrigued by the initial jolt, the participants are more likely to pay attention to the ensuing discussion.

The participant is the star. Jolts shift the focus from the content and the facilitator to the participants. It signals to the participants that they are the most important people in the training session.

Efficient Learning

Jolts don’t take up too much time. At the most, they take about 5 minutes, a period of time that is affordable in most training situations. And this small investment of time produces significant learning outcomes.

Ease of Use

Easy to facilitate. The brief duration of jolts and their engaging nature enables them to work almost automatically. Therefore, the use of jolts does not require too much train-the-trainer time.

Easy to integrate. Because of their short duration, jolts can be easily inserted into any training or presentation. They can be used before a session to intrigue the participants, during a session to reinforce key concepts, and after a session to review critical ideas.

Easy to modify. Jolts are metaphorical in nature. Without too much effort, facilitators can use the same jolt to drive home widely different learning points. Facilitators can emphasize the selected learning point through suitable debriefing questions.

Built-In Evaluation

Behavioral assessment. Participants’ behaviors in jolts help establish a baseline of their knowledge and attitude. The facilitator can build upon this diagnostic information.

Jolts provide information about participants. The facilitator and all participants can watch everyone’s behavior and learn more about each other.

Latest data. Jolts provide the facilitator with up-to-the moment information about the participants’ thoughts and opinions. The information collected during the debriefing immediately after a jolt is more valid and reliable than asking questions about things that happened a long time ago or things that happened to someone else.

Individual Differences

Lurkers also learn. Jolts are low-pressure activities. Introverted people who choose not to participate can still learn from the experience of others. Many jolts are conducted on an individual basis, and this avoids the negative effects of peer pressure.

Multiple perspectives. Jolts demonstrate individual differences among the participants. People react differently to the same common activity and gain different insights from the same experience. As a result, the participants learn to expect and respect different differences.

Teamwork

All together now. Jolts bring the participants together by providing everyone with a shared experience that has emotional overtones. Some of the jolts require teamwork and stress the importance of interdependence among the participants.

Continuous Learning

Jolts last beyond the training session. After a training session, participants share jolts with others, with their colleagues at work, and with their friends. In the process, they build on the learning experience.

Long-term memory. Jolts help make the learning points stick. The uniqueness of the jolts make them memorable and the associated learning sticks with participants.

Chapter 3

How to Use Jolts

You know what a jolt is. You know why you should use them in your training sessions. If you are still not incorporating jolts in your training, it is probably because you feel that you don’t exactly know how to use them.

This chapter will give you practical guidelines on how to use jolts so that your participants are engaged during the jolt and they achieve your training goals as a result of the jolt. You will learn what to do before conducting a jolt, while conducting a jolt, and after completing a jolt in order to increase the engagement and effectiveness of your training.

Before the Jolt

You increase the effectiveness of a jolt by carefully preparing for its use. This preparation involves both mental preparation and physical preparation.

Mental Preparation

Many trainers, including experienced veterans, are afraid of using learning activities because they are frightened of losing control. They know that when they are in control, they can present useful, accurate, and up-to-date learning content. They are apprehensive about what would happen if they let the participants loose. How can they guarantees that the participants will focus on the task, discuss only the relevant topics, and come up with the correct answers? How can they prevent the participants from wasting their time, spreading their ignorance, and getting the wrong ideas? These fears about the use of learning activities are magnified when it comes to the use of jolts. Trainers have probably heard somewhere that jolts pack an emotional punch. They may have nightmares of some participant breaking down, sobbing hysterically, and yelling at the facilitator.

If you are suffering from a phobia against the use of learning activities and (gasp) jolts in your training sessions, here are some practical suggestions.

Face reality. Hard work on your part is not going to produce real learning from your participants. You cannot learn for your participants. The only way they can learn is through active participation and by interacting with the content, with each other, and with you. Remind yourself of these facts of life whenever you prepare to conduct a training session.

Nothing personal. All learning activities, especially jolts, shift the participants’ focus away from you toward what they are doing. While participants are actively involved in one step, you have the time to get ready for the next step. Also, peer pressure keeps disruptive participants under control. Remember that you don’t have to follow the steps of a jolt religiously. You can modify the jolt at any time, and you can even drop it in the middle if you want to.

Do it with a partner. Conduct the training session with a co-facilitator. You can focus on running the jolt while your partner takes care of debriefing the participants and relating the jolt to the rest of the training content. You and your partner can take turns facilitating different jolts during the training session.

Have some friends in the audience. Explain to a few participants ahead of time that you are planning to use one or more jolts. Ask those participants to help you by enthusiastically following your instructions, acting as good role models, and encouraging others to actively participate in the jolt.

Media help is available. You can use a video that presents the background scenario and step-by-step instructions. It is amazing how obediently participants will follow instructions from a canned presentation. You can also reduce the load on your memory by using PowerPoint slides or printed directions to structure the jolt.

In order to effectively conduct a jolt, you need to master three different things: the training topic, characteristics of your participants, and the flow of the jolt. Instead of worrying, spend your time learning more in these three areas. Don’t use a jolt to cover up your ignorance of the subject matter.

Learn the jolt. Read the instructions. Figure out how to conduct the jolt. Work with a co-facilitator, a colleague, or a representative participant to walk through the activity.

Plan for total training. Make sure that the jolt is smoothly integrated with the training presentations and activities that come before and after. Work out details to permit a seamless and smooth flow between the jolt and the rest of the training. Prevent the jolt from being perceived as a cosmetic embellishment.

Conduct a dry run. Work through the steps of the jolt with one or two colleagues. For example, if you are going to demonstrate an activity or conduct a magic trick, make sure that your performance is flawless.

Physical Preparation

Prepare the materials. Assemble the handouts to be distributed to the participants. If different participants are to receive different versions of the handout, estimate the number of participants, collect appropriate numbers of the different versions of the handout, mix them up randomly, and assemble them in a neat pile. If the activity requires supplies or props (such as envelopes, playing cards, pieces of rope, or cash), store them in convenient containers.

Set up the room. If you need the participants to walk around, pair up, and discuss things, make sure that is plenty of empty space. If the jolt involves teamwork, arrange several chairs around tables. Move the furniture to permit effective facilitation of the jolt. But don’t forget that the jolt is only a small part of the total training session. Make sure that the room set-up is functional for the entire session.

Check the equipment. If you are going to play back video or audio recordings, make sure that LCD projectors and speakers are available. Collect all the necessary connectors, cords, and cables. Don’t forget the screen. If you use a MacBook laptop in the PC world, make sure that you have the appropriate adaptors. Conduct a dry run to check that what’s on the screen is visible from all corners of the room and what comes out of the speakers is audible to all members of the audience.

Anticipate possible disasters. With a partner, brainstorm everything that can go wrong. Come