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Guide: Tailoring Examples and Exercises
for the Working With Others Training Program
Introduction The Working With Others (WWO) Training Program is a one-day training course that prepares participants to work with others in ways that elevate the success of all. It teaches skills that enable participants to understand the ideas and information others are sharing and to express their own ideas in ways that keep group members connected and moving toward their common goal. The Working With Others (WWO) skills are clarifying and confirming, which build an accurate picture of what another person is sharing, and constructive criticism and hitchhiking, which allow a person to add his or her ideas in a way that builds better solutions while maintaining positive relationships. The training is conducted in an action-learning format where participants apply the skills to accomplish an actual business purpose as they learn them. This union of learning and application engages participants, builds their capabilities, and produces immediate benefits to the company sponsoring the training.
Tailoring the WWO Training There are two ways to tailor the WWO training. The first is to exchange the stimulus materials (e.g., dialogs that demonstrate each WWO skill, statements used in exercises) with materials that better reflect your learners’ language and performance context (e.g., work, home, community, school). We call this personalizing the training to the learners. For example, in our training with YMCAs, we replace the examples and exercise materials that emphasize worker-to-worker communication in a commercial business with exchanges that occur between YMCA counselors and members in its community service context. Even in for-profit businesses, we modify the examples and exercises to better reflect the roles of the trainees and the issues they tend to discuss. The second way we tailor the training is by replacing the default problem used in the training’s application exercise (Modules 3 and 5) with an actual problem that the learners need and want to address. For example, we have used the WWO training as a platform for resolving issues like how to elevate employee involvement, heighten customer focus, reduce cost or improve quality in a work process, and a host of other business improvement goals.
The Purpose of This Guide This guide assists you in accomplishing the first type of tailoring—personalizing the examples and written exercises to your training audience. This form of tailoring heightens the audience’s response to the training content and helps the transfer of learning from training to the context within which improved communications is sought. While we have repeatedly and successfully trained these skills using the training materials as supplied, we have always noted that learners respond with appreciation to materials that contain language and depict situations with which they can immediately relate. Such materials make the task of learning easier.
When to Tailor Examples and Exercises and What You Will Need Consider tailoring the WWO materials whenever the group you will teach is very different in background or roles from the people depicted in the supplied materials. To accomplish the tailoring, you first need to master the training as presented in the original materials so that you understand the purpose of each example and exercise. This knowledge will insure that you do not alter the intent of the training materials as you modify the language used and the situations depicted. You also need access to someone familiar with the people you will teach and the context in which they communicate. This person will provide the information you need to tailor the examples and exercises and provide you feedback as to how well you have accomplished the tailoring. Finally, you need to use the Working With Others Instructional Tools CD-ROM. It contains an electronic version of the participant coursebook that identifies the pages you may modify. It allows you to print the electronic coursebook, insert your tailored content, and reproduce the coursebook for your learners. You may not use the electronic coursebook as a substitute for the published Working With Others Participant Coursebook unless you are tailoring its content in the manner permitted.
Method for Tailoring Stimulus Materials Getting Ready Steps
Doing Steps
Following Up Steps
Check Steps Use the following checklist to verify that the task was done correctly.
Tips
Example Building a Picture of What Another Person Is Sharing This example shows how Dialog 2 (page 16 in the Working With Others Participant Coursebook) was changed to better match with the context of learners who work in a community setting. First, we will reproduce the dialog as it appears in the Working With Others Participant Coursebook. Then, we will show its modified version for the community group we trained. Original Dialog 2 Olivia and Lou are managers. Olivia wants to send one of Lou’s engineers, Sam, to talk to a client and get the client’s specifications for a new product. Lou: “Oh no! Whatever you do, don’t use Sam!” Olivia: “I don’t understand. What’s the matter with Sam?” Lou: “He just doesn’t have the skills to do the job.” Olivia: “What skills does he lack?” Lou: “Well, there are seven or eight people he would need to talk with by Friday. A number of these contacts have difficulty saying exactly what they need. Sam is new here, and I don’t think he knows all the questions that must be answered to get good information. I know Sam is also really busy right now and is worried about keeping up on his projects. I think you need someone with more experience and comfort.” Olivia: “Who do you think might be better?” Lou: “Jack or Victor. Both have experience in getting customer specifications where many people are talking for the customer. Both know our products really well.” Olivia: “Are they both available?” Lou: “Yes. Jack is just finishing a project. Victor is coming back from vacation.” Olivia: “You’re saying that Jack or Victor are better choices than Sam for this assignment because Sam is inexperienced in getting customer specifications and stressed just trying to keep up with his current load. On the other hand, both Jack and Victor are experienced and available. You’re concerned that I’d be making a mistake that could harm us all by using Sam since he is not a seasoned veteran at getting customer specs and can’t give the task the attention it requires.” Lou: “Exactly!” Dialog 2 Tailored for a Community Context Olivia and Louise are neighbors who organized a community group to work with local businesses to help fund children’s sports activities. Olivia wants to send another neighbor, Sam, to talk to business owners about sponsoring some teams this spring. Louise: “Oh no! Whatever you do, don’t use Sam!” Olivia: “I don’t understand. What’s the matter with Sam?” Louise: “He just doesn’t have the skills to do the job.” Olivia: “What are the skills you are talking about?” Louise: “The person we need must be able to talk to a group of eight business owners this Friday. Sam isn’t comfortable talking to groups. I know he is also really busy at work and is worried about what is happening there. We need a representative who has more experience and comfort talking with groups.” Olivia: “Let me make sure I understand this. You’re saying that Sam is not comfortable talking to groups and he is preoccupied with his job. You are concerned that he does not have the skills or focus needed to help us with this task and that by using Sam we’d be making a mistake that could harm our efforts.” Louise: “Exactly!”
Published April 2004
© 2003 Vital Enterprises - Hope, Maine 04847 |
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