The Case for Know Focus:

How many times must we hear from our internal customers, “No more program of the year?” No matter how hard we try, it seems that we repackage leadership, customer service, sales and communication skills training and deliver the same information to our participants year after year. Without even meaning to, we create another program of the year – which bears the acronym POTY (a fact brought to light by a group of participants who expressed their frustration with the program of the year mentality). We have tried reclassifying these programs as efforts, initiatives, or processes to send the message that they should be ongoing. Just the same, many of our participants interpret a new effort as nothing more than another POTY (Program Of The Year), and the negative connotations are tough to shake. There must be a good reason for this cycle we find ourselves repeating.

Here’s a thought. Perhaps the information that continually gets repackaged is great information. How can we argue with time-tested information like that we’ve gained from The One-Minute Manager, The Goal, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff? This valuable information gets repackaged and presented as a reminder to our many participants who have heard it before, but aren’t using it often enough AND for the smaller portion of our participants who need to hear and experience this information for the first time. Much of our personal interaction skills training is and actually should be re-training.

Evidence of Know Focus:

When conducting training, most of us use our audiences to brainstorm and provide the information we wish to focus on in our training sessions. We know that it is difficult for participants to argue with their own information. This technique is successful because our audiences walk in with the desired knowledge.

More Evidence:

Managers and service providers seem to be able to provide good leadership and/or service when being observed by someone who can affect their continued employment and/or advancement. An example might be that a front desk clerk at XYZ Resort hotel provides friendly and helpful service to the visiting president of the XYZ corporate home office. The clerk may, however, need to be reminded to provide that same level of service to a visiting family of five from Smalltown, USA.

This supports the Know Focus mentality. Many of the skills our participants need are based on information they already know. Therefore, our job becomes one of helping them remember it AND be inspired to use it on a regular basis.

The Know Focus mentality is just the first part of our responsibility. It means that we should be asking our participants to focus on what they already know. It might even be a good idea to have them review or brainstorm the content of programs, efforts, or initiatives of their organizations over the last two to five years. Instead of a new program of the year, we should consider asking, “How are we doing with the old stuff?” Skeptics might say, “Well how about the new kids on the block? Many new employees need to be taught the basics.” This is true. By mixing the new employees with those who are more seasoned, we have a learning environment where new and existing employees can learn from one another. The new folks learn skills from the old timers and the old timers are exposed to and inspired by the spirit of the new folks.

Music as a Memory Anchor:

As you may have guessed from our A Little Bit O’ Soul subtitle, we have experienced the important role music plays in capitalizing on the Know Focus mentality. Music can be a powerful way of fulfilling our role of helping people remember and feel inspired to use what they already know.

Research done by a number of organizations including the American Medical Association and Harvard University shows that music can provide both the anchor and the emotional connection to improve retention of information.

New techniques and not necessarily new information are important as we strive to increase the effectiveness of employee and customer interactions. After all, how many times have we established written goals to improve our own interaction skills? You know the routine: we write a goal based on improving a personal behavior and we promise to read it every morning. Yet, it often seems to fall by the wayside like a New Year’s resolution on January 5th or 6th. And if this happens to us, the teachers, how challenged must our participants feel when we ask them to do the same? So instead of writing goals to be read each day, listening to music can serve as our fun and inspirational reminder of those things we wish to improve upon.

Have you ever asked a group of adults to recite the alphabet? We have, and they don’t “recite” the alphabet. Invariably they “sing” the alphabet! The Houston Chronicle reported on a study that shows memory increases when we attach information to an anchor, or something we already know. That’s why adults instinctively sing, rather than recite the alphabet. The tune is firmly attached to the alphabet in their memory banks.

Have you ever noticed how many expensive television commercials use oldies rock ‘n’ roll music to help deliver their messages? We’ve done some research in this area and there are hundreds of examples! Toyota is using Everyday People originally by Sly & the Family Stone. And who could forget the California raisins and Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine! These examples are important because they represent research that shows people will respond to something that is a memory anchor for them. In addition, we know that music elicits some pretty strong emotions for many people – and usually positive emotions. That’s why advertisers use so much music in their commercials. It serves as both a memory anchor and as an emotional connection that can inspire.

A study done by the University of California shows that memory increases when there’s an emotional connection. For instance, many of our fellow baby boomers can tell us exactly where they were and what they were doing on November 22, 1963. Why? Because that date has an emotional connection for most of us. It was the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

So Why Aren’t We Using Music More Often In Training?

It’s very possible that we are avoiding this useful technique called Harmogenizing – using music as a memory anchor and as inspiration for participants – due to the legal challenges of gaining proper licensing for the use of recognizable music like oldies rock ‘n’ roll. This doesn’t have to be a barrier to using the concept of Harmogenizing, as both ASCAP and BMI offer affordable licensing agreements available to trainers and speakers. For more information on these licensing agreements, you can visit www.jukeboxlearning.com.

As the Beach Boys might say, Wouldn’t It Be Nice to start the new millennium with a Know Focus mentality while delivering our messages with just A Little Bit O’ Soul?