Bringing Hollywood to your Training

Having just returned from the Training and Performance Improvement Conference in Minneapolis, USA, I was so impressed with one of the presentations, that I thought I should provide a highlights package in this month’s Ezine. I attended a workshop by Becky Pike Pluth on “Teaching from Tinsletown” and it reminded me how powerful cinema can be in portraying a message or engaging a response. As trainers we can take short clips to reinforce a point, evoke an emotion or to quickly build understanding of the topic in a non-threatening way.

In terms of tips for success:

• It is important that the clip supports the material – even if you are stringing a rather large bow to make it fit!

• Keep it short and sweet – 60 to 90 seconds is long enough!

• Participants should “experience the emotion” – i.e. select a clip with a specific emotion in mind; funny, sad, intriguing etc.

• Encourage the participants to “actively interact” with the media. This could be done by assigning a question to be considered during the viewing and discussed afterwards.

• The devil is in the detail… it is critical to debrief what happened in the scene and then link to specific things the participants should take action on after the training.

In terms of pitfalls, there are cultural considerations to take into account when selecting the right clip as well as copyright implications to investigate (and these will differ dramatically between international jurisdictions).

Some sites to get you started include: www.movieclips.com and www.101movieclips.com

Marc Ratcliffe
CEO, MRWED Group
Follow Me on twitter: @MRWED_CEO