No matter what topic we’re providing training on, we follow four basic principles:
- Customization
- Adult learning style
- Experiential learning
- Ongoing implementation
Customization
We tailor each training event to the group hosting the event and to the needs of the people attending it. Do you need a two-day event where we might normally do a three-day event? We can work with that. Do you need certain areas emphasized for your people and other sections left out because you’ve already covered them? No problem. Do you need the terminology adapted to fit within your denomination or tradition? We can do that. What about an online event? What about covering some of the content remotely, while having your own on-site facilitator walk people through the discussions and practice exercises? We can flex with what you need.
We customize content, structure and delivery method based on what you need… because the point of the training is you need, not what we offer. Everything is tailored to fit.
Adult learning styles
Remember elementary school? Fill-in-the-blank worksheets. Multiple choice tests. Memorizing the multiplication tables. Listening as the teacher covered important dates in history. These were important things for us to learn.
But now that we are adults, our minds work differently. While children can learn well by memorizing content first, then understanding later how it works, adults learn best by processing ideas and making connections between those ideas and what they already know.
Adults come with pre-existing categories in our minds. When we are presented with something new, we turn it around in our minds, trying to see where it fits with our previous knowledge and experience. It’s like having a document emailed to us, and we need to figure out where to store it. Does it fit in one of the work files? One of the personal files? Or maybe we should just delete it. And every once in a while we receive something that merits the creation of a new folder, a new category.
That processing time is important to the adult learning process. We need to understand an idea’s relevance before we decide if it’s worth learning. We need to assess the merits of the idea, to dialogue with it, to challenge it and see if it will hold.
That’s why at Logan Leadership we strive for interactive adult-oriented learning rather than pure teaching. We ask participants questions, challenging them to think more deeply. The more thinking we can draw out of people, the more they will learn. Adults will learn to the degree that they are engaged in dialogue and processing. The more interactive we can make the learning, the more effective our training time will be.
Experiential learning
When you’re not just learning content, but skills and principles that you want to apply, the approach to training needs to be different. It needs to be experiential. People need time to engage in practice exercises, time to reflect and discuss in smaller groups, time to brainstorm how to apply the concepts to their own situation.
Logan Leadership builds in processing time. Depending on your goals and needs, some of our workshops can send you away with a complete plan tailored to you and ready to implement. Plans like that don’t come out of a box: they come through you processing ideas and applying them to your context.
So think case studies, think exercises, think table conversations. Think journaling exercises, think practicing skills in triads, think actively responding to what you’re learning. That will give you a taste of what Logan Leadership offers.
Ongoing implementation
Training is not just an event– it’s a process. Although the training events can provide inspiration and those “aha” moments, they’re also the place you can lay the tracks to move forward after the event. We encourage follow through with coaching, with cohorts, with implementation groups, with concrete action steps. These are what results in ongoing implementation and transformation.
How many times have you had a nice event where people are inspired but then there was no follow through afterwards? Logan Leadership provides clear ways you can move forward to take action after the event. Because what’s a good idea without implementation on the field?