“Learning is never cumulative, it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.” – Bruce Lee

A clash of intentions

Got the people from the new Office 365, or Microsoft Teams or Salesforce project hassling you asking about training and adoption? They don’t get it do they? Their day job is to deliver the project. Your day job is to keep the lights on first, and second, learn this new piece of software they’re pushing on to you, as if it’s going to fix all the problems in your organisation with their roll-out.

They’re good at working out what they need from you but not so good at working out what you need from them. Change is inevitable, change is the only constant and change is ever flowing. If you resist it, you’re not doing yourself or your team any favour. But do you have to accept the way this change is being brought to you or can you channel the flow into something more manageable, more productive?

Instructions are boring

These new technologies come with boring user manuals and very sanitised training workshops. Both of them cater to the crowd, not you. They have to address things for the Lowest common denominator (should be the Highest common denominator, sometimes English and Maths don’t get along) which is why they usually end up being dry and boring. If your time is premium, and I suspect it is, they may not cut it for you.

How do you learn a new game?

Sure you can do a personality test to understand what your learning mode preferences are e.g. Auditory, Visual, Tactile etc but may I suggest another approach on top of that? Think about how you learn to play a new game: Specifically one of those card or board games that involves strategy and luck. Do you read all the instructions first or just get on with it? Most people, even after they’ve spent considerable time with the instructions, learn through playing.

Take my case. I got a set of “Monopoly Deal” cards for my 7 year old daughter (it’s Monopoly with playing cards – really cool). After a busy day with some deep work, my mind was not in the right place to learn a new game, teach it to my kid and then sit down and play with her. She handed me the instructions; I looked at them; I read them; I looked at them again; It felt like I hadn’t read them at all. I struggled. It was more daunting than exciting. Then my wife came over. She’d played this before and knew how fun the game was (aha she had excitement – the biggest driver for learning). She had a quick look at the instructions and we started playing. I learned on the job – it took just one round for me to learn 20 percent of the rules – enough to get started. The remaining 80 percent happened over more playing. Made me reflect; there’s always hacks to learning, all we need to do is look around us and ask.

Sometimes gamifying things is useful

So if you have the daunting task of getting used to Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce or something else, first breathe (remember the Pareto principle: you only need to understand 20 percent for now to get started). Think of it like this; if this is a game, what are the five “how do I…?” questions stopping you from playing right now. Write those down in an email to the Project or Change Manager and ask them to send an expert your way. Sit down with that expert for half an hour and just cover those first five questions. Learn the rest organically, through play. Try and make it fun for yourself. Set a goal of learning some trick with the new software and if you get it, treat yourself (ice-cream, half hour break, massage, whatever works as your carrot). Happy hacking.