Engaging Learners Beyond "Just Do What You're Told"

I reckon we all try to be generous and decent when we teach. Same when we run groups, or meetings. Any time we’re guiding the room, we want to be good people.

We want to be open, considerate, encouraging. To empower! We want everyone to feel they’ve been able to make a contribution and go away smiling.

We want to feel good and for people to think we’re good. It’s not narcissism. It’s just trying to do good work — maximum good and minimum harm.

Some days, why is that SO DAMN HARD?

In a work meeting, if I meet push-back or encounter radically different perspectives, I can at least accept that a colleague with different skills is going to enhance my viewpoint. The argument that’s emerging might be productive.

That’s so much harder when you’re teaching or directing/managing a process.

You sketch out a route. You define objectives. You create strategies to get there. You understand desired outcomes. Prepared, you go in front of the people you are guiding/teaching and…..

…….nothing.

They do NOT engage. Sometimes the whole group doesn’t engage. Sometimes an individual switches off or disrupts.

At worst, the group seems to want to engage, but an influential individual decides he/she is going to obstruct, and swings the whole group 'against' you.

Oh the temptation to scream — 'do what you’re f*ck*ng told!!'

Or: 'I know what I’m doing!'

I’ve screamed it many times, luckily only silently to myself……

When I find that sort of frustration rising, I don’t feel good. The first temptation is to blame the group… 'they’ve got an attitude problem', 'they need more discipline', she's/he's arrogant', 'I'm asking too much of them because, after all, they’re not a very good group…'

The second is to blame myself: 'I should have prepared better', 'I don’t know what I’m doing here', 'I'm a fraud' (I reserve that one for days when I’m feeling really rough….)

I tell myself I know what I’m doing. I say my plan’s a good one. I say I AM listening to the class. I AM respecting them.

Then I’ll either sulkily give up my plan and (silently) say they don’t deserve me, or I’ll double down, dig in and go to war with the group. Sometimes I’ll even win that war.

This much is for sure — when a disconnect opens up between me and people I’m guiding, it doesn’t feel good.

However much I try to pretend it’s not the case — the truth is, I am — at least in part — responsible.

Not 'to blame' but, in part, responsible.

It’s really useful to ask myself in that situation some simple questions.