Why does a speaking engagement need to be 60 or 120 minutes? And why TED Talks last for 18 minutes?
Why seminars last for a day or two? Why must it be from 8 to 4 or 9 to 6? Are we going to learn less if we conduct a seminar for one, two, or three hours?
Why a company has to travel three, four, five, or six hours to a venue with obstacle courses to hold team building? Can we not solve our team challenges nearby?
Most people complicate things. Nobody dared ask why.
Learning doesn’t happen because we spend more time in the classroom. Learning happens because we want to learn.
I learn because I have a problem to solve and I want to solve it now. If a trainer or a speaker can help me learn things at the shortest time possible, I can learn better. Only then that a speaker or trainer becomes useful to me.
A speaker will find this hard to sell to an event organizer. Event organizers pay more money to someone who speaks for an hour or two.
I listen to a speaker who, in 15 minutes or less, can give me a specific solution. I don’t need to learn “everything” the speaker knows. I only need solutions to my problem.
Many people don’t understand this. They want us speakers to blah-blah for the first forty minutes.
We must change this.
I can say the same for trainers. You don’t have to do a one-day seminar.
For example, don’t be afraid to deliver a two-hour stress management learning session. Most people need only three things to improve their productivity. They don’t need to learn the history of Stress Management or how Hans Selye invented the phrase.
We must change.
Jef Menguin
P.S. Have you already subscribed to the 90 Days of Actionable Leadership? You can do it now.
