The Power of Emotion in Learning

When was the last time you remembered a boring class? I'm not talking about how boring the class was but how much content from that class was categorized and stored in your brain for later usage...

Why Boring Training Wastes Time

If you are like most people, not much was remembered, used or thought about once the class was over and you ran screaming for joy out of the classroom!!!

We remember boring, but we don't remember why it was boring.

In other words, the training was useless, a waste of time, took some minutes or days from your life's longevity and left you with a dull ache in your brain somewhere; if you only remembered where that pain got stored from that unbearably boring class...What to do?

The above scenario happens daily across the world in classrooms of all types, sizes and needs. People often say:

a. The training was really boring
b. I hated/loved the instructor but he/she was teaching a horrible class
c. I don't remember what I learned
d. I don't know what to do with what I learned
e. It was all out of context
f. It's not my fault I didn't learn anything. No one could learn from that class!!!

And the list goes on...

LET'S GET EMOTIONAL!!!

Okay, everything you just read is true. How can you or I change those results?

One thing you could do is to add some emotion to the training.

"Emotion..." you say???

Yes, emotion! Something simple that we use all the time in our methods of communicating with one another.

If you like to tell stories, then you are probably familiar with the role of emotions in those stories. You know that emotions can make a story interesting, dramatic, scary, hilarious, sad or just about anything else.

Why Emotion in Learning is Powerful

What does the brain do when something emotional comes its way? It remembers those things. They carry some impact and, well, emotions etch a little place in our cortex (the flat part of the brain that kinda looks like a big credit card that stores stuff, a lot of stuff!)

Emotions bring things to life, not always in a good way, but always in a way that we remember! You will rarely remember anything that triggers no emotion at all within you...

Real-Life Example: Evoking Empathy

In instructional design, you'll find many crucial areas to make good use of emotion, to make the training both more memorable and more effective. For instance, a common scenario in financial services:

Oh, if you don't enter the invoice correctly, we can't pay you and you can't pay them, who can't pay us, and so forth. People will get angry and not use your business anymore and the other business will die around you and...

Well, you get the point. There's some potential for real emotion and empathy in that scenario...

Did you just say, "empathy"?

Yes we did, empathy is an emotion and it lets us put ourselves in the mind of another person to feel what they're feeling. For example, in our SMILE Customer Service training, SMILE stands for Service Means Involvement, Listening and Empathy.

Key Emotions to Work into Training

Some emotions we should add to our training in whatever way we can to highlight points we want remembered:

a. Happiness
b. Sadness
c. Anger
d. Frustration
e. Satisfaction
f. Enjoyment
g. Empathy
h. Desire
i. Greed
j. Gratitude

Each emotion evokes a different kind of reaction. And emotions can be subtle or harsh.

When you write your 'story' or 'training' then tell a story and don't forget. Whether the training is soft-skills, technical or a hybrid of things, try to always put some emotion into the training itself. Something that people can relate to and not feel embarrassed.

Always make an emotion a key aid in your Learning & Development work. The power of emotion is quite strong and it will always evoke something from someone.

About Rick Zanotti

Rick Zanotti is the founder and CEO of RELATE, a well-known Training & Development company specializing in eLearning, media production and Internet broadcasting.

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