Want Results that Rock?

Ask the Right Questions!

“I get it!”…”This makes my job easier”… “I can’t wait to try this out…”
When participants say this, it’s music to your ears! In your classes, on projects and in one-on-one sessions, you’ll get comments like these and off-the-chart results with by asking three right questions.

Use these questions if you are teaching a student. Use these questions if you are teaching yourself. When you want to learn a new skill, perfect your technique and get outstanding results—ask these questions.

Okay, okay. Just what are these hot questions? They are: “What?”…”So What?”…“Now What?” The three critical debrief questions are all about anchoring information from any training and translating it into action! You may already be familiar with them, but take a closer look at how they work.

“What?”
This is a check-for understanding phase. What is the content just presented? Ask the student, “What did you hear?” “What do you remember?” and “What are the key points you learned/understood?”

This is not about gleaning new information. It is a stage for clarification and containment. Clarify that they understand. Clarify that they can put their arms around the topic. Contain the information by repeating the key points. Contain the information by asking the “what” did we just cover question...and now move on to…

“So What?”
This is a phase for establishing relevance. Ask participants, “So What?” …What’s in it for you? Will it make your job easier? Will you feel better with this information? Will you improve your performance or productivity? Will you achieve greater success?

With this question you can strengthen the value of the information. This question is a critical step in making sure that each student has a personal connection to the information. Every participant finds their own “why it matters” answer in this stage.

Use this questioning to anchor of why this content matters. Asking “So What?” helps each participant find his or her compelling answer. This creates an intrinsic motivation to take the learning into action.
And so it’s time to ask the third question…

“Now What?”
"Now What?" is all about action. "Now What?" shapes the definition for an individual action plan. Ask participants deepening questions such as, “Now what steps will you take?” “Now what will you do differently?” “Now what do you need to get busy doing?”

“Now What?” is the critical point and reminds me of an all time great line in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption:
“Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying!”

If You are Training Yourself

With these questions, you can help yourself learn a new skill, habit or practice. Make sure that you take time to debrief new skills, techniques and methods that you’re learning. Challenge yourself to come up with answers that are motivating and compelling to you. Ask yourself these questions on a regular and repeating basis. You’ll notice positive results!

A Closer Look--For Trainers Only:

These three areas give you feedback to refine and perfect your skills as a trainer and facilitator. As you ask, “What?” you’ll test for understanding. You’ll discover if any areas are unclear. If any questions remain unanswered.

If you consistently see that participants miss key points, they could be struggling with information overload. There may be just too much information in one session. This feedback can help you create smaller bite-size chunks to discuss. The feedback you get from students will help you structure engagement in your training design.

Engage students and participants to get in touch with their personal motivation. Ask “So What?” to help them define how new skills will improve their job/life. Be sure to ask them how this new information will help them in communications, behaviors and perceptions. With each question invite your participants to interact, speak up, and find their personal motivation so they can connect with the benefit of the content you are teaching.

Finally, ask, “Now What?” to support action. Use this question to help students define, write and declare actions. This keeps the training results oriented. Find out how they plan to live with their new information/skills and insights. Be specific. Keep asking, “what else?” to drive the specificity down into do-able, action steps that are in their realm of control.

Draw a diagram
Map or chart these three questions to give students the big picture of how to translate ideas into action. Here are three templates that are easy to use for this discussion:1. Use a triangle pointing towards the right. On the top point of the triangle record answers to “What?” On the bottom point of the triangle, record answers to “So What?” and pointing to the right, record answers to “Now What?”
Draw a circle and divide it into three. Use each part of the circle as a place for each of the three questions. Draw arrows to show connection and flow. This conveys the message that learning is an ongoing process and each part of the debrief is essential to take learnings into action.3. Draw a bridge icon. Put “What?” on the left side of the bridge,
“So What?” in the middle of the bridge and “Now What” on the right side of the bridge. Record answers to each question in the zone near each question heading.

This conveys that learning moves you into new and desirable territory. To start the journey, you need to anchor the information, you need to find personal motivation to cross the bridge and the desired outcome is taking learning into action, which is arriving on the other side of the bridge.

Each of these templates provides a visual map and aids both you and the learner to see the flow of a debrief. This is an opportunity to discuss, generate ideas and build their personal action plans.

In addition, feel free to make up your own visual templates to support asking the three debrief questions. These three will get you started, but keep experimenting with new ways to capture this essential part of learning.

By creating interactive learning maps, you’ll support dialogue, interaction and graphic simplification. With this debriefing method you’ll measure understanding, explore motivation and define specific actions. And you can get started immediately.

When Should You Debrief?
Use this debrief frequently. Experiment with using it after sections of your trainings. Ask these three questions before taking a break, stopping for lunch or closing at the end of the day. Use these three questions before moving on to another phase of the training. Ask these questions at repeated intervals to help students review and reflect on their progress.

What’s the Payoff?

The repetition of the three step debrief sets a structure that provides a safety zone. This is a known reoccurring event within the landscape of new insights, behaviors and skills. Students will come to expect it and enjoy it.

As you gain practice with this method, you’ll find it’s quick and easy to use. Encourage your students to make their own debrief maps to strengthen their learning and experience.

When you use visual mapping methods, you’ll gain valuable information about what each individual needs to translate their ideas into action. The three step debrief is one of your training power tools to help each participant put their learning into action.

Strategic Storyboarding

If You are Training Yourself

A Closer Look--For Trainers Only:

What’s the Payoff?

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