How to give clear instructions in a workshop
How to give clear instructions in a workshop
so everybody understand
What → Why → How
This sounds obvious, but is easily forgotten or overlooked.
The best way to give instructions that people will actually understand is to use the following formula when explaining any exercise in your workshop
What
Why
How
Often we forget at least one of these three things. We say what we’re about to do, then how, but leave out the why. Or we say what and why, but forget to specify how. As you’re preparing for a workshop, make sure to run your material for every exercise against that formula and make sure you have all 3 elements covered.
The 3x rule
No matter how hard we try to pay attention, the truth is we often can’t sustain focused attention for long periods of time, and certainly not for the length of a whole workshop. Don’t expect all people to listen all the time. Therefore, you should build that expectation into the way you communicate information in your workshop.
To minimize the chances of anyone in the room missing a vital piece of information, make sure to say important things three times.
1st time: 50% of participants hear you
2nd time: 75% of participants hear you
3rd time: 95% of participants hear you
One way to do an exercise
You might think that giving people multiple options to do an exercise would give people more freedom, but in most cases, more options only add confusion. People in your workshop have a lot of mentally draining activities to do and aren’t as familiar with the tasks as you are.
Therefore, you should only show ONE WAY of doing an exercise.
If, and only if, people ask you for other options, that’s when you can provide an alternative.
Show examples
Examples help us understand concepts better since they take ideas from an abstract description and make them concrete by giving them context. Some presenters fear that showing examples will limit and influence people’s thinking and decide to leave them out in the name of creative freedom.
In practice, the tradeoff is worth it. Creative freedom can come later. But when you’re teaching people an exercise for the first time, it helps to have a template to follow, just like training wheels for riding a bicycle.
Use insight statements
During a workshop, you’re going to be talking a lot, which means your participants will have to take in a lot, but there’s only so much the mind can absorb before losing focus. So while it’s good to give a detailed explanation of a concept or exercise, make sure to summarize with an insight statement.
An insight statement tells people the “why”. It gives context for the task. Examples of insight statements you can use:
“The big idea with this exercise is...”
“The most important thing about this is...”
“The way to do this exercise well is...”
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Thank you! Noted the part about "“The way to do this exercise well is...”" phrase. Helping people be successful.