Five ways online learning can engage even senior leaders

I recently co-hosted a webinar on how to create engaging learning experiences online. There was a lively discussion and lots of good ideas. We talked about what drives learners engagement in general and how to do it online. Interestingly, we even identified five ways online learning can be uniquely engaging, with advantages over the traditional face to face interaction. Of course we all value the benefits of face to face interaction, but in these uncertain times, it is interesting to take a look at what can be achieved remotely. Here is what we found:

• More inclusive: introverts or people who are not native English speakers can engage more using chat and polls.
• Easier to revisit and practice: recordings help to easily go back to the content, so you can learn and reflect at your own pace. When you include project work or assignments when teams or individuals have to present / pitch, they can go back to the recording and see what they can improve for the next pitch.
• Easier to secure top speakers: your top executives or subject matter experts are more likely to be available to address the group via a webcast than if you ask to go to a physical venue away from the HQ or their office location.
• Deeper coaching and facilitation: in our experience with visiting virtual breakouts as facilitators, we found that when we simply join a breakout, our presence is less intrusive and disruptive than when we knock on the door of a physical breakout room to check on a team. In this way, the facilitator can more easily be a fly on the wall and listen to what’s happening in the breakout, chiming in as needed with a better contextual understanding.
• What else can you think of? In our case, when using competitive business simulations in remote sessions, we were concerned at first that we would not be able to coach the simulation teams as we do in face-to-face programs. So we developed a virtual coach mechanism, where we use AI to analyze the team decisions and generate coaching messages specific to each team. The messages pop up in their simulation inbox as they start a new simulation round. In the end, we found that this helped disseminate relevant coaching advice to each team more consistently and rapidly than when our facilitators were visiting the various simulation teams. Now, when our facilitators visit the teams, whether face to face or virtually, they can focus on more advanced interaction such as playing sounding board as teams present their strategy.  

You can check the recording of the webinar and see an example of a remote leadership program here:

Webinar: How to create engaging learning experiences online?

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