Change management

2018.11.17

We Retain 10% of What We Are Presented. How do you retain 90% and even 100%?

By Maude Laliberté

Your employees and managers retain 10% of what is presented to them.

Did you know that only 10% of what is presented to your managers and employees will be retained? This is too little when compared to our investments in terms of money, time and resources.

Organizations are constantly looking for new ways to train or transmit the required knowledge to their managers and employees as quickly as possible. There are approaches to increase that 10% to 90% and even 100% retention.

What is this approach that increases retention from 10% to 90% and even 100%?

Did you also know that the amount of information we retain increases from 10% to 90% during a simulation and 100% when we participate in an activity?

Thus, learning by doing considerably increases the amount of information retained (RCMQ, 2013).

This is where the idea of using theserious games better known as the “serious game”, becomes an interesting alternative since it allows people to learn in a fun way and a better absorption of information in learners.

Every game, even a serious one, has its rules

As with all training activities, here are a few rules to follow to conduct your “serious game”. It must:

• To represent a challenge and arouse curiosity in the participants;
• Appeal to their imagination while being representative and realistic of their organizational context;
• Generate interaction between participants and value feedback;
• Enable learners to acquire transversal knowledge such as problem solving, decision-making, teamwork and communication (RCMQ, 2013).

How to Design a Serious Game in 6 Steps and Pitfalls to Avoid

Currently, several “serious games” exist and it is quite simple to design them. With knowledge of training and team building, you could create your own if you follow these six steps:

If you decide to design your own “serious game”, here are some pitfalls to avoid in order to achieve your goals:

• To keep participants interested, limit the time spent setting up the game and presenting the rules;
• Make sure that the game is not too complex and be careful that the participants do not perceive the finality from the beginning of the game;
• Make sure that the theme of the game and its purpose are related to the objectives of the game.

The secret of success for a serious game; Debriefing

Recently, I have participated in various “serious games” and I have had the chance to observe several of them. The observation I make is that even if the participants succeed in the game and everyone is enthusiastic about the results generated, the debriefing is often lacking. It is often taken lightly for various reasons such as lack of time or difficulty formulating the right reflection questions. However, this is where the game gets serious. It is from the debriefing that the learnings can be recognized and shared and whether the objectives set are achieved or not.

Success assured with pro tips

During the preparation:

• Make sure you have enough time to experience the game and do the debriefing (the ratio should be 50/50);
• Also make sure that the objectives have been well defined and that they are measurable (quantitative or qualified).

During the game:

• Observe the individual reactions of the participants and the collective dynamics, this information will guide you to conduct your debriefing;
• Realize that each participant experiences the game differently.

During the debriefing:

• Make sure you have individual and group questions;
• Be sure to give the floor to each of the participants and channel the boundless energy of those who take up too much space;
• Make some parallels between what has been experienced versus what is experienced in their organizational reality (the parallels are more numerous than you can imagine);
• Invite participants to transfer their experience of the game to what they experience on a daily basis in their organization.

The serious game, to be taken seriously

In conclusion, the “serious game” is an interesting alternative to transmit knowledge to your employees and managers. However, it is essential that the debriefing is well used as it is the key to successful knowledge transfer.

If you want your managers and employees to retain more than 10% of what is presented to them, get them involved and why not use the “serious game”?