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Join the Nerds!
Welcome to the funtastic world of the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Scott Schuette and Daniel Coonrod and Zeta Gardner are Learning Executives with over 50 years’ experience between them. Together they share new ideas, learning tools, approaches and technology that increase learner engagement and impact. All while having FUN! To participate in the show and community please contact them at learningnerdscast@gmail.com
The nerds are all about creating a community of learning, innovation and growth amongst educational professionals: Instructors, facilitators, instructional designers, learning and development professionals, trainers, leadership development professionals, learning metric gurus, sales enablement wizards and more. So, if you want to learn, connect, grow and have a good time doing it, The Fabulous Learning Nerds Podcast is for YOU!
And we're back for another amazing episode of Your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host, and with me, you love them, it's been a minute, Dan Coonron, everybody.
Daniel (00:24.183)
Scott, what's up man, how you doing?
Scott Schuette (00:26.52)
Good, I'm doing great. You guys had a wonderful scintillating vacation, correct?
Daniel (00:31.691)
I did, I did. I took my mom up to go visit some family back in Pennsylvania. You know, real quick, we got to drive through, I want to say it's not Greenbelt. Green, man, I had the name and now I'm going to mess it up. I promise we can fix it in the show notes, folks. But we drove past the Radio Free Zone in West Virginia and it was inexperienced, no Wi-Fi.
no cell service for hours and hours through the mountains of West Virginia. And it was, it was awesome.
Scott Schuette (01:07.862)
Is that... You went through the neutral zone.
Daniel (01:12.697)
The neutral tone, yeah, yeah.
Scott Schuette (01:14.22)
Yeah. Is this a planned neutral zone or that's just the way it is?
Daniel (01:19.146)
It's purpose-built. Let me see here. Let me see. It's... Yeah.
Scott Schuette (01:21.952)
Is it really? Like somebody planned it? Okay, I gotta say like...
Daniel (01:25.913)
It's called the Green Brook Observatory.
Scott Schuette (01:29.12)
Okay, so for hours, I got nothing.
Daniel (01:33.153)
You get nothing.
Scott Schuette (01:34.744)
for hours unless I have a CD player I'm screwed.
Daniel (01:36.353)
Not even radio. Not unless you have a CD player or you load some songs in. But since I didn't know I was going to be driving through this because maybe I didn't do a great job planning, I had nothing. We hit the road, we're driving through. I've got my mom driving in the car and Zayda's with me. And dude, was hours and hours of... It was good. We talked. It was great. It was a good trip. And the scenery was gorgeous. It was absolutely...
Scott Schuette (01:41.538)
I don't have a CD player in my car anymore.
Daniel (02:04.825)
beautiful part of the country. But man, I was like driving back in the 90s, only no radio.
Scott Schuette (02:16.204)
Yeah, I would have killed somebody for sure that the last time that happened to me was during 9 11 and we long story short short story long, whatever you want to put it and we landed in Cleveland, Ohio and we were going I was on a plane going to New York that day believe it or not and didn't make it we landed in Cleveland, Ohio. There's about eight of us and so we quickly figured out that we were not going to fly anywhere that day. So we ran down to national rental car and got a van the van.
Daniel (02:19.091)
Ha ha ha ha!
Daniel (02:24.003)
Scott Schuette (02:45.762)
did not have a working radio. So we had a CD player and I had some CDs and so we played my CD over and over and over again. But yeah, no radio, nothing. Nothing, that was not a good thing. So yeah, so I'm glad that you had that experience, that's great. So how did that experience make you feel?
Daniel (03:02.403)
So now I got it now.
What was the CD?
Daniel (03:09.683)
well first off, what was the CD?
Scott Schuette (03:13.71)
Oh, just a mixtape CD. It had all the great 80s hits on it. It had Jessie's Girl, Grease Lightning. Yeah, we were doing the Grease Lightning. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a long story.
Daniel (03:16.193)
Okay.
Daniel (03:23.885)
That's awesome.
So first off, will say we got to stay. So hit the road. We're like, we're looking for a place to stop in between. And I just checked Google Maps and I'm like, well, this is the halfway point for where we're going. It's weird though, because I didn't know what I was looking at at the time. I like, there's no hotels here. except for this one. It's the Mountain Quest Inn. And so we gave them a call.
And they said, yeah, we've got, we've got room and said, great. We'll be there in like seven and a half hours. We'll see you guys soon. And they're like, call us when you're 30 minutes out. And we're like, great. so we do, and we get up there and it's the Greek, it's the, Mountain Quest Institute. And it is this like working farm hotel in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of this, this green bank, green Brook Observatory zone.
And again, they don't have any Wi-Fi. It's a farm. I will say though, it was absolutely positively, stunningly beautiful, gorgeous. Real like dark sky. You look up, see all the stars. It was awesome. Absolutely wonderful.
Daniel (04:42.713)
Yay!
Scott Schuette (04:45.176)
All right, I have to ask this question, then we'll bring Zeta in. But have you ever seen the YouTube show, Another Dirty Room,
Daniel (04:56.95)
No!
Scott Schuette (04:59.822)
Oh my gosh, you know what? I think I need to ask this question to Zeta first and then we'll talk about it. So without further ado, everybody, no, no, no, no, that's great. Let's bring in the Duchess of Design. You love her, Zeta's in the house.
Daniel (05:07.127)
Okay, okay, that's probably for the best.
Scott Schuette (05:22.84)
ZEDA! How are you?
Zeta (05:23.922)
Hello! I'm doing pretty well.
Scott Schuette (05:31.372)
Okay, have you ever watched the YouTube series created by Mr. Dan Bell, by the way? Another Dirty Room.
Zeta (05:39.586)
I can't say that I have, but I'll just say, just out the gate, it doesn't sound very appealing to me. I'm a clean freak.
Scott Schuette (05:46.598)
Yeah, okay, so You two need to now after you stayed at that little off-the-road motel you need to go watch You could start in the middle start in the middle of series one really honestly because the first couple episodes are not that great but you need to start in the middle of it and basically they these guys go out to motels and They inspect them and then once you watch this show
you will never experience a good night's sleep in a hotel, even a nice one, ever again. Just so you know.
Daniel (06:15.523)
Mm.
Daniel (06:21.901)
What if, what if I lived in ignorance? I'm just saying, maybe, maybe it's a better life not knowing.
Scott Schuette (06:28.48)
It might be. It might be. Although, you know, if you're paying 150 bucks a night, you should probably feel pretty OK that you've got a nice hotel. But, you know, if you're if you're driving down the road and you're, hey, that thirty dollar a night super eight motel over there with the barbed wire fence around it, then you might have some opportunities there. If you enjoy the show, like you. OK, hey, do you like watching cringe TV like quarters? Does that?
Daniel (06:35.043)
It's true.
Zeta (06:35.878)
Yeah.
Daniel (06:55.349)
No, I am not a fan of cringe TV.
Zeta (06:56.418)
No... No, it makes-
Scott Schuette (06:58.338)
This is cringe TV. Like yeah, for sure. Like you'd just be watching it going, my gosh. Every five minutes you're like, my gosh, my gosh, no, no, no, my gosh. When they inspect the pillows, that's my favorite part. Honestly, they pull off the pillowcase and show you the pillow.
Daniel (07:18.175)
no no no.
Zeta (07:19.216)
I'm just really glad that I bring my own pillow when we go because yeah.
Scott Schuette (07:21.996)
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's one way to do you really bring, know, I guess that's pretty smart because every almost 100 % of the pillows that they inspect are no longer white. And I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah.
Zeta (07:35.908)
Not only that, but like my pillow is perfect because I only take one pillow and anytime we've gone to like a motel, it's always been, one pillow is not enough, but two is too much. So.
Scott Schuette (07:47.522)
Yeah, no, no, I totally get it. And then just for word of the wise, sometimes they'll use multiple pillowcases to disguise just how off color their pillow really is. yeah, but sometimes they'll sew the pillowcase on top of the pillow, buy another pillow. How much are pillows? They're $5, right? At Target, Targe boutique, five bucks. Okay, another dirty room, that's a plug. We didn't get any kind of advertising money for that folks, but you should check it out.
Zeta (07:50.108)
Mm-hmm.
Zeta (07:59.972)
Ooh, ooh.
Daniel (08:00.599)
Nope, nope, bad, all bad.
Zeta (08:12.198)
Gotta get that tarjo.
Scott Schuette (08:17.39)
and then just go, my God, that could have been us. That's all I'm saying is it could have been us. Very, very cool. It's glorious. I love Cringe TV. We're not gonna talk too much more about Cringe TV, folks. We have a really, really exciting topic today. No guests, but we're gonna spend a little bit of time helping you guys be better at what you do. So without further ado, let's dive into our glorious and not cringe-worthy topic of the week.
Daniel (08:17.496)
Ha ha!
Zeta (08:20.152)
Mm-hmm. It's a horror story.
Zeta (08:26.588)
You
Scott Schuette (08:50.946)
This week we're talking going from Smee to storytellers. Smee to storyteller. Hey, Dan, before we get started, I got a question for you,
Daniel (09:01.933)
Yeah, man.
Scott Schuette (09:08.184)
So why are we talking about this? And what do mean, me to storyteller? Help me understand, Dan.
Daniel (09:10.722)
Daniel (09:16.345)
Absolutely. Listen, I'm actually gonna uno reverso and Scott, I'm gonna ask you some questions. I'm gonna tell you why the journey from Smeet a storyteller being a better storyteller makes you a better learning and development professional. But I want to lead with an example. Scott, just a little bit ago, we talked about a vacation that Zayda and I took and I told you the story behind it. Do you remember where we went?
Scott Schuette (09:43.47)
You were in the mountains. I remember that part of the story. And you had this beautiful...
Daniel (09:46.957)
What state?
Daniel (09:51.518)
not everything. That's fine. Beautiful what?
Scott Schuette (09:52.482)
forgot. I forgot. I you went to a beautiful hotel and they were super cool and got your room ready before you got there and then there was no radio. I remembered all that. just remember exactly where you were going. cause I'm old and I forget things. I'm old and I forget things. Huh?
Daniel (10:05.955)
Who else went with Zeta and I? Do you remember that? Who else went with Zeta and I? Do you remember that?
Scott Schuette (10:11.822)
Well, I can tell you it wasn't Reed Richards. was your mother, right? There you go.
Daniel (10:14.327)
It was not Reed Richards. So, okay, in my defense, I probably could have told a better, more defined story, but...
Scott Schuette (10:20.832)
No, or I could have been paying attention to your story. That's on me. So go ahead.
Daniel (10:23.577)
To be fair, surprised you with this. Listen, stories are the way that we as human beings have communicated and talked and spoken with each other and transferred knowledge for years for time immemorial. There's my fancy phrase for the day. It's how we share our experiences with those people who we talk to every day.
Scott Schuette (10:26.444)
You did.
Daniel (10:52.867)
We don't show up to somebody and be like, Scott, I drove through the radio free zone in West Virginia. It was very strange. And then I got to Pennsylvania on a road trip I took with my mother. mean, maybe, maybe sometimes we do and we just spit facts at one another, but that's not very interesting. It's not very engaging. Being able to be a storyteller, to be able to take the facts, weave them in and give them basically like emotional weight.
means that the things that we tell people, that information lasts longer. There's less cognitive load for them to carry in order to grab those facts. And those facts have more value to them because we've said, hey, this is an experience. This happened to me.
Scott Schuette (11:40.418)
Yeah, no, I totally get it. It was really interesting because I'm taking a look and, you know, trying to please new partners, right? And so, holy smokes. Hey, this is what's important about our product and this is what's important about our product and this is what's important about our product. That's great. But if I want to create an army of advocates, I have to have stories around that so that people can understand it because, you know, it's a complex product and people may or may not understand that. But if I have a story around, so-and-so used
the product and this is the great things that happened from that, that helps create advocacy leads in my case to more sales or more engagement. It's just super, super important. Are we doing that today? No, but we're gonna start. We're gonna go ahead and baby step our way there for sure. Yeah.
Daniel (12:19.033)
It
No. No. Oh, we should. We should. I'll give you another example. At the beginning of this, as we were talking, you shared with us a story that happened to you 24 years ago, 23, 24 years ago. And you remembered the songs on the CD player.
Scott Schuette (12:38.805)
It did.
Daniel (12:46.827)
Again, that's a story that happened to you. And, you know, I'll, I'll remember that you had Jessie's girl and grease lightning that you were listening to just because again, that you're sharing that story. You're sharing those facts too often as instructional designers, as learning development professionals, we go up to our Bloom's taxonomy, look at the verbs, be like, okay. I need to look at it. I need to go to my, my knowledge ones.
I need to get this one and this one and that one. Okay, cool. We're going to understand. Understand is a really weak one, but I'm going to run with it. We're going to discuss. We're going to do all of these knowledge-based things. And then we completely forget about any of the emotional stuff.
And then we get really upset when everybody forgets our course a week later.
Zeta (13:39.506)
For real.
Scott Schuette (13:39.586)
Yeah, no, totally get it. Zeta, what do you think?
Zeta (13:42.834)
think you just hit the nail on the head right there. mean, who wants to read an encyclopedia versus reading a story about maybe the things that are in that encyclopedia, right?
Daniel (13:55.671)
Yeah, 100%.
Zeta (13:57.008)
It's much more interesting.
Scott Schuette (13:59.288)
So may I share a story about a story? Because this is relevant from a story perspective. So was taking a course. It was a two-day course. And I had a master facilitator teaching it. I was super impressed. So at any time, somebody of our caliber is up there doing a really great job. That's great. And at the end of day one, this gentleman starts telling a story. And I'm going into my head like, why is this relevant?
Daniel (14:02.425)
Please do.
Zeta (14:02.47)
yeah, yeah.
Scott Schuette (14:29.378)
I have no idea. And then he got to a point in the story where there was a cliffhanger, right? Someone opens the door and there's this person that's not supposed to be there and they've got something in a package in their hand or whatever. And then he stopped and he said, and I will finish the story tomorrow. And everybody went, what?
What do you think I thought about all night long?
Daniel (15:01.581)
of that story.
Zeta (15:01.756)
Thought about, yeah, and what came next?
Scott Schuette (15:02.508)
the story. Right, exactly. So what's gonna happen? I have no idea. So then we show up and three quarters of the way through the class, he finally decides to finish the story. What were we all thinking about during the entire time while he's going through all this other stuff? What's gonna happen? And why is it?
By the way, from a relevancy standpoint, I can't remember the point he was trying to make. I just can't. But I do remember that it tied in really, really, really well to what we were talking about at the time. And the impact was huge from a story and relevancy perspective because he just kind of dangled this carrot. So if you have a couple of day class, go ahead and try that. That worked really, really well. I don't know how you figured that all in. But my point is, from an engagement's perspective, from a
Hey, I'm in with you and I'm going to pay attention to where you're going kind of perspective. thought that that was really
Zeta (16:03.949)
yeah, that definitely made it more interesting.
Scott Schuette (16:07.98)
Right, and don't we want our learnings to be interesting?
Daniel (16:08.557)
does.
Oh, dude, 100 %! Yes, of course!
Scott Schuette (16:15.232)
Is interesting more impactful?
Zeta (16:18.127)
say so.
Daniel (16:18.322)
man. Okay. So
As we grow up and we go through school and we sit in the classrooms and we learn and we learn and we learn and we learn, how much stuff would you say you remember from high school?
Scott Schuette (16:37.612)
Not much. remember things that, okay, so I'm gonna back up. I remember things that were emotionally important to me in high school. But as far as the things I was supposed to learn in high school, probably not much at all. But anything that's tied to an emotion, I'm in.
Daniel (16:38.86)
Okay. How much would you say you remember from
Uh-huh.
Daniel (16:51.639)
Those things, yes, and those things that were tied to an emotion, would you say those were maybe interesting?
Scott Schuette (17:01.928)
and relevant.
Daniel (17:04.343)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's so much, so much of how we...
try to teach people is through knowledge retention and fact checking. One, it's super easy to build tests if I throw a bunch of facts at you and I ask you to regurgitate those facts. I don't need to worry about understanding. just need to be like, were you able to regurgitate these dates back at me? Yes? Great, you pass. Understanding is a complex, difficult to measure thing.
We demonstrate understanding when we tell, share, and create stories.
Scott Schuette (17:51.586)
Alright, so here's the big question, right? Now I wanna tell some stories.
Where do I start? What stories do I tell?
Daniel (18:00.309)
Awesome. So, so I would say, so I usually tell everybody you start with the stories that mean the most and those aren't always work-based stories, but I believe that the jobs we get nine times out of 10 have value, the things we do have value. And if they don't have value, we go out usually and apply value to them.
Scott, what do you do? Not where do you work, but what do you do?
Scott Schuette (18:35.374)
What do I do? My job? Why I'm Scott?
Daniel (18:37.207)
Yeah, what's your job?
Daniel (18:41.817)
What do you do? What's your title at your new fancy job?
Scott Schuette (18:45.134)
Oh, I'm honestly, I tell everybody that I am the resident learning nerd is that's what I tell people. I am. I tell it all the time. We get new people all the time. I'm like, Hey, because essentially that's what I do. So basically what I do is I apply learning development theory and coaching to create relevant, engaging, impactful experiences that
Daniel (18:55.417)
You're the resident learning nerd.
Why?
Scott Schuette (19:15.554)
lead to personal growth and business results.
Daniel (19:21.133)
Why does your business, why does your new job need that?
Scott Schuette (19:26.706)
because without it, you can't change behavior, right? So you need behavior change in order to get greater impact and greater results. And that's what the importance of learning is all about. Like, Hey, how can I provide an experience so that you can do things better, faster, you know, more complete to lead to a greater business impact and hopefully a greater world for the people that we serve.
Daniel (19:57.145)
Boom. What would happen if they didn't have you?
Scott Schuette (20:05.282)
They would be still, that's a really great question. I think that if they didn't have me, they would.
They would flounder in this space and or just skip it all together. We were just gonna go ahead and skip it all together. We'll just throw new ideas against the wall and see what works and or just become stagnant and not grow and then not be in business anymore.
Daniel (20:15.757)
What if they didn't have somebody in that role?
Let's get program.
Daniel (20:32.28)
So let's take all these facts that you just gave me and let's build what's called a three act structure. And that's the setup, the conflict, the resolution. And we're gonna build a story. We're gonna build it right here, right now.
Scott Schuette (20:45.991)
no.
Daniel (20:47.993)
So the setup is, here's this business and they are doing, things are going fine. Every day they're doing this, they're serving their customers, things are going great. That's our setup. Here's Scott. Scott is a learning nerd looking for the right place. Scott is ready to change and revolutionize the right place, the right spot, looking for that right family to be part of. And here's the conflict.
Scott Schuette (21:17.134)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel (21:17.345)
Scott, you've shared some of your journey where you left the company you were at for a little bit. And so you're looking for a new thing. That's your conflict. Your conflict is I have to find a new place. The place I was at, it's not working anymore. Their conflict is, hey, we know we're having trouble and we know we need to fill this role. We need to get somebody in here to help us do this. We're lost. We need someone to guide us. That's our conflict. The resolution is Scott,
and this business connect, Scott helps this business to succeed, helps them to move forward, helps to show them the way this business begins to see turnaround and change quickly. And the story is done. The little part of that story. We've created a story.
Daniel (22:05.815)
It works the same with learning and development. works the same with all of the things, the facts that you have to lay out. I was doing sales training for a company and listen, sales training is one of those things where too often people dive right into the numbers because everybody's very focused on the numbers. And it's so tough to get a story that isn't about the numbers because
takes all the oxygen out of the room, but people don't buy numbers and people don't sell numbers except maybe tax folks, maybe they sell numbers. But people buy and sell stories. As I was helping these teams to build training, get this information, to like motivate people.
asking people why they would want to sell this product.
At first, the intro was always, for, you know, like for a paycheck or because I have to, or for the bonus or for any number of number reasons. But as soon as you dig a bit deeper, okay, cool. You know, but why, why this product? Why didn't you go someplace else and sell? Why didn't you do something else? well, I really believe in the product. cool. Great. Tell me why you believe in the product. What's so good about it. And that's when the stories begin.
All of the training we create, we get really focused on the facts, on the numbers. We are trained to think of the facts and the numbers. But underneath those facts and numbers are stories that have made it necessary for us to be producing training.
Daniel (23:53.187)
Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now.
Zeta (23:53.372)
yeah, definitely. No, no, no, that's great. correct me if I'm wrong because I'm trying to follow along here. So you're saying basically when you're coming across anything that's dry, which is most of the stuff that we do, that as long as you have that structure beginning, a middle and end, right? Like the setup, the conflict, the resolution, you can then transition whatever you're trying to teach into a story that has a beginning, middle and end, right? But how can you do that, say,
Daniel (24:19.725)
Yeah.
Zeta (24:23.282)
trying to train like a class who is learning like the new email server. Like how can you put a story in there? I'm curious.
Daniel (24:29.837)
Yeah. that's so okay. So we'll use, we have to build a new email server as an example, right? In this theoretical company, they've got a new email server, right? So let's talk. Why did they, what happened to the old one?
Zeta (24:47.666)
Do you want me to just be hypothetical here? Like the old one was maybe outdated.
Daniel (24:50.125)
I'm yeah.
Okay, so the old one was outdated and that was causing problems, right? Pick a problem. What problem was it causing?
Zeta (25:00.178)
Maybe the company grew too big and they needed to have more of an outflow. I don't know.
Daniel (25:07.777)
Okay. So the company outgrew the email server. So let's think about that story. You know, there was this company, things were going fine, but as the company grew, they realized, hey, we're really having trouble sending and receiving emails. We're missing some, we're losing some. There's some problems. It's in that conflict. If we talk a three act structure that set up the conflict, the resolution, it's in that conflict that people lean in. If I'm like, everything was great, everything was hunky dory. And today we're going to do it different.
Zeta (25:13.415)
Mm.
Daniel (25:37.433)
Well, that doesn't make any sense. But if I say there's a reason emails were getting missed, we were losing clients, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars were walking out of the door every day because we weren't able to effectively communicate with our customers. Well, the setup, there's the conflict. The resolution is this training. The resolution is that's why we purchased a new email server.
Zeta (25:54.001)
Yeah.
Daniel (26:03.353)
Now, because of that, some things have changed. And today I want to talk to you about those changes. I want to talk to you about why those changes were necessary. I'm to talk to you about why once we get this process down, instead of watching those customers leave, not be able to communicate with us, us not be able to communicate with them, we're going to talk about how we're going to be able to communicate with them, not just as good, but better than before we got this new server. That's the story. That's the story for your email training. If you're making email training, please feel free.
Grab that and run.
Zeta (26:34.578)
It's also the whiff them too, like what's in it for them, which is awesome. Yeah. So there's your motivation right there.
Daniel (26:37.537)
Yes. Yes. And when, when I teach instructional designers and when I used to, and even now, I always tell them that they should pick up a book by Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey. And it's one of those books that's like, you know, sometimes people go, what? Because it's a book that gets handed out in English lit a lot. And it's pretty popular there, but in our world, it's not so popular.
But it should be because it's all about storytelling and how these stories stick with us and move us.
And that's the kind of retention we can only dream about right now.
Zeta (27:24.218)
And that, just to jump in real quick, that totally tracks because our stories were how we recorded history, like before we had the written words. So it's more memorable and we have like a history of it being memorable. I love it.
Daniel (27:31.384)
Mm-hmm.
Scott Schuette (27:40.076)
Yep. By the way, if you don't want to read a book and want to watch something, I highly recommend In It Of Itself with Derek Del Guadio. He's a magician and he's a master storyteller. It's on Hulu. Bring it. Clean Xbox with you. It's absolutely amazing. But he he just weave stories throughout this entire incredibly emotionally impactful.
Daniel (27:55.225)
That's awesome.
Scott Schuette (28:07.852)
hour and a half and it will impact you, which I think is really great. I think ultimately that's what we want. Good question for you though, Dan or Zeta. What parts of our learning are critical to have stories? if we have stories on everything, then I think we might lose people. But where are...
Daniel (28:32.514)
Scott Schuette (28:34.508)
Where should we have stories? Where are the best places? If I'm going to pick my content and I'm going to make sure I have a story for this, what is it? Or are going to disagree with me that I might lose people with stories?
Daniel (28:43.587)
So I'm.
I'm going to jump in and say that I honestly and earnestly think your training should have stories in it everywhere. But you probably need to think about instead of 30 to 40 individual little stories, one for each module, you need to probably think about the overarching story. Somebody has joined your company. Somebody has come out, gone through the rigorous process of applying.
and becoming part of your company, obviously they believe enough to put in the work and time. Or maybe you're compensating well enough to attract them. for whatever reason, you have somebody at this super vital moment. It's easy to start throwing facts at them, to just regurgitating knowledge and being like, hey, I know it's a lot. It's really drinking from the fire hose. But after a year or two, you get it. After a few months, you'll feel right at home.
If somebody is going to join your company and they're in this new process, the story is there. Their story and your story are touching. They are becoming one. And you have this opportunity to look at them and say, hey, we're going to go through a new hire experience and we're going to cover a lot of things. And all of these things are important. And I think that there's probably a story behind why each of these lessons exist. There is no sign without a story behind it.
It's the same thing for training. There is no training without a story behind it. So I want to talk to you about why this new hire program is the way it is, the role that you guys are going to play in it, why it's important. And we're going to talk through the story of the business and the company through this new hire experience. We're going to talk about boring stuff. We're going to talk about new email servers. We're going to talk about, you know, some of the HR stuff. You're going to roll your eyes at some of it. I know.
Daniel (30:41.517)
that some of this training doesn't feel like it's going to apply to you or it's going to feel like it resonates with you. But I promise you there's reasons and purposes for all of these trainings. As you sit down and you take that HR paperwork training, that HR stuff, and you're just like, man, I want you guys to know that that's important enough that we want you guys to take a look at it. That there have been incidents, maybe not with our company, but with other companies in the past that have shown us that if we don't talk about it now, we'll talk about it later and not in a good way.
So I want you guys to sit, listen, ask questions, and know that today is the start of your story with us.
Zeta (31:22.542)
Awesome. I would be little bit lost in the weeds here with that question though, Scott, and that I don't think the whole course should be the story. I think the course should be illustrative of whatever you're trying to teach. From the way I like to incorporate stories, I like to say what the thing is first and then say, example, and then go into the story.
So it kind of breaks up the... Oh, okay. Let's see. So if I'm say a course where someone's trying to learn to use a new email server, like we were talking about earlier, I would say, ah, this is... First, you would have your with from like what Dan said, where you're like, hey, this is the way it was, which is the story. This is why we're changing it. This is what that looks like.
Scott Schuette (31:44.386)
Give me an example.
Scott Schuette (31:59.043)
Mm-hmm.
Zeta (32:11.152)
And then we'll go through what I like to do is to put an avatar of whoever's trying the new thing and then naming this person and having her walk through it and then having almost kind of like a stand in for the learner to then go through on their own.
Scott Schuette (32:28.878)
Yeah, I think this is good example. All of this is really awesome. I feel like what makes good stories great are when they all kind of tie together. And you kind of mentioned that, Dan. So for me, master level storytelling is really kind of thinking about, OK, what's my objectives for the learning? What's going to be new, better, or different? And I think maybe the second question we need to ask ourselves after we do that, it necessary? Well, I mean, there's going to be the agenda. What am I going to talk about? What's the important information? So that's number two. Number three is like,
What story can I tell that ties it all together? And that's where you start. You start with that story to drive the Wiffen. This is Zeta. Zeta's on her bike and she's riding to go get groceries at Publix, right? And then all of a sudden, you know, and then, know, then there's that thing that happens, which kind of brings people together into the, know, where they can see themselves, I'm Zeta. I've been on that bike. I've gone to Publix on my bike and it's scary thing.
especially if you live in Florida where you're to get run over by a bunch of people who don't know how to drive. I get it. I'm with you. I'm with you. Something happens and you tie that into the why or what's in it for me. Then what's really great from a master storytelling perspective is we've thought this story out long enough to be able to tie all the other pieces into it as well. We can go back to Zeta. Zeta is in the hospital now because she got hit by Dan and his big
Daniel (33:30.371)
Hahaha
Zeta (33:31.76)
You
Zeta (33:54.448)
No.
Scott Schuette (33:55.278)
Jacked up pickup truck, you know what I'm saying? And this is why she needs this and this is she needs that. you tie everything together and you weave that narrative along. But how you start that to create the what's in it for me and then get people's buy into, I see myself here too. Oh, I've been through that as well. I understand now they're with you. Then you can tell whatever ding dang story you want around that character, because then that character becomes part of your audience journey.
Zeta (33:57.52)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel (33:58.979)
dance the worst.
Scott Schuette (34:23.116)
And in any time and every time that I find myself within this nested story, it's relevant. And relevant learnings are wicked more impactful. Holy crap, I just ranted. I'm so sorry, folks.
Zeta (34:37.904)
No, no, that was awesome. Yeah. And you sprinkled some emotional investment in there too. It was perfect. I thought it was chef's kiss.
Daniel (34:38.253)
That was great! Preach!
Daniel (34:46.361)
It's It's good stuff.
Scott Schuette (34:47.094)
Right, well, mean, worst case scenario, you bookend it, right? I think we talked about the start them laughing, leave them crying, start them with something interesting and funny that they can relate to and everything, and then just go right back at the end and hit them with something impactful and deep because they like you, it'll have more impact. If you can tie that to the overall narrative of story, that's fantastic. If you can go one step level.
Zeta (34:51.004)
Mm-hmm.
Scott Schuette (35:13.006)
pause in the middle of the most exciting part of the story and come back to it later. Holy crap. What are some things that we want to leave with our audience today, Dan and Zeta, that really reinforces everything we've talked
Zeta (35:18.192)
No kidding, no kidding.
Daniel (35:29.747)
I think if I could leave just the big stuff.
I have been a trainer. have been an instructional designer. I've up, down, left, and right been lucky enough in learning and development to do lots and lots of things. And I know sometimes that you get tasks and asks where you just go, man. And you're just like, let me just check the box and move on. Because you're like, hey, I just want to like, just get this done and move on to the next. And I would push each of you.
to pause and think before you just check the box that there's a story. A business doesn't ask to make a training to pull their people out of their daily tasks to take a training unless there's hopefully a good reason, unless there's a reason. There's a purpose. Find out what that story is. What's the story? Can I share this story? If I can't share the story, can we build a scenario based on this story so people understand why it's important?
Daniel (36:39.347)
As learning and development people, as people who are building these trainings, sharing these stories, we are often arbiters of
Daniel (36:50.489)
I'm gonna say the story again. That really feels like it's not the right word, but I feel like this is a huge part of our role that gets ignored because it's so much easier to ask somebody, when was the battle of Waterloo instead of why was the battle of Waterloo?
Scott Schuette (37:08.888)
I don't know the answer to either one of those questions. So I guess I'm in big trouble. You're going to tell me a story though later and it'll really tie it all together, right? Yeah, think that's great. Right.
Daniel (37:17.227)
I hope so.
Zeta (37:19.004)
That's the hope at least,
Scott Schuette (37:24.32)
That's awesome. everybody. Don't just be a subject matter expert. Go ahead and become an expert storyteller. That's fantastic. Dan, do me a favor. Could you just let everybody know how they can get in touch with us?
Daniel (37:36.927)
Absolutely. All right party people, you guys know what's up. Email us at nerds at thelearningnerds.com. This week we would love to know what is your story? What is your learning and development story? The story of a training that you had one time? The story of how you got into learning and development? We'd love to know. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at learning nerds. For all of our Instagram peeps, fab learning nerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates.
www.thelearningnerds.com. Just a quick note, we have recently updated the page. If you'd like to find the podcast, you'll need to go to the top bar and click on Fabulous Learning Nerds. Scott, back at you.
Scott Schuette (38:16.408)
I was like, hey Dan, thanks a lot. everybody, do me a favor, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, share this episode out with your friends or tell them a story about how awesome it is and that'd be great. Or you can go ahead and leave a review or a story over on iTunes or on Spotify or anywhere where you can go ahead and listen to your podcast because you want to know what doing so is going to help more people find this great information.
And that's an awesome thing. With that, I'm Scott.
Daniel (38:47.896)
I'm Dan.
Zeta (38:49.554)
I'm Zeta.
Scott Schuette (38:50.582)
and we're your Fabulous Learning Nerds and we are out.