What do producing and learning have to do with fortune telling?
Here’s a truth. If you work in a creative studio, you probably recognize that cultivating the creative acumen of artists is a good investment. The industry reflects this belief. The volume of opportunities for artists to advance their knowledge and skills is dizzying.
What about producers? Sure, their work isn’t shiny. They don’t get to “make sh** look cool.” Even if they produce an award-winning job it’s not their creative baby in the same way it belongs to the artists. No. Producers are there to make all that other stuff possible, fluid, and easy. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for gaining the skills on the job.
Here’s another truth. It’s not just the work that keeps clients coming back; it’s the experience of how that work came to be. This means production must be on point.
I often wonder how much revenue studios are losing out if they don’t invest in their producers, especially in this world of remote and hybrid work where shadowing is replaced by Zoom calls and Slack threads. I also wonder how many headaches producers could avoid if they invested in themselves. If my co-founder, Rebecca Olson, is correct, the answer in both cases is “a lot.”
Here’s a third truth. Learning and development (L&D) is known to boost morale and increase retention, but not all L&D programs are equal. Ineffective pedagogy is rampant.
At its core, pedagogy refers to the method and practice of teaching. When pedagogical strategies are sound, they can propel professional training to new heights. The primary goal of any training session is for the attendees to retain and apply the knowledge they gain. Good pedagogy ensures that training is not just about information dumping but rather about targeted, carefully crafted and memorable experiences. Instead of passive learning, where attendees merely listen to a lecture, effective pedagogy is painstakingly structured to promote maximum uptake, and it is heavy on active participation.
Here’s a fourth truth. At Deducers, we create courses to train producers using the highest standards in L&D.
Here’s an example. One of the things experienced producers will tell you is that, when you’re running a project you need to “read the room” to see how your resources are doing. You need to know more than the status of projects, you need to know the status of people. “Read the room” is sound advice, right? Or is it?
It really depends on your audience and how that worldly piece of wisdom is broken down. If you’re speaking to someone who already has the experience to know what you mean, you can get away with a reference like “read the room.” Unfortunately, APs, Coordinators and Junior Producers who do not have enough experience on the job, interacting with people, might not know what “reading the room” actually entails. A sound byte won’t do here.
Instead, this worthy piece of advice needs clarification. It needs to be made relatable to someone with less experience in the industry. Furthermore, those trying to understand just what that means need to be given the opportunity to “chew,” meaning they need to actively reflect on whatever it is they’ll be looking for to “read the room,” how they might interpret it and how they should respond.
So, how do you teach this effectively? Our approach is first to make it relatable. Have you ever seen Harry Potter? Do you remember when he saw his fortune, the grim, in a teacup in Divination class? Experienced producers will also tell you that reading the room is a bit like fortune telling—it’s a subtle art, not an exact science, but it does take skill. So, how about reading TEA Leaves? When you read the room you are looking for signs that tell you how your team is doing. These signs include Talk, Execution, and Action. This is what your team Leaves on the table for you to interpret to gauge how they are feeling, whether they are struggling and their level of motivation.
Next, we ask them to chew. We ask them questions. We have them ask questions. We get them to engage with the material. For example, when considering how your team is Talking, what should you pay attention to? Obviously, you need to hear what they are saying, but you also need to interpret them. Does it make sense? If not, maybe they don’t understand what they need to do. Maybe they are unclear as to what the client wants. What about the tone? Is it friendly? Is it short? If it’s short, perhaps they are frustrated. What about the tempo? Is it quick? If so, maybe they are feeling rushed. Are people not talking at all? If people are normally chatty but all of a sudden go silent, this can also be a telltale sign that something is wrong.
Our approach is to break down each letter of the acronym so that someone with relatively little experience on the job can grasp what to look for. Importantly, we don’t just provide the questions, we invite our learners to think of questions and to think of examples. We invite them to do the mental work because that’s what makes it stick.
Play along for a moment. Ask yourself, if you were evaluating Execution, how might you tell if someone needs a rest?
Really. . .think about it. State an answer aloud.
Now frame it as a question. “Are they . . . ?”
Active engagement is crucial for taking in information and retaining it so that you have it when you need to use it later on the job. Addressing that simple question probably gave rise to a flurry of ideas that will help you to not only remember that paying attention to execution is important, but how you might go about gauging it. For example, Are your team members churning out work like usual? Are they slow or behind? Is their work sloppy or crisp?
Finally, we provide more opportunities for engagement, like scenarios, and exercises that our learners can do on their own and receive feedback on. These help our learners strengthen retention of the material we cover in our classes. We don’t just give them the bike (an information dump), we make them hop on and pedal. That way, when time comes to use the knowledge and skills they’ve learned on the job, they are ready for the ride.
