Make It Positive  

When riding a mountain bike through a treacherous section of trail, an experienced rider focuses on the line the bike must take through the rocks, ruts, and obstructions. The mental focus must be intense, willing the bike along the line that will take it through the section. Even an instant’s thought of what could go wrong or the consequences is enough to break the concentration, shake the confidence, and send the rider tumbling down the mountainside.

It’s focusing on what you want to happen that makes it happen. Your audience tends to go where their minds have been aimed. Programming those minds with mistakes and fears may only weaken your message of how to do things right. Dwelling on the consequences can frighten your audience into believing the less they do the safer they become.

This concept has become an accepted tenet in training, leading to wide agreement that modeling only correct procedures and behavior is the best approach in most situations. Why clutter the minds of your audience with things you never want them to do?

Audience recall is never perfect and, after experiencing some e-learning, it’s possible that an audience may remember only the vivid image of something being done incorrectly, rather than the admonition, “Don’t do it this way.” The fine points are often forgotten, so all that’s retained is “This is what I saw in the training,” and on that association they assume it’s right. So by planting a negative image that was imperfectly remembered, your training can actually make matters worse.

Sometimes it is necessary to point out common problems, but you can do so quickly or verbally, or by showing only the consequences without modeling incorrect behavior; then cut straight to demonstrating the behavior that will prevent those problems.

In some situations, particularly in sales and management training, it may be helpful to debunk common misconceptions or show the negative consequences of what people may think is the proper thing to do. Humor can be helpful here. By showing how ridiculous the character who acts this way really is, your audience may then notice themselves doing the same thing, recognizing that they are being just as silly as the character in the e-learning.

The deciding factor is whether the audience is already practicing the behavior and possibly unaware that they are guilty of it or that it’s hurting their performance. By showing only a parody of this behavior, your training’s not introducing them to any bad habits they don’t already practice.

When trying to change attitudes, positives also work better. Avoiding problems mostly maintains the status quo hardly exciting. Your audience wants to improve.  For example:

• A dire warning about head injuries will probably do more to alienate athletes than excite them. But if they can hear top players talking about being more aggressive when wearing protective gear, that’s what every competitor wants to hear. So glamorize it. Show how cool it can look.
  
• Rather than dwelling on the messy, inefficient office, show people enjoying the extra time they’ve earned by using your product or adopting your techniques to clean up that mess.

Another problem with showing negatives is that negative images are often so powerful that your message becomes associated with them, regardless of what you may then attempt to do to position yourself as the alternative to that image.

• When designing product training to introduce the sales force to a men’s cologne targeted to more sensitive-type guys, I opened with a put-down of macho meatheads and pin-striped clones. The imagery was so strong it overshadowed the message that this new scent offers a refreshing alternative. I lost the job.
  
• Safety and human services training is particularly prone to wallowing in the negative. The broken bodies beside the road and heart-wrenching poor little crippled children are familiar to most of us.

What do these images do to an audience? They make the audience uncomfortable. The audience wants it to stop. One way an audience can “make it stop” is to heed the message of the e-learning and attempt to change the world, knowing full well that the best of their efforts will only lessen the problem. The other way to “make it stop” is to simply turn off mentally ignore the training. It’s quick. It’s easy. It isolates them from the problem completely. Which do you think most audiences choose?

Sure, you have to make an audience aware of the problem and its consequences. But how much argument does it take to convince people that poverty, senseless slaughter on the highways, or crippling diseases are bad? How many people in your audience are actually advocating death and suffering? Is your goal to beat them over the head or to motivate them to start solving the problem?

A problem-solving approach would be to show the gratification, sense of belonging, and power to change things that those who are doing something about a problem enjoy. Invite your audience to share in this joy and accomplishment, meeting people they will be proud to know. Show how people who enjoy life are able to prevent drunk driving or deal with other social problems. Show the action you want them to take; show the rewards.

Scolding and dwelling on the horrors may help swell the self-righteousness of the already-converted, but will remind others only of why they would just as soon not think about it.

Negatives don't motivate. You'll never hear cheerleaders shout “Don't lose the ball,” or “We're not losers.” They yell out what they want to happen, which is exactly what e-learning needs to do. Give your audience a goal. Show them how to do it. Give them an image to envision, that of being confident and successful. It’s easier and more effective for your audience to copy success than to repress failure.

John Morley is the author of Scriptwriting for High-Impact Videos, and an instructional designer working with Kaiser Permanente. He can be reached at John@OriginalVision.com.