Emotion and motivation lead the training path

Interview with Diego Ingrassia – “Emotion and motivation lead the training path” – MAY 2018_ PEOPLE&KNOWLEDGE N.129

A strong involvement of people starting from the planning phase, which must also be able to invest the company’s top management, is the secret of a successful training intervention.
This is according to Diego Ingrassia, CEO of I&G Management.
Training is an important investment, Ingrassia reminds us, which is why it must always be assessed from a strategic perspective.
Today more and more people are resorting to short interventions, to so-called ‘in a nutshell’ training, the reason is clear: the quest for greater efficiency in time management.
“We must not absolutely demonise this possibility, we must however be aware of its real impact on the quality of learning,” continues the CEO of I&G Management. “
The more the time available shrinks, the more the focus shifts to content rather than relationship.
There is thus a risk of providing ‘information’ rather than ‘training’ moments, to the detriment of the objectives to be pursued in what should be a real process.
I&G Management interprets training as ‘accompaniment to change’, mainly through two characterising themes. The first is emotions, because ‘if we help to bring out the emotional component in training courses, we help people to remember better what they have learned’.
In this sense, according to the CEO, “the Storytelling technique allows the rooting of content through emotional impact”.
The other fundamental aspect that should not be overlooked is the motivational aspect: “As Simon Sinek explains in his golden circle theory, great leaders are able to inspire by communicating through ‘whys’, i.e. by working on a person’s motivational processes.
Moreover, according to Ingrassia, “very often participants think that the training path is represented by the days with the trainer”:
“Instead, the path is articulated in the time between meetings and how our behaviour changes during this period, what we do differently in our daily activities”.
For this to happen, it is necessary to include indicators within the individual and group training plan, to “get people to make commitments to be completed outside the classroom”.
To this end, it may be functional to establish rules with the participants and initiate internal peer tutoring in a sort of challenge, “where the game also includes penalties for those who fail to meet their commitments”.
A good climate and mutual trust are therefore essential to set up such dynamics, since “when conflicts are best managed, it is always thanks to a good basic relationship”.
The experiential component acquires greater value thanks to the micro classroom design, which can be modified and interpreted on the basis of the feedback received from the participants:
“The central theme is the experience, how it is lived and above all remembered. This is why trainers must be flexible and competent, especially from an emotional point of view”.
A scientifically rigorous approach to the subject of emotions is the hallmark of I&G Management, the Italian representative of Paul Ekman’s method on the physiology of emotions.
In order to divulge this methodology to the general public, I&G consultants collaborated with Disney-Pixar Italia in the creation of emotional profiles and the emotional-behavioural analysis of the characters in Inside Out, a cinematographic masterpiece that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film 2016.