Most people leave conferences, training sessions and workshops feeling inspired. A week later, they've forgotten almost everything. A month later, they can barely remember what the event was about.
Ian Gibbs, personal development expert and founder of his own consultancy with 25 years of experience and a team of 25 people, opened his talk at JOBMadrid'24 with exactly this problem. And then he offered a way out.
Awareness is not the same as learning. Ian introduces the concept of the "tea ceremony": you turn up, an expert shares ideas, everyone feels inspired, and then nothing changes. According to Benjamin Bloom's hierarchy of cognitive development, basic awareness sits at the very bottom of the learning scale. Remembering something is not the same as mastering it. Most people, one month after an event, have forgotten more than 80% of what they experienced. The conference itself is not a learning experience. It's a potential learning experience, and that distinction matters.
The three ingredients that actually make learning stick. Whether you're starting a new job, attending a training session or reading a book, Ian argues that without these three elements you are not growing: a plan (a clear strategy for applying what you've learned), pressure (a mechanism that keeps you accountable to that plan), and evaluation (a regular check on whether you are actually making progress). Most learning activities provide none of the three.
The buddy system: a simple tool that multiplies results. Ian's practical challenge for the audience is concrete. Find one person at the event you connect with. After the conference, sit down for 30 minutes and explain to each other what the most important points were and what you're going to do in the next few days. Then spend the following weeks helping each other carry out those plans: a WhatsApp message, a weekly check-in, a coffee to review progress. Repeat for four weeks. The act of explaining something to someone else, what Ian calls vocalization learning, is one of the most effective ways to consolidate what you've learned.
Two real examples of what this looks like in practice. Rodrigo was a sales trainee who was falling behind his colleagues and close to losing his job. By identifying his specific problem, setting daily micro-goals and sharing his progress with a small group every day at noon, he went from worst performer to team leader in four months. Carmen was a senior director who spent four years going to language classes to improve her English, when the real problem was her ability to give presentations. Two months of weekly practice presentations on Zoom solved what four years of classes hadn't.
If you want to watch Ian Gibbs' full talk at JOBMadrid'24, here it is:
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