The following is an interview with Karen Carlson, a former trainer for the Best Buy corporation, and now an independent Training Designer and Facilitator.
Tell me a little bit about your background.
I worked for Best Buy for nearly 19 years, half in the retail stores and half at corporate. My training background mainly lies in developing and delivering engaging training sessions for retail leadership. Topics ranged from company culture to diversity to leadership development to facilitation skills and more.
Why game shows?
Why not game shows?!?
What caused or inspired you to bring game shows into the training space?
I love to play games myself and always enjoy a little friendly competition. I found game shows and other interactive forums to be a great way to measure if learning is truly taking place without having to do former exams. What would you rather do: take a “final exam” or play a game?!?
Tell me a little bit about your trainees and training group?
Most of my trainees were new or existing leaders within Best Buy who were about to open a new store. Most participant were under age 30, likely even under age 25. My training groups ranged in size from 30 – 150 people from across the United States.
There's a new push to "engage the Millennial generation" entering the workforce, how do you feel, or how have you seen, game shows work with the Millennial audience?
Game shows are perfect for the Millennial audience. They have grown up on games, likely computer games. They are highly competitive and full of energy. The game shows play right into this. They are a way to learn while having fun. Getting a question right or winning the game also gives their self esteem a little boost.
What was the game show experience like in your training classroom?
I created the questions (usually using the Jeopardy-style [Categories] game) based on the content of the 4-day training program. I facilitated the game as a closing activity on the last day of class, again to see what learning had taken place AND to end the event on a high-energy note. With large groups, I had the teams rotate so each person would at least get a chance at answering a question. If I saw that certain questions were consistently missed, my coworkers and I would reexamine the content to see if we weren’t landing that message appropriately or if the question simply wasn’t well written. The game show was always a very popular part of the program.
Getting into Gameshow Pro, specifically, what games did you use, and what are some examples of how they were used?
I usually used Categories [Jeopardy!-style] as it seemed to fit my larger group size better. We also used this in some of our department meetings to spice them up a bit, especially if a new initiative was rolling out.
What impact do you think game shows have on trainees/training?
It showed the trainees that training does not (and should not) simply be a download of information from one person to the others AND that training is fun! If you let the trainees know ahead of time that there will be some sort of a quiz, they are also likely to pay closer attention and take better notes. Since my audience would have to go to their home market and train their new employees, it also provided good examples of how they could bring life and interactivity to their training sessions – even if they did not have access to Gameshow Pro.
What advice would you give to other trainers either using game shows, or considering using game shows in training?
Keep doing it, or start doing it if you aren’t already! Everyone wants to learn, but no one wants to be bored by learning. Collaborating and interacting are important and necessary skills in today’s world. Game shows are an arena where these skills can be practiced in a fun, safe, yet somewhat competitive environment.
Anything else you'd like to share?
Anyone for a game of Scrabble?!?
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