learn-course-design-with-phoebe / Delivery session 2 of 6
Learn Course Design with Phoebe · Delivery track, session 2 of 6

Adult motivation

A room of adults who did not choose to be there is not a design problem you can solve with enthusiasm. They arrive with a working method, a full week, and a reasonable suspicion that this is a box being ticked. Tonight: the three things adults need before they will spend attention, why mandatory training reliably produces completion instead of change, and how to handle the person who has been doing it their own way for eleven years and is not wrong.

🟢 Easy Anyone who has run a session nobody asked for Bring a mandatory course you attended 45 min
0-3 · Welcome 3-18 · Three needs, and what mandatory does 18-40 · Build-along: the first five minutes 40-45 · Q&A
Part 0

Where we are

b1 diagnosed the request. Tonight is about the people it will be delivered to, most of whom did not ask for it and some of whom already know how.

🎫 Clear all three quiz questions to stamp your passport Live = presented in the 45 minutes Self-study = the full depth, after class

★ What you walk out with tonight. A first five minutes built around their problem rather than your agenda, a plan for the expert in the room, and a clear-eyed view of what mandatory attendance actually buys.

Part 1 · covers the three needs

Relevance, autonomy, competence

6 min live

These are not motivational slogans. Each one has a specific failure mode in a training room, and each has a cheap fix that costs minutes rather than budget.

Relevance sounds like "this is not really how it works on my team" the fix use their material, their repository, their last incident costs an hour of preparation Autonomy sounds like silence, phones, and polite compliance the fix a real choice - which cases, what order, opt out of one part costs nothing at all Competence sounds like "we already do this", said slightly sharply the fix honour the method they have before changing it costs one sentence All three failures look like a bad audience from the front. All three are design decisions made earlier. The most expensive fix on this diagram is one hour of preparation, and it is the one that gets skipped.
🔍 Click to zoom - the room is not disengaged, it is responding accurately to what it was given
LiveThe first five minutes, which decide the rest4 min▶

Same rule as the opening line in learn-communication-with-phoebe session 5, and for the same reason: people decide early whether this is theirs.

  • Start from their problem, not your topic. Not "today we are covering data contracts". Instead: "on 14 August, thirty-four dashboards were wrong before anybody noticed. Some of you got paged. We are going to make that specific thing less likely."
  • Say what you are not going to do. "This is not a lecture about why contracts matter - you already agree." Naming the thing they were dreading removes it.
  • Give a real choice in the first five minutes. "There are ten cases and we will get through seven. You pick which three we drop." Small, genuine, and it changes the posture of the room.
  • Say how long, and mean it. "Forty minutes and I will finish at 10:40." People give attention much more freely when the end is visible.
Part 2 · covers mandatory

What compliance actually buys you

6 min live

Making something mandatory is the standard organisational response to the problem you diagnosed in b1. It is worth being precise about what it delivers, because it does deliver something - just not the thing anybody wanted.

Mandatory reliably produces What was actually wanted A completion percentage A changed behaviour An auditable record Fewer broken dashboards A room including people who did not need it The third who did need it, actually practising When mandatory is genuinely right When the record is the point - regulatory, safety, legal. Then say so plainly, keep it short, and do not pretend it is a development opportunity. People can tell, and pretending costs you the next one.
🔍 Click to zoom - the left column is real value, for a different problem
LiveThe expert in the room, who is not wrong4 min▶

Somebody in your session has been doing this for eleven years and has a method. Your session implicitly says their method needs changing. That is a competence threat, and the sharp comment at minute six is what it sounds like.

  • Honour it out loud, first. "Most of you already check this informally. What we are doing is making it explicit so it survives somebody being on holiday." Their method is not wrong, it is unshared - which is true and much easier to accept.
  • Give them a role. Ask them to review a pair's classification, or to argue the other side of an ambiguous case. An expert with a job is your best asset in the room; an expert with nothing to do is your biggest risk.
  • Use their objection as material. "That is a good challenge, let us take it as case eleven." The room learns more from that than from your prepared example, and the objector is now a contributor.

What does not work: overruling them with authority, or ignoring the comment and continuing. The room is watching how you handle it and will calibrate their own participation accordingly, in the first ten minutes.

Build-along

Write the first five minutes

★ 22 min · everyone builds

Their problem, specifically. A date, a number, a thing that happened to them. "On 14 August, thirty-four dashboards were wrong and some of you got paged."

Not this. Name the thing they were dreading and remove it. "This is not an hour on why contracts matter."

A real choice. Small and genuine. Which cases, what order, which part to skip. Fake choices are worse than none - people detect them instantly.

The clock. How long, and the finishing time, said out loud. Then finish then. Attention is cheap to buy and expensive to lose.

The expert. Honour the existing method in one sentence, and decide now what role you will give them.

Write your opening word for word. Five sentences maximum. This is the one part of a session worth scripting, for the same reason as the opening line in the communication course - you are otherwise composing while speaking, in front of people who are deciding whether to listen.

Find your specific incident. A date, a number, a consequence somebody in the room felt. Generic openings produce generic attention.

Write your not-this line. What are they expecting that you are not going to do? Say it in the first minute and watch the shoulders drop.

Design one genuine choice. Then check it is real - would you actually run it differently based on their answer? If not, do not offer it.

Write the sentence that honours the existing method. "Most of you already do this informally; we are making it explicit so it survives a holiday." Adapt to your context, keep the shape.

Decide the expert's role in advance. Reviewer, devil's advocate, case contributor. Deciding in the moment is how it becomes a contest.

If your session is mandatory, write the honest sentence. "This is required and the record matters. I have made it forty minutes rather than ninety, and the third part is genuinely useful." Respect buys more attention than pretending does.

If you take one thing from tonight. Start from something that happened to them, with a date on it. It costs one sentence and it is the difference between a room that is present and a room that is compliant.

Homework

Before session b3

20 min
  1. Write and rehearse a real opening. Five sentences, out loud, three times.
  2. Find your specific incident. Real date, real number. Ask somebody if you do not have one.
  3. Design one genuine choice and check you would actually honour it.
  4. Think of the expert who will be there and decide their role before the day.
  5. Recall a mandatory course you attended. What did its opening do? Most of them open by explaining why the topic is important, which is the one thing the room already accepts.
Check yourself

Three questions

Clear all three and this session gets stamped in your passport.

1 · What does making training mandatory reliably produce?

Mandatory delivers exactly what it is designed to deliver: evidence that people attended. When the record is genuinely the point - regulatory, safety, legal - say so plainly and keep it short. Pretending it is a development opportunity is what people can tell, and it costs you the next session.

2 · Someone with eleven years of experience says sharply "we already do this". What is the best response?

The comment is a competence threat, and their method usually is not wrong - it is unshared, which is a much easier thing to say and to accept. An expert with a role is your best asset in the room; the same person with nothing to do is your biggest risk, and the room is watching how you handle it.

3 · Why open with a specific incident rather than with why the topic matters?

Almost every mandatory course opens by persuading the room of something the room already agrees with, which spends the five minutes that decide everything. Relevance is the doubt, not importance, and specificity is what settles it.

Sources covered

What this session teaches, and where it came from

✓Relevance, autonomy, competenceEach with the failure signal it produces in a room and a fix costing minutes rather than budget
✓The first five minutesTheir problem with a date on it, the not-this line, a genuine choice, the clock. Same logic as the opening line in learn-communication-with-phoebe
✓What mandatory buysA completion percentage and a record. Real value, for a different problem - and when it is genuinely the right call, say so plainly
✓The expert in the roomHonour the method as unshared rather than wrong, give them a role, use the objection as case eleven
◐Motivation theoryThe models behind these three needs are named rather than taught. This session stays at what to do on Tuesday

Every fact on this page, and its verification tier, is recorded in the course's source map.

Delivery b2 cheat sheet · pin this

Three needsRelevance · autonomy · competence. Each failure looks like a bad audience and is a design decision.
Open with their incidentA date, a number, something that happened to somebody in the room.
Say the not-thisName what they were dreading and remove it in the first minute.
One real choiceWould you actually honour it? If not, do not offer it. Fake choices are worse than none.
Unshared, not wrongThe expert's method usually is not wrong. It is undocumented, and that is easier to accept.
Mandatory buys a recordReal value, different problem. Say so plainly rather than dressing it up.