Trying Out This John Keller Stuff
So, I gotta share something I’ve been messing around with lately. It all started ’cause our internal workshops were just… dead. Honestly, you could hear crickets. People would show up, sure, but they were just bodies in chairs, faces glued to their phones or staring blankly. We needed to cover important stuff, compliance things, new software rollouts, you name it. But nothing was sticking. It felt like talking to a brick wall.
I was getting pretty fed up. Spent ages putting materials together, only for folks to forget it all the next day. Complained about it to anyone who’d listen. One day, I was venting to Sarah from the design team, and she mentioned this name – John Keller. Said he had some ideas about motivation in learning. Sounded kinda academic, but I was desperate, so I figured, why not look him up?
Found some articles online about his model, this ARCS thing. Stood for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. Seemed simple enough on the surface.
- Attention: Basically, grab ’em from the start. Don’t just drone on.
- Relevance: Show ’em why they should care. What’s in it for them?
- Confidence: Make ’em feel like they can actually do it. Don’t make it impossibly hard.
- Satisfaction: Let ’em feel good about learning it. A sense of accomplishment.
Okay, sounded logical. Decided to try it on the next onboarding session for new hires. That one was always a snoozefest.
Putting It Into Action
First, Attention. Instead of the usual boring ‘Welcome to the Company’ slide, I started with a question: “What’s the biggest screw-up you’ve seen at a previous job caused by bad communication?” Got people talking immediately, sharing some horror stories. Woke everyone up.
Then, Relevance. For every single module, I forced myself to answer the ‘So what?’ question. We were teaching them our internal project management tool. Instead of just clicking through menus, I framed it like, “Okay, knowing this step saves you from chasing Dave in Accounting for approvals for three days. Here’s how…” Tied everything back to their actual day-to-day pain points.
Confidence was trickier. The software is kinda clunky. So, I broke the training into super small chunks. Like, ridiculously small. We’d do one tiny task, everyone would get it done, and I’d make a big deal out of it. “See? You got it!” Lots of quick wins. Also set up a dedicated chat channel just for questions about the tool for the first month, so they knew help was available.
Finally, Satisfaction. This was about making them feel good about the effort. At the end of the main session, I didn’t just say ‘thanks’. We did a quick, fun quiz, framed as a ‘challenge’, with some dumb company swag as prizes. Also made sure their managers knew they’d completed the training and were ready to use the tool, giving them a bit of recognition.
How It Went
Was it perfect? Nah. Some jokes fell flat. One module still dragged a bit. And getting the ‘confidence’ part right took a few tries; the first time, I think I made the steps too small, and people got bored. It’s a balance.
But, man, the difference was noticeable. People were actually looking up. Asking questions. Even laughing sometimes. The feedback forms were way better than the usual “It was fine.” We got comments like “Actually useful” and “Kept me awake.” High praise, believe me.
I’m still figuring this Keller ARCS thing out, tweaking how I use it. It’s not magic, doesn’t instantly make boring topics thrilling. But it gave me a solid framework, a checklist almost, to stop just dumping information and start thinking about the actual person learning it. Made me realize I was just focused on what I was teaching, not how someone might actually learn it. Definitely keeping these ideas in my back pocket for future sessions.
