HOW TO HAVE AN INTERESTING AND
EFFECTIVE SAFETY MEETING . . .
By Involving Your Audience - Part II
People can quickly become catatonic when someone else
is talking. Even when they are paying attention, people tend to
remember little of what’s given in lectures. Attendees at a
psychological society meeting in England were asked, two weeks after
the meeting, to write down what they recalled.
Of the points actually covered in the speeches, attendees
remembered an average of only 8.4 percent! And 42 percent of what
they said they remembered was incorrect—much of it was not
even in the meeting.
Lecture style presentations have been shown to be
nearly six times less effective than those that include audience
participation. As you can see, you’ve got to get your audience
involved if you want them to remember the topic.
A few ways to involve your audience during your next
safety presentation:
Make Something Together
During a "stress" seminar I regularly conduct,
attendees make a worry box. We (usually myself included) write down
a few of our present worries on a small slip of paper and then put
the slip in our box. There’s more to this exercise than I’ve
just described, but the point is it gets the audience to do something
instead of just listening to me describe how to stop worrying. You
can do the same thing with any topic, whether it’s back care,
fall protection or defensive driving. Make something with your audience
and they will become more involved in the session.
Hand Out a Small Object to Everyone
For example: give each participant a small bolt before
they sit down; immediately, they become involved. It doesn’t
matter what the object is, as long as you use it as part of your
discussion, it will have a positive impact on your audience.
Role Playing
I don’t like role playing much, so I rarely use
it as a training aid. However, it can be an effective way to involve
your audience and I have been to a few seminars where it was well
done. For example: during one "root-cause" session I attended,
supervisors were given tips on how to conduct a thorough accident
investigation. The presenter had each supervisor interview him in
front of the group (he played the role of the accident victim).
I enjoyed the exercise and thought it was worth the time. That was
over nine years ago and though I don’t remember much else about
the seminar, I can still recall details from the role-playing section.
If you use role playing, make sure you’re well prepared and
that the scenarios are realistic.
Set Up a Competition:
This gets them involved every time. Break the audience
up into groups of no more than five people. Then describe a task
or problem. Announce a time limit and set them to work. Like role-playing,
you must be prepared for this to work. Be willing to change the
rules or even scrap the competition if you feel it isn’t accomplishing
its purpose.
"Test Time!!!"
This is one of my favorite ways to involve an audience.
Especially large ones. Ask the questions out loud and have attendees
write the answers on a large index card or pre-made answer sheet.
Multiple-choice tests work best. (I call mine "multiple-guess"
tests because they are never easy and always unfair.) You can use
a test to prove that there are misconceptions about the topic; that
the topic is much more important than most people realize; or simply
to test your audience’s knowledge of the subject.
I’ve briefly described a few of the many ways
you can involve people in a training session or presentation. Which
one you use is your business—just be sure to do something that
involves your audience.
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