Oprah's staff plotted a flash mob for her 24th Season Kickoff Party. Oprah had no idea and the results were fantastic. A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place and perform an unusual action to surprise onlookers.
On September 8, 2009, this flash mob took over Chicago's Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue) to perform one of the biggest dances in the world. It was truly spectatular.
Masterminds award winning director Michael Gracey and top choreographer Ashley Wallin taught 20 professional dancers a routine to the smash hit "I Got a Feelin," which Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas customized just for Oprah. FaceBook and Twitter was used to find viewers that loved to dance. 800 people showed up and were taught by the 20 professionals. The day of the show, there was a rehearsal and those 800 helped 20,000 others learn. Even comedian "Ali" Wentworth, George Stephanopoulos' wife, who is a regular on Oprah's Friday's Live in Chicago, was grooving.
I really like the idea of learning from someone "like me," because if they can do it so can I. Therefore, the process that I recommend for teaching is large group of people something new is to train key people, and have those people train key people, etc. Making this work requires that a process be put in place that is simple, repeatable and measurable. For example, because the mob was standing so close to each other, it was easy to know when you were "out of step" and get back on track.
The "Train the Trainer" model was introduced as a way to teach an organizational committee made up of leadership and various groups to learn how to implement new document management procedures. The procedures were clear, written, peer reviewed steps for keeping the organizations documentation practices standardized and manageable. One person from each group (including leadership) will be taught the procedures by a Document Management Team Lead. The Group Lead becomes as much a subject matter expert (SME) as the Team Lead and will be responsible for teaching the members of their group. With a SME in each group, the person(s) being taught always have a point of contact that has a reasonable number of people to manage so that the SME does not become overwhelmed and ineffective. The SME is responsible for funneling information back to the Team Lead who can take action to do re-training as needed or even lead efforts to modify the written procedures if necessary.
I was thrilled watching the flash mob and give grand kudos to Oprah for beginning her 24th season, but the take-away for me was the fact that viral, train-the-trainer training really can work and pull off some pretty amazing feats!
Lorrinda S. Michieka, MBA Move My Mountain, LLC
