On a recent trip to Edinburgh, I went aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. It was wonderful to peak into the Queen’s bedroom, see that state dining hall and Senior officer’s quarters. These were all ‘above deck’ with windows and space.

However, there was far far more ‘below’ deck: Quarters for the crew (increasingly cramped as seniority reduced), far more bars than you might expect, the kitchens, the sick bay, the shower rooms, the surprisingly large laundry and of course the engine rooms.

Without these things, the Royal family couldn’t enjoy a peaceful nights sleep, those banquets wouldn’t happen and of course, the yacht wouldn’t go anywhere!

The analogy fits great learning experiences too. The things that are ‘on show’ are only there because of the design and preparation that have gone into them. They only work because there are (or were) things happening behind the scenes that make it so. Despite how the facilitator may make it look, they AREN’T just making it up on the spot. In a similar way to stand-up comedians who make you feel like they’re improvising the whole show when actually every word has been tested and rehearsed.

So there’s a reason why I suggest that you need at least 3 days to design a 1-day workshop: There was probably 3 times as much space on the Royal Yacht Britannia given over to making the whole thing work (and 10 times as many people as the royal family actually saw).

As L&D professionals, what we present to learners is just the end result – it’s NOT what actually goes into it, and it’s important to remind stakeholders of this. We need proper time to design in order to deliver the results they want, because there’s a LOT going on ‘below deck’… (and this graphic doesn’t include the half of it!!)

Remember that if you want help ‘below deck’ so you can deliver a polished and seemingly effortless service ‘above deck’ join us in our VIP community: Let us take the pressure off and make things quicker, easier and less stressful.