We always enjoy delivering our Train the Trainer course at Aspire Leadership, not least because it’s an opportunity to explore our pet subject, deal with questions we are often asked in the training room, and show the strings behind how we do what we do on a daily basis, from consultation to design to delivery.
The whole process of training can be a bit daunting, especially if you are new to the game, so, as always, we create a relaxed, interactive atmosphere to make sure people feel comfortable trying out new ideas with plenty of practice and personal coaching as the day goes on.
Here are some of the questions that often come up in our Train the Trainer courses:
How do I create meaningful outcomes for the training?
In our design consultations, we do a mini gap analysis to see where the changes need to happen and include conversations with different stakeholders to make sure we get the full picture.
Finally, just to make sure, we recommend using a version of the “magic wand” question. We ask:
If you could wave a magic wand, how would things be different after people have attended the training?
The behavioural or process changes identified will define your learning outcomes. Then everything you include in the content must be strictly built around achieving them.
It’s really important to ask yourself what you want them to walk away thinking, feeling, and being able to do as a result of the training.
There’s no point getting knowledge into them if they don’t act on it and use it. So it’s a good idea to really distil the key messages, find a way that they can take that key information in, learn it, and then be able to use it productively.
How do I structure a training session without overloading people?
Once you have those learning outcomes sorted out you need to make decisions about what you need to include and, importantly, what you can leave out.
Anything that isn’t essential for the learning outcomes on the day you can put into a separate session or a follow up document. Beware of drowning people with data!
And once you have the content nailed and the key messages clear, the next decisions are around how you are going to deliver the day.
It’s your job to keep your audience:
Awake, engaged, and informed – in that order!
If they are asleep or bored they won’t take the information in. This is why it’s so important to focus on the HOW of your delivery.
Part of the structuring the day is to think about how the audience is experiencing and engaging with it. This needs to be varied and appropriate for your participants.
I’m worried people will be bored as the material is quite dry.
If you’re worried about the material being boring, then you’re probably right!
There are two questions it’s important to answer as you design the training and during the delivery:
1. What is it that I find interesting about this?
Ask yourself why it is important and what sparks your curiosity about it.
2. Why is it relevant to them?
Ask yourself why they will care about it, what impact it will have for them, and what will make them remember it. Its all about making learning sticky.
You might think about how you make the training come to life, what stories you tell about it, how important it is to them, and what jeopardy they or the organisation might be in if the training isn’t adhered to.
It’s a neat trick to put some of these ideas up front to get buy in. People start to get the point of why they need to do these things. The relevance of the training is often something that’s overlooked. But if you know your “why”, then your enthusiasm will be infectious to them and help them keep awake, engaged, and informed.
How do I keep people awake?
As a rule of thumb – avoid repetition!
Repetition can put people to sleep (think about rocking a baby to sleep), whether that’s repetition of tone, rhythm, pitch, the way you’re speaking, your gestures, or even just where you’re standing or sitting.
So in everything that you do, whether it’s a PowerPoint slide or whether it’s a video, whether it’s a discussion, or a game or a task, try to vary the methods you use. Even thinking about different places you can be in the environment will make a difference. So moving around the room is good for you and it’s good for them too to change the dynamic. And if you can get the participants up and moving, even better.
How can I keep people engaged with different learning styles?
There are various training styles and many different types of interventions. According to who you’ve got in the room as participants, different people will respond to different ways of learning.
Facilitative, Experiential, or Directive
There may be occasions where you’re extremely facilitative and you want to take a coaching approach to draw out their abilities. You may set a task or challenge and coach them along the way, so that they learn as they go along by finding out for themselves.
You might choose to put together the circumstances in which they experiment with things. You can use games or props or even simulations for them to do that. There are many experiential exercises you can use so that they can learn by doing.
You can facilitate experiential interventions by prompting them with questions which will extend their learning. Or they can talk between themselves, feed back to the group and learn in that way.
Or sometimes you might choose to be very directive and lay out information in a very clear and methodical way. You can use models on a flip chart or screen to show structured information or steps to be taken.
It is a question of what fits the content and your participants and what is going to help them most. Many people tend to think everything has to be directive, but a lot of the time that’s not necessarily the most effective way of giving the information.
So in our Train the Trainer course, we have a look at the difference in impact between doing the task for the delegates which they then have to learn by imitation; telling them how to do it precisely so that they follow instructions; or letting them find their approach and problem solve for themselves as you coach them through the process.
We introduce each of those as principles, which you can mix and match and choose various options as appropriate when you design your training day.
What if I give them time for questions and I just get silence… tumbleweed?
A good facilitator needs to appear at ease with questions, both answering them and asking them.
If you’re worried that nobody’s going to ask questions when you ask for them try this:
Right at the top of the day, when you first start your training, ask your participants some questions and get them to start talking to you. Easy questions are best, like, “has anybody here done any training on this before? Hands up! “ And if you raise your own hand, they will do likewise. If somebody says yes, they have done some training before, you can build on it by showing interest. “Oh, what was it that you did? And has anybody else done that? “ In this way you can encourage the participants to feel relaxed talking to you. Once you do that, they understand that it’s not a passive day where they just put their feet up and go to sleep. If you pepper the day with interactions, they will feel much more inclined to come back and ask you questions when you want them to.
What if I go blank and can’t answer the questions?
If there are questions that you feel you can’t answer, for whatever reason, bear in mind that every question is a GIFT, even if you don’t know the answer, because it means that people are awake. and engaged.
If you don’t know immediately how to answer a question you can:
Open it out to the group and ask their thoughts. (It could even become a discussion point!)
You can suggest you speak about it after the session or get back to them later when you can find the details
But whatever the question is, embrace it, and if you show curiosity as opposed to fear, then that’s engaging for everybody, and will help you.
What do I do if someone gets disruptive or starts to take over?
If you hit resistance in people, and if you feel that there’s a kind of reluctance for whatever reason be careful not to let your doubts get the better of you and allow your assumptions to take over.
There are often reasons why people are resistant to training. It could be something political going on in the organisation, nothing to do with you, or maybe they have been sent and feel criticised or that they shouldn’t be there, or they may feel insecure for myriad reasons. In which case they may need a bit of acknowledgement and reassurance.
If someone keeps interrupting or talking too much a simple action is to take your eye contact to the rest of the group and take the discussion to them. You can always split people into pairs or smaller groups to work on a task too.
At Aspire Leadership we have a secret sauce – we never make people wrong.
If somebody is putting forward an alternative opinion, then we immediately look for something that is right about what they’re saying. This saves you from an awful lot of arguments and hostility.
Remember – every question is a gift so look for what you can acknowledge, agree with, or be curious about. Try to stay open and appreciative. You can allow and be interested in different points of view without letting go of your point. The mistake people often make is that they can’t give space to people to have a different viewpoint without appearing weak. So they hold on with white knuckles disagreeing with the participant and simply repeating their view more emphatically. This often has the impact of shutting down the participants or even creating a level of resentment. You don’t need to let go of your knowledge or facts to allow others to discuss their thoughts.
It’s a very deft skill to avoid making people wrong and embrace discussion. It creates an excellent environment for training, and the rest of the group will appreciate it too.
