When I conduct a train-the-trainers course, I am invariably asked what advice I would give to new instructors. Since I never remember all the things I want to tell them, I’ve compiled these points.
1) Doff the authority armor. People don’t learn through intimidation or from instructors who put up mental or physical barriers. (Toss the lectern in the supply closet and keep a table beside you, not in front of you.) If you intimidate them, they are more likely to freeze up mentally, and if that doesn’t work, their brains will work overtime to push the learning experience as far away from their memory as possible.
2) Make training fun. I can relate to that from personal experience when I was stationed in Germany and my German girlfriend and I drove down to the Austrian Alps for skiing. All the way there, Sonja kept saying “I hate skiing” in her native language. We both persevered. I was dumbstruck after the first day when she told me what a great time she had. Before I could blurt out a “what?” she explained that it was the first time she skied as an adult and wasn’t forced to take lessons. She learned on her own, and had fun doing it!
3) Don’t take it personally. Some people may resent having to come to training for good reasons. Their attitude will be on full display. It isn’t and won’t be about you unless you take it personally. Challenge their attitude and you have just lost control of your class, along with their support. Get them involved without being pushy or demanding. If you make learning fun and it answers W.I.I.F.M., they will probably come around.
4) Have your participants work in groups and on group exercises. People are less threatened working collectively and are more likely to participate knowing there is safety in numbers or shared responsibility.
5) Give feedback as you would to a CEO or a world leader--respectfully. Focus on the behavior or response rather than the personality and give the feedback sandwich—the good, the area to improve, and encouragement.
6) Do 10% of the talking and 90% of the listening and observing. People like learning on their own. It gives them a greater sense of accomplishment and ownership. They will remember it much longer than if someone teaches it to them. Your job is to show the way through facilitation rather than presentation.
7) Make people walk, talk and write. The more people are in motion, the more energized they are. Lecture is deadly. The hippocampus in your brain will record what is being said until it decides on its own to only filter the unimportant information, or even stop completely as the daydream takes over. Complete shutdown is usually 15 minutes. For some, you will only have 10 minutes before their minds are outside the room.
8) Avoid PowerPoint. Most people think they know how to use PowerPoint, but the truth is that most of them know how it works, but don’t know how to design it or integrate it, and they don’t even create it very well. Too many people put too much information on too few slides, as if they had to pay for each slide. Research shows that when you’re 30 seconds into your next slide, the people have already forgotten 90% of the previous one.
9) Place learning over content. When an instructor says “I’ve got to get through this,” or “I don’t have time to give them a break,” I already know an instructor who has forgotten what she was supposed to be facilitating for the sake of content. Rushing through content or denying breaks will not facilitate learning. The mind will rebel and wander, even though you may cover content.
10) You’re not there to be popular or to be an entertainer. Not surprisingly some of the best training results actually come from instructors who weren’t so popular, which means a positive reaction to you doesn’t guarantee that learning occurred or stuck.
11) Start on time and end on time. Nothing shows a lack of respect for a class like an instructor who shows up late or one who goes beyond the ending time. I knew one who thought it was perfectly acceptable to go 30 or 40 minutes beyond the close. In other words, whatever he had to teach them was more important than whatever plans they may have had afterwards. If you make it a habit to show up late, they will too.
12) Avoid berating anyone who comes in late because you never know what delayed him or her. You could end up embarrassing yourself.
13) Don’t blame the topic no matter how dull it might seem to you. Find a way to make it interesting by involving people, making them find information, or by them competing with other groups. The impossible is not impossible, it only takes a little longer.
14) Your training should be one third to one half practice. That’s where training differs from education. The closest thing education has to it is called lab.
15) Training is the least part of their learning. Remember, it is a process, not a result. You’ve heard the saying, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” The most important part of their learning is transferring it to the workplace and practice, practice, practice, practice. It’s way too easy for people to default to their comfort zone of doing things the old way. You have to take steps with the participant’s manager to ensure that doesn’t happen. The purpose of training is to change behavior, but you also want to make the change habitual.