When training others it’s easy to fall into bad habits.
Here are six common ones!
1. Not answering questions
When participants ask questions it’s easy to not adequately answer them. You might be so used to receiving certain questions that you assume that the question being posed is the same as the one you’ve heard many time before – and proceed to answer that (different) question. That’s really annoying for the questioner – so make sure you listen to the question!
If you don’t believe your answer is actually fulfilling the questioner’s intent, at the end of your answer ask the questioner if your reply was adequate. If a much longer answer proves to be needed, and it’s not directly relevant to the rest of the class, say that you’ll be happy to give a fuller answer at break-time.
Always listen to questions to see if you can derive immediate feedback from them. For example, a participant might ask a question that indicates they’ve not understood a point you’ve covered. If that’s the case, it’s very likely that other people within the group have also not understood that point. So use questions as pointers to how well the whole group understands your content.
If you don’t know the answer – say so. I heard of one training session where when the trainer didn’t know the answer to a question, he’d always say “Oh yes, I have an example of that on my laptop” and then proceed to appear to search for some minutes before saying that he just couldn’t find it right then. After the third or fourth use of this ruse he had zero credibility!
If it’s a good question and you don’t know the answer, make a note of it and then email the questioner the next day after you’ve found the answer.
2. Not giving time for your participants to answer questions
Another common training mistake also involves questions. This time, it’s where the trainer has posed a question to the group.
Asking questions of your group is an excellent strategy: it encourages participation, wakes up those drifting off, and is another means of on-the-go evaluation of how effective your content and training strategies are proving with the particular group.
But you must give the group time to answer your questions!
I’ve watched trainers who pause for way under half a second before then filling the pause with the correct answer. Yes that’s right – the answer to the question they have just posed!
Long, pregnant and embarrassing pauses are not what you want, but at the same time, you need to give people time to think.
3. Not drawing relationships between different parts of the material
An essential part of learning is to make connections between ideas that would otherwise appear separate. It is your job as the trainer to make these connections explicit – to show students how the different parts of content you are covering intermesh.
Use overt phrases to do this:
“This ties-in with what we did this morning because….”
“How is this similar to something else we have covered today?”
“Remember how we tackled [X]? Well, we’re going to use the same strategy to also tackle [Y].”
The worst possible scenario in learning is to present your content as disparate, unconnected parts that people are just supposed to remember.
4. Writing on white-boards or flipcharts too much
White-boards and flipcharts can be great tools. They allow you to collate and show group answers to questions, give on-the-run examples and also allow participants to construct interesting graphics for others to see. (I often train in web page layouts, with training participants white-boarding their layout ideas for the rest of the group to examine.)
But using these media in this way is quite different to using them to communicate copious notes handwritten by the trainer.
If you have extensive written material that needs to be communicated with the group, the material should be on PowerPoint slides, on a sheet you hand out, or already in the workbooks. Doing a lot of handwriting on the whiteboard (or on flipcharts) has these major downsides: the trainer’s back is often to the group; the group needs to decipher the trainer’s handwriting; and for some within the room, the trainer will block the view of what they’re writing.
5. Not giving enough real-world examples
When you have been training in a subject for some time, it’s easy to get more and more theoretical. But people attend training to get relevant and real-world instruction directly applicable to themselves and their workplaces.
If they wanted just theory, they’d be off doing a formal tertiary course in the subject.
So when you introduce a strategy, an approach or – yes – a theory, integrate that with a practical outcome. Do not assume that if you tell participants the background they’ll see for themselves how to apply it – typically they won’t.
Using lots of apt real-world examples can make or break a training course.
6. Lack of clear task directions
When asking the group to perform a task, give very clear directions. If you’ve facilitated the course many times before, you’ll know the task inside-out. But the participants won’t.
I attended one training session where every time the trainer asked the participants to do a task, at least one person in the group could be seen whispering to their neighbour: “What are we supposed to do?” And it wasn’t always the same person asking their neighbour!
Simply, the trainer wasn’t being clear enough in stating what was wanted – and furthermore, she didn’t reinforce it by repetition. Tasks need to be said at least twice – remember, some people may well be thinking of other things and give their full attention only when they vaguely hear the trainer finish saying “….and you have 5 minutes to do that!”
After setting a task always watch for confused people – use their presence as feedback that you need to make tasks clearer.
Filed under: Articles on training
