part 4

The trainer as performer

Competencies and presuppositions

Take a moment and think back to school or further education and choose your most inspirational teacher. Why did you pick this person? What were the qualities that allowed him or her to be so inspirational? What was the impact on you?

Look through the list below, and tick the qualities and impact applicable to this teacher:

How many ticks? Between 10–15? More than likely if the teacher was a real inspiration.

Jeremy remembers one teacher who inspired him. His name was Jim Spalding. He was Scottish, very small, walked with a jaunty bounce and smoked anywhere he could. He taught English and Drama and he ticks every one of the qualities in the table. Much of Jeremy’s early confidence on the stage and love of English came from him. He admired him, respected him and he inspired Jeremy to believe he could go on to university to study English, which is what he did.

Our table represents some of the core competencies of an outstanding business trainer and it identifies the positive impact you can make. In this part we are going to address the following questions:

• What does the trainer bring to the training once the design is in place?
• How do you engage a group, whether it is for two hours, half a day, or longer?
• What makes an outstanding trainer?
• What can you control when you train business people?
• How do you compare with best practice?
• What could you ‘borrow’ immediately and start utilising to make you even more effective?

Some people might argue that once an outstanding design is in place then it is easy and straightforward for anyone to deliver training. However, we are sure you have been witness to some ‘business trainers’ who deliver a workshop badly and do not do justice to the design. The design sets the seed, the delivery reaps the rewards. Business training has a bad name in some quarters – we wonder why. Jeremy once witnessed a university professor come into a major law firm to train partners on client relationship management, sit on a chair behind a lectern and read for 35 minutes from sections of his new book. As Jeremy looked around the room, 20% had actually fallen asleep with some actively snoring. He counted only three people who were taking notes and appearing to be interested. And two of those were in the front row.

In order to bring any subject alive there is an element of performance which we will address comprehensively in this part. You can think of business training as analogous to scripts for films or plays. The writing can be outstanding but it can be let down by the performances. So for successful training, the trainer is both the director and the actor. Director in the sense that we are in charge of the location, the other actors (there may be some additional trainers or presenters involved) and how the audience will react. Actor in the sense that there is an element of performance if you want to facilitate learning and create the environment in which participants will begin to integrate new skills or knowledge. You’ll need to act, entertain and engage. Your job as a trainer is to bring alive what has been designed and be completely present as you help others to learn.

So here are our 10 presuppositions about delivering training. Presuppositions are ideas tacitly assumed to be true before a line of argument is put forward – key principles which we focus on when delivering a seminar or conference.

1. I consider the participants to be adults and equals, rather than children. They need to be involved and consulted and be able to challenge the material.
2. I can make a positive difference to people’s lives.
3. I have a high level of control over how the training will be received by the participants.
4. My main focus is on the state of the audience, their learning objectives and the agreed business outcomes.
5. My state, behaviour and attention to detail about the learning environment will have a significant impact on how the training is received.
6. The emotional state of the audience is a key success factor and I can influence this.
7. Any group is more likely to be engaged if they are participating.
8. I can never have a bad day – I must always be ‘up for it’.
9. If I constantly link any theory with practical applications back in the workplace, I will improve the chances of learning transfer.
10. I welcome challenge, criticism and questions – it will add richness to the learning experience for all as I handle them effectively.

One of the subjects we talk about on our train-the-trainer workshops (see www.ftguidetobusinesstraining.com) is that, as the trainer, you have to be a bigger version of your natural self. You may of course be naturally an extrovert or introvert. Either ‘type’ can be a great trainer. But the performance still needs to be there – you need to hold the centre, work the audience, create emotion and drive the action. You may even get some applause (if you are interested in guaranteeing applause then visit our website www.ftguidetobusinesstraining.com).

Engagement is the key

You may be a subject matter expert, you may have a great reputation, but what makes a great trainer is the ability to engage with the people in the room. Despite the growth of e-learning, the abiding picture in most people’s minds will be that of a room of participants led by one trainer or more. If we were to look into a crystal ball there will still be trainers being used in business in 50 years’ time. Why? Because the live trainer–group model is not just an instructional event, it is a social event. There is an obvious opportunity to interact – to tell, ask questions, argue, discuss, challenge, express disquiet, share experiences, share a joke, get creative and network – the usual social interaction that is key in business. Live, group events are critical for developing awareness, judgement and interpersonal skills. Moreover, the ideas shared between colleagues are especially valuable in creating transformational shifts in mind set and approach that encourage organisational renewal.

Everyone in business should have heard of employee engagement. Most organisations will work at ensuring that their staff are fully involved emotionally and intellectually and perform enthusiastically at work. It hardly requires a PhD in Business Management to recognise that engaged employees lead inexorably to better results, improved retention, an increase in customer satisfaction, higher productivity and so on. So the same basic philosophy applies to running workshops. We can engage the participants with all the tools in our bag – variety in the way the information is disseminated, exercises, icebreakers, questions, debriefs, stories, utilising what happens in the room, and encouraging an atmosphere of honesty and authenticity.

The more participants are engaged the more likely they are:

• to learn quickly;
• to be motivated to change;
• to take action and improve performance back in the workplace;
• to influence colleagues both in the room and those not attending.

Each of the authors has attended a lot of training, when we were employed at L’Oréal, Pepsi and in running software houses, and subsequently we both decided to become trainers. We have often learned a lot and sometimes learned only a little and often this was linked to the trainer. We identified and observed many outstanding trainers as part of the research for this programme. We have included examples of what we have learned throughout this book and you can also find out more by visiting our website (www.ftguidetobusinesstraining.com) and downloading our PDF called ‘Great Trainers’ Modelling Project’.

All of the trainers had many things in common. In particular, they were outstanding at engaging their audience. They did this by:

• influencing and motivating us in a positive way;
• paying attention to their surroundings and creating an environment that felt comfortable;
• getting our attention up front and making us feel involved throughout;
• making us feel valued;
• knowing how to improvise and working with the challenges in the moment;
• constantly linking the content to real life scenarios;
• encouraging reflection and ways in which learning can be transferred.

So, how do you do this? In the following six chapters we cover the keys to engagement. If you are able to learn these skills you will be well on the way to mastery.