Posture

Observed communication is important because it influences perceived communication. One great example of that is posture. Posture is the way you hold your body. Posture communicates several things, but one that is important to you is confidence. You can look more confident by changing your posture. In fact, it will not only affect your students, but it will affect you as well!

See if you can match the six different postures on the left with the interpreted message on the right. The point is not get them all right as much as it is to think about the fact that our posture communicates something to our students. The answers are at the end of the chapter.

Exercise 13.1 Posture exercise

It is generally true that the more confident humans get, the more space they are willing to occupy. When you are afraid you want to get small, so you hold your elbows to your sides or fold your hands in front of you. The more confident you become, the more space you feel comfortable filling around you. If you struggle with confidence, put your feet shoulder width apart, spread your arms, make yourself big, and conquer the world! You will be amazed at how much better you feel just by changing your posture, and your students will feel the same way.

As you observed in the exercise above, posture does more than communicate confidence and control. It could communicate fatigue, disinterest, sincerity or lack of it, comfort or nervousness, and probably a whole lot of other things. You will also note that it doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone. For example, I’m quite sure that some of you matched one hand in pocket with “He’s one of us” when I would have matched it with “He’s not taking us seriously.” Does that mean that you’re wrong, and I’m right? No, but it does tell us to be careful about putting our hands—or even one hand—in a pocket, because someone might misinterpret it. The goal in all of these is to eliminate any interference in the communication. Taking your hand out of your pocket just reduces the chances and it’s a small price to pay.

Facial Expressions

Almost every day as I leave for work or get ready to teach a class, I get a friendly reminder from my wife. “Don’t forget to smile.” Apparently, I sometimes forget. I hope, of course, that I forget less often now, as a result of her faithful prodding. Facial expressions are important and they can be practiced. If you aren’t lucky enough to have someone who cares enough to give you good feedback, go stand in front of the mirror or record yourself. Make sure your face is saying the same thing as your words.

Smiling is not, of course, the only facial expression. The key is to be genuine. Facial expressions are especially important when we are listening, which is part of communicating. Have you ever told someone something and been able to tell by their unchanged expression that they weren’t listening to what you were telling them? The same is true with your students. Make sure they know you are genuinely interested in communicating with them and show it on your face.

Eye Contact

Even more important in the conveyance of sincerity and honesty is an ability to make eye contact with your students. Don’t use your screen or any other prop as an excuse for not looking directly at your students. This is especially important in a proficiency training session. Remember you are teaching individuals and they need to be contacted visually.

Here are a few tips I try to follow regarding eye contact:

1. Make eye contact with everyone. Don’t single out one or two “friendlies” and forget about the rest of the class and don’t scan across their faces. Pause when you make eye contact with someone.
2. Figure out a comfortable time. This depends a little on culture, but all cultures have a happy medium between shifty eyes and awkward. It’s usually a few seconds long.
3. Randomize your eye contact. Any nonverbal communication can look staged and uncomfortable, including eye contact. Going from one person to the next down a systematic line only aggravates that potential. Randomly looking at people will keep them more engaged and help you look more natural.
4. Face them, don’t just look at them. When you face someone you pull them into a conversation with you, instead of making them feel like they are being talked at.

Eye contact, of course, changes in certain circumstances, like when you are answering a question (more direct) or writing on the whiteboard (less direct). It also may vary by culture, especially in cultures where eye contact between the sexes could be considered offensive. The general principle behind eye contact, however, is that you should be communicating to an individual student, moving quickly (every few seconds) to another individual student, so that all feel like they are involved, but that they are involved as individual contributors and receivers of the communication.

Gestures

Gestures may be the most culturally flexible of all the ways we communicate nonverbally. As I have traveled and taught around the world, I find we have so much in common in regard to what people understand. There seems to be a distinction between formal gestures, which are often used for greeting someone or recognizing their presence, and informal gestures in conversation. This is highlighted in Terri Morrison and Wayne Conaway’s best‐selling book Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands.

After that initial and formal greeting, gestures seem to normalize. Mine, of course, is not a formal study of cultures, but I have lived for over a decade on three different continents and trained all over the world as well. It is, of course, a good idea to study something about any culture you are visiting, or rely on a local colleague so that you don’t offend anyone or unnecessarily take offense at an innocent gesture.

Here are a few tips about gestures:

1. Figure out what to do with those darn hands.
   1. Do NOT put them in your pockets.
   2. Don’t hide them behind a lectern.
   3. Don’t point. I prefer an open and upward‐facing palm, though some use a thumb and closed fist to point.
   4. Don’t play with something. Holding something is fine, as long as it doesn’t become the source of a repetitive or annoying gesture. You don’t need a pen or a remote presenter to keep you busy if what is being communicated is important.
2. Use gestures (and posture) to speak to yourself, not just your audience.

   If you aren’t 1 of the 33 million plus who have already watched Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk on body language, I would encourage you to do so. It is a powerful reminder of how our body language speaks, not only to our listeners, but to ourselves. Even if you don’t struggle with nerves, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch it.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

   The next time you watch a symphony conductor wave his or her arms in front of the orchestra, ask yourself how much practice that took. I can guarantee you they spent hours in front of a mirror or professor learning precision movements and fine‐tuning their skill. The same is true of your simplest learning gestures. If you are used to keeping your hands in your pockets, it will seem awkward to have them out in the open. With practice, it will become natural. Soon it will look like you’ve always done it that way.

   If you have a local speaking club in your area, I would encourage you to join it. The practice along with the feedback is a valuable way to continue improving.

Physical Presence

There are many ways to talk about where to stand or position yourself when you are teaching. All of the other nonverbal communication areas I’ve mentioned will change very little as you transition from presenting to facilitating. Your physical presence, however, may change significantly. For many lectures or presentations, the speaker is on a stage or behind a lectern. Now, you likely won’t even have one. When you realize you are going from being a professor to being a coach, your physical presence—the way you move around the classroom—will change.

Here are a few tips for creating a good learning presence:

1. Move. Move deliberately, but move

   Don’t teach from one location. As much as the environment allows, move around. When you do move, move with a purpose. Don’t pace or walk around aimlessly. If the room has natural divisions, move to one side, stay there for a short while, and move to the other side.

2. Give equal proximity to everyone

   As much as possible, get equally close to everyone while you’re teaching. Worry less about presentation techniques, like which side of the slides to stand on, and more about engaging individuals in a conversation. To do that, you will need to face them and move toward them.

3. Don’t talk to the screen

   Engaging facilitators don’t have to be great orators, but they do need to talk to their students. Talking to the screen instead of to your students indicates a lack of confidence in the material and nervousness. If you are reading from the screen, it likely indicates that you are putting too much text on it. If you only put pictures or very short reminders on the screen, it will be harder to read it.

Physical Appearance

There are no rules about how trainers should dress or what hairstyle will best aid in a transfer of knowledge. What we do know is that appearance can influence people. Appropriate attire will change depending on your audience and your training topic or location. It must be appropriate. Never assume that the salesperson has to worry about attire, but the technician does not. If you are training on a product, you influence sales, much like a mechanic might influence your opinion of a car as much or more than a salesperson. When you stand in front of a class to represent a company, you ARE the company to your students. Dress like it.

All of these areas are important to consider when you are facilitating proficiency training. Take the time to consider one thing you are going to do differently in your next training class. Write down one area you want to improve, along with a specific action you are going to do differently. Come back after the class and take the time to reflect on what worked and what did not.

Be Genuine and Humble

Adult learners want a genuine instructor, not a perfect one. You should genuinely want your students to succeed. If you don’t, stop teaching until you have a change of heart.

Students are very adept at deciphering the difference between a genuine desire for their success and a genuine desire to impress them. They can tell if you have a real desire for them to learn or just really want to get the class over with. They are not always right. But whether they are right or wrong doesn’t change the fact that it will influence how they decode the communication you are sending to them.

You cannot be genuine without being humble and honest. If you don’t know it all, don’t pretend to know it all. You don’t need to be a guru to be an instructor; you just have to have enough guts to lead people to good learning.

Be Likeable and Pleasant

Students are more eager to learn when they are enjoying it. That doesn’t mean that every learning module must be a game or a comedy show. It does mean that you can keep them engaged much more easily if they like you and you relate well.

Don’t focus on just one or two students. Treat everyone with equal professionalism and kindness. Even though students are out of their normal work environment, it is still important to maintain a professional and pleasant environment. Avoid crude language or anything that might be offensive to any of your students, since those things may cause a distraction from their learning.

Be Available and Prepared

Training starts the instant the first student walks through the door. If you are busy with last‐minute preparations for your class, you will not be available for your students. Arrive to training in enough time to get fully ready to start before any of your students arrive. For me, that is usually an hour prior to training. Check your equipment, go over your materials, and make sure you are completely ready before your first student arrives.

If the class size permits it, greet every trainee with a warm smile and handshake before beginning the class. Doing so sets the tone from the very beginning that you are interested in teaching them as an individual, not just in delivering a message to a group of people.

Be Positive and Have Fun

Adults are not much different than kids when it comes to their desire to enjoy learning. Humor, when used appropriately, can lighten otherwise dry or intense subjects. But having fun doesn’t have to be extremely overt. Students can tell if you enjoy what you are doing or not. Instructors who get frustrated easily or are negative with their students are communicating that they would rather be somewhere else. Students will get wrong answers. They will do foolish things—that is why they are there! They need to learn. Be excited about seeing progress; don’t focus on where you wish they could be so your job would be unnecessary.

Of course, do not use humor that might be offensive or distasteful. The point is to enjoy your time together. Don’t get so focused on the task of training that you forget to get to know your audience. Just as your students will not be more excited to learn than you are to teach, they will not enjoy learning from you any more than you enjoy teaching them.

Be Confident and in Control

It is very possible to be both confident and humble. Those are not opposite ends of the same continuum. Your students expect you to be both, and they will learn best when you are. Staying in control of the classroom is not about ego, but it is about an honest desire for everyone to learn. It takes confidence to stay in control. Whenever I’ve seen a classroom get off track or an instructor begin to lose control, it has been because they lost confidence in their ability to lead the class.

Use everything you have read in this chapter about nonverbal communication to demonstrate confidence and stay in control. It’s harder to lose control of students you are looking in the eye, smiling at, and being friendly to. When students like you, they will want to help you do your job well, and proper preparation is one of the better ways to ensure confidence before the class even starts.

One of the more useful and subtle nonverbal techniques to maintain control is physical proximity. When you are regularly giving equal proximity time to all of your students, you will rarely have to deal with talkers or email checkers. If you do, you can simply move into “their space” and they will quickly adjust their reading habits. If they don’t, one helpful trick I learned early in my career is to put my hand on their table or desktop. I don’t address them. In fact, I rarely look at them. However, just the simple act of touching their personal space gets their attention. If they continue to check email at that point, I know that something serious must be going on and I generally leave it alone until a break.

Verbal, observable nonverbal, and perceived nonverbal communication all jive together like an intimate dance. Overemphasizing one and neglecting another is conceivable. For that reason, I encourage you to choose one thing you are going to do differently in your next training class. Just as you did for the observable communication, write down one area of perceived communication that you want to improve, along with a specific action you are going to do differently. Come back after the class and take the time to reflect on what worked and what did not.

Room Layout

If you don’t have control of which room and how bright or controllable the lights are, you might be able to move the tables around. I like to set my product training rooms up in a U shape. The U‐shaped room has several advantages:

1. There are a limited number of seats available.
2. All students are front‐row students.
3. The instructor can be equally close to all students.

All three reasons are important. Students cannot hide in the back row when there isn’t a back row. The U‐shaped classroom immediately sends the message that they will have to be engaged during the class. From the instructor’s perspective, it is easier to control the classroom and engage the students in this setting.

Furniture, Lighting, and Technology

Chairs should be comfortable enough to sit in for the duration of your class. If you are able to, get chairs with wheels on them. This encourages students to pair up, move into groups, and so on. Remember you won’t be sitting still for long at all. Chairs with wheels help to convey that concept from the beginning.

Use technology that gives you freedom to teach from anywhere in the classroom.

Lighting is tricky if the room wasn’t designed as a learning environment. If you have no control of the lights, make sure your font sizes are large enough to read from the back of the room in the lighting you have. Good background color and contrasting text color are also helpful. You may also want to give more breaks, if the lighting seems to create fatigue.

Know Your Environment

It is one thing to train in a room you helped to build or are very familiar with. It is another to show up at a customer site and be completely surprised. I once trained in a very small communications room directly off the tarmac of Atlanta International Airport. To put it mildly, it was not a great training environment. Ever since, I’ve made sure to avoid surprises.

Send a drawing of how you want the tables set up, including how large the room should be and how many students should be seated at each table to your customer or hotel conference room in advance. Don’t expect them to know what a good training environment looks like. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Something simple will work. If you can, ask for pictures of the room ahead of time. Sometimes you can’t control the room, but knowing what it will be like ahead of time can help you prepare (Figure 13.1).

Make Your Students Feel Welcome

From the minute your students step into the classroom, it becomes your job to make sure they feel appreciated and welcomed. Making them feel valued as learners goes beyond the handshake I suggested earlier. That is just the beginning. You need to make sure you do everything in your power to make the learning easy.

Making students feel welcome isn’t accomplished through some sort of mystical means. Make them feel welcome in tangible ways. Here are a few things to think about, but add to the list as needed for your situation.

Prior to arrival

• Send directions to the location and room.
• Ensure they will have access to the building.
• Communicate any prerequisites or requirements.
• Ask about any food allergies or restrictions.
• Provide a local contact name and phone number to call if they have problems.

Upon arrival

• Use signs or people to provide direction.
• Greet each student with a warm handshake.
• Assist students in finding a seat and meeting other students.
• Be prepared for questions regarding electrical power for their electronic devices.
• Provide the Wi‐Fi access code, if necessary or appropriate.
• Ask about their hotel stays and show genuine concern for their comfort outside the classroom.

At the start of the class

• Inform students of safety procedures, evacuation routes, building procedures, smoking areas, restrooms, break rooms, and so on.
• Provide name tents or name tags and markers (unless preprinted).
• Cover any ground rules or policies to maintain professionalism and eliminate offensive behavior.
• Provide writing utensils and paper at minimum. If possible, work with your marketing department to provide other giveaways.

Throughout the class

• Provide plenty of water to keep students hydrated.
• Provide coffee and snacks.
• Provide lunch, or at least assist students to find nearby lunch venues.
• Consider having seasonal items available to borrow: umbrellas, winter jackets, sun screen lotion, and so on.

After the class

• Assist with any travel concerns or questions.
• Provide suggestions for local eateries and entertainment.
• Thank each student individually and encourage them to continue learning.

The goal of all of these items is similar to when you have guests in your home. You want them to feel valued, comfortable, and appreciated. Doing so is, of course, the polite and right thing to do. But these simple acts of hospitality also have a learning benefit. They help to eliminate any obstacles that may otherwise prevent a student from learning. No one wants to spend hours preparing content and fail as an instructor because a student couldn’t find the company cafeteria. Caring about the little things outside of the classroom will make the learning inside the classroom even better.