A Journey into the Trainer’s Heart!

This article is about that one issue that keeps a trainer awake in bed and asleep at desk. It addresses the trainer; it addresses you and it talks about your center-of-attention – the trainee. But then the focus of this discussion isn’t on the excellent trainees, who make your trainings a pleasure.

This article is about the difficult trainee that keeps you from savoring success in your trainings and courses. This trainee could give you a tough time for reasons that would be impossible to identify through all the questionnaires that you may administer for audience profiling. This trainee would enter your training with a strong sense of self-righteousness and an innate belief that the training would be nothing but a waste of time. Yet they come for the training. For reasons other than those related to learning.

What are the reasons that motivate such trainees to attend the trainings? How much time should the trainer spend, trying to pull them away from the dark-side? Is it really worthwhile for the trainer to pour time and energy into such barren soil of a closed mind? These are some of the questions that trouble us. After the number of training sessions that I’ve conducted, you would expect me to have become immune to the pain of such failed attempts – unfortunately – I haven’t.

If and when such a situation occurs, it stays with me beyond the training session. I carry it in my mind, in my heart for days together. I continue to wonder – what went wrong? I keep a journal where I record my training experiences; and where I try to put down my observations as frequently as I can. However, in many cases, the journal doesn’t answer my queries. It doesn’t because it records only what I am able to observe…and what I am able to observe is what the trainee chooses to let me see.

Nevertheless, my journal gives me some invaluable clues and I would like to share these with you.

What I’ve realized is that the problem trainee usually has one of the following lurking in the background.

1. The Trainee has a feeling of having been pushed into the training program. (I didn’t ask for it!)
2. The Trainee has a feeling of having been cheated out of something more interesting and personal than a mere training. (I could’ve spent this lovely day with someone I loved!)
3. An assumption that the trainer has no practical experience whatsoever of the content being covered. (What does s/he know?)
4. An assumption that the trainer would cover what trainee is already quite knowledgeable about. (I already know.)

Let us look at them more closely:

I didn’t ask for it!
I don’t think that the blame for such non-motivation should be laid on the trainee’s shoulders. It doesn’t belong there.
When organizations push people into trainings without determining their willingness to participate in the training program, they mess up real bad! They end up sending the wrong people for the right trainings. They may do so due to a discount scheme that could bring down the “per-person-cost” of training, and thus make the training more acceptable for the accounts department’s approval, or they may do so to ensure that every individual reaches to annual training hours goal set by the organization.

What is important to remember (and here I address the managers) that training effectiveness that eventually leads to organizational performance is not a matter of training hours or the per-person-cost of training. A non-motivated trainee shall not learn enough to make any real difference to your organizational bottom line.

On the other hand, if an individual approaches you for a particular training or displays willingness to attend a specific workshop, don’t tie the organizational lead-weights to impede his or her growth. Train them for they are the ones who will make your organization grow!

• I could’ve spent this lovely day with someone I loved!
“I know that the weather is beautiful and it is supposed to be my weekly off! But I’ve got to go for this goddamn training!” A heart torn from love continues to beat for it – even through the training. It isn’t possible for the trainee to like the training; to immerse him or her-self into the training – when the raindrops tinkle on the windowpanes and when the time could’ve been better spent elsewhere. The cognitive overload ensures that the participation is merely through the physical presence. However, all trainings require the learner’s mental presence more than his or her physical presence.

Even if the learner is practical enough to wean him or her-self away from the land of dreams – it becomes difficult to maintain a positive entry behavior. We all have experienced it before. When we have to cancel our planned leave to take care of something in office, we grumble and we stomp around; we do the job that we required to do, but we don’t like doing it. The pain is internal and it manifests itself in form of our perception of the job.

• What does s/he know?
Today training is different from its decades older counterpart. I can recall the training programs I went through when I joined steel major as a young engineer. Those who had worked in their respective areas for years conducted our training sessions. They weren’t great presenters, but they knew their content. If they had the instructional design edge in form of instructional designers or instructional design knowledge, their presentation too could’ve been more effective. Yet, despite the trainings not being high on the entertainment front, we respected them for what they knew.

Things are different today. In the manufacturing industry, we still find trainings being conducted by those who are experienced in that particular function; but in many other sector (IT included,) trainings are often carried out by those who are good presenters and who present the content that is put together for them by the content development team. The IT and the ITES industries are more affected by this malady. These prior experiences result in the prospective trainee generalizing this lack of expertise for all the training programs. Unfortunately, if the assumption turns out to be untrue, the trainee loses precious time and energy battling out the cognitive dissonance.

…and the Gender Issue?
Many of the women trainers face the gender-issue too. Some male trainees, who’ve worked in setups that don’t have women in the position of power, are not able to accept a woman trainer. The problem is compounded when the woman trainer looks young. One of the trainers who attended our Instructional Design program shared her experience with one such group of trainees. The basic demographics of the trainees in her training program were: 45 yrs to 50 yrs, males from smaller cities of India. The moment the trainer entered, they exchanged looks of incredulity and one of them blatantly stated that they weren’t ready to be trained by a young “girl”! The trainer took it in her stride and formulated emergency measures – stating that her looks belied her experience and that she promised that the trainees would soon realize the same.

• I already know.
Some trainees accept their nomination to a particular training because they realize their need to complete their required training hours. However, they don’t “feel” the need for the training. Let me clarify. The need felt by the trainee should result in the match of the trainee’s goal with the goal of a training program. However, if the trainee’s identified need is not to acquire the skills that the training attempts to provide, but to complete the mandatory training hours, the trainee’s motivation to learn is lost.

In such cases, trainees often accept to attend training programs with training competencies that are lower than their current competencies. In some of these cases, the trainees (especially when they are from the same organization,) identify those parts of the training that map to their existing competencies; and state that “only some part of the program was useful, rest was quite basic.”

Most trainees don’t accept it, and won’t accept it. As trainers, if we review our own actions in view of the trainings that were “enforced” we shall see similar behavior on our part. My experience with trainings, trainers, and trainees has taught me that all those training requests that originate from the trainees themselves are genuine and result in excellent learning. However, when trainings are identified by the organization, and the individuals are expected to forego their holidays in order to attend the training – for most, the only motivation then is to add the training to the mandatory annual training hours.

So what does this tell the trainer?

First-and-foremost, analyze the training session in view of the feedback. Does the feedback truly hold water? In some cases, you will be immediately able to identify the bell-curve. One or two would’ve loved the training, and they would suggest that you don’t change anything in the program. There would be another couple of people, who would grit their teeth and gnarl their toes; and tell you that they knew it all before and that the training gave them nothing more than “a couple of hours” worth of content (whatever that means.) Ignore both ends of the bell-curve. It tells you nothing. Look at the remaining feedback forms.

Is there is recurring theme. If there is…analyze it. Review the forms in view of the following:

• Were the trainees serious about the training?
• Did they complete their exercises purposefully?
• What were the factors common in this audience?

If everything seems okay and if you also agree with their logic then strengthen your training program accordingly. If not, review their expectation from the program once again. Are their feedback comments in harmony with their individual expectations from the program? (You can either ask them for their expectation at the beginning of the program or when you send them your audience questionnaires.) If so, were their expectations in harmony with the training program?

Let us revert to the four types of black sheep that we had identified at the beginning of this article.

1. The Trainee has a feeling of having been pushed into the training program. (I didn’t ask for it!)
   This trainee is redeemable. Though the trainee didn’t ask for it, yet if the trainer helps him or her establish expectations at the beginning of the program; the trainee could benefit a lot. Allowing the trainee’s to voice their personal expectations or helping them establish some personal expectations from the program helps.
   
   
2. The Trainee has a feeling of having been cheated out of something more interesting and personal than a mere training. (I could’ve spent this lovely day with someone I loved!)
   This trainee isn’t easy. Especially if your training program is a short-duration program. Remember that matters of heart take precedence over matters of head. In today’s BPO scenario, most of us deal with a much younger audience. These situations occur – none of us can do much about it. Even if you identify the look in the trainee’s eyes, you can hardly accost him or her to test the validity of your assumption. If you know how to connect with this learner, please let me know; for I am still grieving over that loss of one such trainee’s attention.
   
   However, in such cases; I have a recommendation for the trainers. Don’t take such failures to heart.
   
   
3. An assumption that the trainer has no practical experience whatsoever of the content being covered. (What does she know?)
   The solution is actually simple. Let the trainees know that you know. Let them realize that you can connect with them and that you can discuss practical examples with them. Of course, it also means that you should “know” enough. So be prepared. The gender issue will continue to come up in some specific kinds of trainings (sales trainings, rural marketing trainings, production management trainings, and so on.) In my experience, establishing a gender-neutral ground works in most cases.
   
   
4. An assumption that the trainer would cover what trainee is already quite knowledgeable about. (I already know.)
   Through bitter experience, I’ve learned that the only way to take care of this issue is to recapitulate the objectives of the course and explain how the objective would be reached. When you plan your training, keep about 15 minutes aside for this exercise. Ask each trainee whether or not his or her (personal) expectations match the objectives of the training. Even if some of the trainees state that their expectations were set at a higher level, you would have an opportunity to tell them that the training’s goal was not!
   
   This exercise will also result in a better analysis of the audience feedback.
   
   It is also important to remember that the first rollout of a training program or a course is a formative evaluation of the same. Glean as much useful information as you can, and plough it back into the training design. However, do remember to cull out the extreme cases.
   

Look back into the past. Do you remember losing your sleep over those who sat at the end of the bell-curve? Do you remember the lost look in the eyes of the trainee who sat in the corner of the room doodling away? Do you recall walking into a room full of strangers who stifled a deriding smile upon your entry? Do you remember going through the feedback sheets with an almost physical pain in your heart? If you do…you know now that quite often the blame isn’t completely yours. If you do…you know this too…that each training program is a learning experience for the trainer.

Life’s winners are not those who reach the winning post first, but those who last the longest!

…the same is true for trainings :-)

Author: Shafali R. Anand