The Snakes & Ladders of Training

When I was a young adult learner, fresh out of college, and into my first job…I perceived training as an extension of my college classroom.

In college, I never expected classes to be anything but work. I never expected the professors and the lecturers to do anything to hold our attention. In fact, when I try to recall what my college teachers looked like, I see a misty image of someone intent upon solving one or the other equation on the board. Through the eyes of my mind, I can’t see the teachers interacting with us; I also can’t see them worrying about the confused, troubled, or even bored expressions on our faces. Our physical presence in the classroom seemed to be enough for them to stay motivated(!)

It was easy for me to project the same expectation to the corporate training programs that I attended. I attended those programs, because I was required to and not because I expected the trainings to help me build new skills. I didn’t enjoy the trainings, nor did I dislike them. I was completely indifferent to them. I took the trainings as a part of my job, and I sat through them without emotions and expectations.

In the last two decades, my perception of trainings has changed completely. Today, a training program is a completely emotional experience for me. It is a performance where the audience is not a passive viewer or listener, but an active participant. Today, I look at training as an art, which is difficult to master, as a trainer has to do more than deliver a fantastic presentation. He or she has to engage the participants so that they become willing performers in the training program, and then ensure that the entire performance results in a tangible learning outcome for each of the participants.

However, many of us who now wear the trainer’s shoes, continue to ask the age-old questions about the elements of training success. What is it, we ask, that makes a training program great! What is it that will make our smile-sheets smile? Are there some surefire tips that can ensure that we win all the time? We turn to the masters, and they give us tips. Sometimes the tips work…sometimes they don’t.

Sadly, there isn’t anything that has a 100% hit-rate in training. We can create innumerable dos and don’ts lists; but then expecting that they will lead to sure success, is expecting the principle of randomness to self-destruct!

With that in mind, here’s a list of Dos and Don’ts (or the game of Snakes & Ladders) from my experience.

The Ladders:

• Find as much as you can about your audience before you enter the training hall. Find about their:
  
  • existing skills in the corresponding subject area
  • attitude towards the training program/the trainer
  • expectations from the training program
  • hobbies and lifestyle
    
    
• Go through the content that you shall be covering. If you are not the SME in a particular area, get someone to explain the related concepts to you.
  
  
• Determine the areas in which audience has prior-knowledge. If these areas map with your weak areas, ensure that you have enough material to support you during the class. Seek active interaction from those who have prior knowledge. This may help you engage the audience through your strength areas, while ensuring that your training doesn’t fall apart because you couldn’t handle a minor content area.
  
  
• In the first half-hour of the training, address the content that is simple and which connects to the prior schema of your audience. This will help you in the following ways:
  
  • The audience will be more willing to participate in a discussion or interaction that they feel comfortable with. Thus, you will have an active and interested audience right at the beginning of the training program.
  • You will be more confident at the beginning of the training, and thus cast a better impression on your audience. Whether we accept it or not, all kinds of moths begin to flutter in the stomach of the trainer who addresses a particular audience for the first time. However, a trainer is not expected to display such human weaknesses, and so keeping the moths under control could improve your acceptability in your audience.
    
    
• Try to keep all the activities relevant. For example, an icebreaker, which merely breaks the ice, but doesn’t establish content relevance; doesn’t make a strong impression. However, with an extremely diverse audience, having a relevant icebreaker could be difficult. In such cases, smoothly transition into an activity, which is completely relevant, without losing the mood set by the icebreaker.
  
  
• If you identify a heckler, quickly determine whether the heckler could be converted into a willing participant or not. If the answer is no, don’t give too much space to the heckler. Reduce the heckling opportunities for him or her. There is no point in wasting 5 minutes of 19 willing participants or a total of 95 person-minutes, only to provide some dark satisfaction to one disruptive, practically non-participating individual!
  
  
• Use your body language to restrain negative behavior and also to elicit responses and interactivity. For example, maintaining eye contact and reducing the physical distance with an inattentive participant, makes the participant more attentive; while letting your glance move from face to face, after asking a question could help you identify the participants who you should select for answering your question.
  
  
• Intermittent scanning of the faces of your audience could help you predict the onset of boredom with a concept. Act before the boredom sets in and implement quick and relevant ennui-dispellers (I thought of this term on the spur of the moment, so I guess you wouldn’t find much about ennui-dispellers on the web!) Try to keep such 2-5 minute activities handy!
  

This list can go on and on, but common sense directs me to end this list and move on to the next one. As always, these lists are indicative and directional. My recommendation to all trainers is – maintain a “personal” training diary. In this diary, record your experiences. Within a few months, you shall see your own dos and don’ts list emerge.

Well, here’s the Don’ts list. Be careful of these venomous snakes, which can kill the training experience for you as well as for your audience.

The Snakes:

• Have you ever lost your temper in a training program? If you have, you’ve experienced the aftermath. My recommendation is simple – don’t lose your temper. This is something that I recommend with great difficulty. It is okay to voice your disapproval, but it is definitely not correct to get into a match of wits with someone in the audience. It often happens in the case of hecklers – when you want to scream, “If you didn’t want to come for this training, you should’ve stayed home!” But no, don’t give in to this strong desire to scream…the side effects could be disastrous.
  
  
• Arriving late for a training program, especially if you are the trainer, is an unpardonable offense. A training program is very different from making a public speech. When a speech is made, the speaker enters after everyone else is seated. The speaker then speaks. Most often, the audience listens to the speaker out of politeness and with an intention to forget the content soon after leaving the auditorium. In the case of a training program; it’s your show. The trainer is the performer and the performer should own the space and host the show.
  
  
• Don’t assume that all your learners have the same level of prior knowledge of the content and the same willingness to learn. Despite listing the pre-requisites clearly, you will find that your audience ranges from the individual who “knows all about it, and doesn’t require training,” to the one who “doesn’t know anything about it, nor wishes to learn.” Be prepared to handle different audiences differently.
  
  
• Repetitiveness is boring and it results in loss of motivation. Don’t become repetitive. This applies to everything that you do. Thus,
  
  • Don’t use PowerPoint presentations for every topic that you address in your training.
  • Don’t use the same body language all the time. Break the monotony by using newer actions.
  • Don’t implement the quiz in the same manner, at the same time during the day, on all the days of your training program.
  • Don’t…

  Don’t continue to repeat anything at all. Bring in variations! Follow ARCS.
  

• Negative criticism is the worst de-motivator of all. Unfortunately, assessments require us to provide negative feedback. Don’t provide negative feedback on anything, without cushioning it. It is easy when we remember that none of us is perfect in everything, nor it is possible to be. Our lives are too short to aim at perfection. Be empathetic and ensure that the feedback should address the error and not the individual.
  

There is so much to do and not to do, in a training program. After all, learning is the outcome that the trainers and the trainees both desire.

Today when I look back and review my indifference in the training programs that I attended, dispassionately, I think that there were two reasons behind it. The first reason was the apparent lack of need to learn. The second reason, and the more serious one was that I was habituated to learning in that particular way. In an area as important as learning, which eventually would determine the path that humanity would follow in future, habituation could ruin us.

This list of dos and don’ts is merely a small explosive device, which could help us destroy the comfort of this cognitive habituation. The destruction of this comfort will make us sit up and review our own training methods, list our own snakes and ladders; to create and implement training programs that will ensure enjoyable learning.

Author: Shafali R. Anand