Train the Trainer Hong Kong
Deal swiftly with the “Elephant in the Living Room”
Imagine that it’s a rainy Saturday afternoon and that you are popping around to your friend’s house for a quick visit. Your friend greets you warmly at the door. On entering their family home you take off your shoes and jacket and make your way through to the living room. You greet your friend’s parents briefly as they glance up from watching their favourite TV show and suddenly you notice… there sat on the sofa is an enormous African elephant. Your friend returns from the kitchen and hands you a glass of coke, beckons you to sit down on the little room left on the sofa and asks you how your week has been. You are quite astonished that no one has mentioned the enormous animal in the room but begin to describe the ups and downs of your week at work. Somehow everyone in the room appears to have accepted the smelly, grey quadruped but it keeps nagging away at you. Later on in the conversation you begin to feel that too much time has passed for you to mention it. Talking about it now could be rude, might be awkward and everyone seems fine with it. You try your best to ignore it as it slowly crushes you up against the arm of the sofa and lights up the room with the smell of a great big…
And so it is in training sometimes. If there is a problem, literally the worst thing you can do is ignore it… as it simply gets bigger and bigger. There are a huge number of weird and wonderful things that could happen during a training. So how do we address those awkward situations? How do we avoid our students whispering to each other about the problem or giving us lower scores in our evaluations?
Here’s a few that have happened to me and some of the trainers in our company in the past and some suggestions of what you might say and do:
- Arriving Late – Traffic, a difficult location to find or miscommunication about timings can all lead to arriving at the training room up to 20 minutes late.
- Walk in quickly and announce loudly “Ladies and gentlemen, I am so sorry I am late, the traffic as I am sure you have found was incredible today!”
- Alternatively, “Thank you everyone for being so patient, I am shockingly late but I promise we will make sure to cover everything in the course!”
- If training a time management course walk in and say “And that ladies and gentlemen is the first and most important rule of time management – always set off thirty minutes early and make sure that your alarm clock is working!”
- Additional tip: If late, go straight into an activity or icebreaker to get the training started. During the interaction you can take the time to set up your laptop, projector and the room as you need it.
- Some of the trainees arrive late – A very common occurrence!
- Wait a few minutes for the late arrivals but as soon most trainees are in the room begin with an icebreaker directly. Say “While we wait for a few more people to arrive I am going to reward those who have managed to get here on time by giving the chance to win a prize!” (A box of chocolates or something small to share is usually appropriate).
- If you don’t have a prize and if the group of trainees is from different departments or companies you could say “I am sure the others will be here very soon, but for the benefit of those who have made it on time we will play a quick game to help you get to know the others in the room!”
- As the late arrivals come into the room they will most likely apologize, tell them “No problem, we are just running a quick ice-breaker” and explain the rules to them.
- Alternatively you can start an informal but relevant conversation with one of the trainees to ask them about the work issues they currently face. With luck the conversation will become valuable for everyone listening as you help them so solve some of their challenges.
- Additional tip: Make sure the late arrivals don’t win any prizes!
- The training room is too hot, cold or small
- When trainees are showing signs of being disturbed by the temperature in the facilities you could say “Now I know it’s extremely hot / cold in here so make sure to drink lots of water / coffee to keep cool / warm”
- If the training room is quite packed you might say “We have a very cosy room to work in, which is great for teambuilding, but do be careful when moving your chairs that you avoid bumping other trainees!”
- You have got a large brown Coca cola stain on your shirt or blouse from when the taxi driver stopped suddenly. You are unable to hide it and you realize that some of your students are commenting on it
- Early in the training say “Some of may have noticed the special multi-coloured shirt I am wearing today to pay tribute to Dutch national day!” (or choose a country that you know your students don’t know well!)
- Alternatively say “The mark on my blouse from the coke I was drinking this morning is a good reminder that your trainer is human too”
- One of your students runs out crying as it appears they have some personal issues they are dealing with. Other students look around concerned and not sure what to do.
- You could joke. “You know sometimes when I read through the training materials it brings a tear to my eye too… the information is just that powerful!”
- Alternatively (if you would rather be a little more sensitive!) you could say “Now we all go through ups and downs in our lives and some of us may choose to bottle up our emotions, others will let them out. We should respect the situation and may sure they have the space they need.
- One of your students blatantly contradicts you during the training. Other students look shocked.
- If the statement is based on their opinion of a technique you can let them know “That’s a great point and reminds us that there are different ways to view every situation. What I am aiming to do is give you some tools for you to use in your work. You need to choose which work best for you”
- If the statement is based on a fact that you may have got wrong you might say “Well spotted! Now that’s a great reminder that its always important to update (or double check) your training materials!”
One of the best trainers I have ever seen, John Overdurf from Neuroenergetics, told me that he once had to train a group of people in the topic of social responsibility. The twenty trainees came together as they had all been caught drink driving by the police over the course of the past month. To add to this, they were all forced to pay USD 200 for the course and take the afternoon off work in order to complete it. You can imagine the feeling in the training room – all were extremely hostile and very closed. Now John is usually a fun and energetic trainer who wins trainees over by delighting them with engaging stories and impressive body language. Today however as he worked in the room he decided to tackle the elephant head on.
After taking a strong and serious stance, a very negative angry looking face and a harsh voice tone he said “Right, you don’t want to be here and I don’t want to be here. So if you pay me the respect of paying attention and taking notes I will let you go fifteen minutes early! Agreed? Agreed!” He then ran through the boring slides very quickly and got into the more interesting stuff… at which point he slowly transformed into the fun and energetic trainer he usually is. What is amazing is that he was actually able to take his audience with him and by the end they were loving the training and asking him to continue longer!
In future make sure to deal with those elephants in the living room before they get out of control!