With a career in learning and development spanning 23 years, a client asked me last week how long I had spent in actual stand up delivery and what was important in a new trainer, just completing their train the trainer training.
I had to think back to the advice I was given when I took my Train the Trainer Training qualifications. Francis Burley, the wonderful trainer and author who trained me had a list of priorities for new trainers:
- Failure to plan results in you planning to fail
- Go further than just reading the training manual relate topics to real life situations or appropriate examples
- Set up before your delegates arrive and test all equipment before you start
- Introductions and credibility statements are important but don’t boast – it’s a real turn off
- Ask frequent questions throughout the training session to check delegate understanding, but remember some people are reflective and need more time to digest information
- Don’t make assumptions on anything or take anything for granted – particularly over what delegates might know before they start a training programme
- Encourage meaningful participation – this is the delegates show not yours
- Should you not know an answer then say so – or let delegates know you know a man or woman who does
- If a training method or exercise isn’t working – don’t be afraid to change it for something better to get the information or message across
- Don’t kill everyone off with too many bullets – keep slides up to date, fresh and interesting
- If you loose your way, don’t panic, delegates haven’t read the manual, take a deep breath and sort yourself out
- Love feedback
So Francis, if you are out there and come across this blog, I trust I haven’t forgotten anything.
By Kasmin Cooney | Righttrack’s Managing Director