Many of you take on the role of trainer from time to time, occasionally or regularly, for your teams, partners, distributors or customers.
From commercial, technical or product use training, transmitting know-how in an educational way is important to obtain short, medium and long-term results.
I give you here my techniques acquired and used in my job as a trainer and facilitator of export distribution networks. Do not hesitate to draw inspiration from it to prepare yourself to lead, evaluate your training and create your own teaching style.
Key principles
- Take care of the introduction. You have to find a style and a method “your own” using “your concrete experience”. Use and deal with real cases, so you will be more confident and the quality of the training will be better.
- What are your goals? You have to analyze the results expected by your learners/students and those of your company and try to get as close as possible to them.
- Who are the people to be trained ? Try to see if it is possible to evaluate prior learning to build appropriate training and establish a method that will meet the need.
- In which language? It is impossible for you to do the training in several languages. Logically, if attendees are from different countries, most training are in English. It is possible, depending on the resources at your disposal, to provide course materials in their mother tongues and to produce the presentations of your presentations translated into two languages, for example.
- Set a plan to develop capacities in intermediate stages (1, 2, 3…). Your learners must progress on their own by successive stages necessary to reach your final objective. When a student fails at one stage, based on time, repeat the steps from the beginning. (For example, if failed at 4, repeat steps, 1, 2, 3 and then 4 again).
- Use an icebreaker as an introduction. Varying your teaching methods will have a significant impact on the success of the training. Use both lectures, digital presentations (videos) and action. Get the students to do it by themselves. Make them find the solution themselves. They are here to produce something. Using only one method causes monotony.
- Avoid monopolizing space, do not deliver all your contents at full speed without exchanging with your audience. You must enable learners to achieve their goals first. For example, many trainers only give the opportunity to ask questions at the end of their presentation. Know that at this moment, at the end, people have neither the desire nor the courage to ask questions.
- Overly remove technical language, incomprehensible jargon. Be aware of this trap. You are an “expert” but not those who listen to you, especially in a language that is not theirs. Force yourself to speak “human”. Focus especially on the people to be trained so that they don’t drop out or become discouraged.
- Get out from behind your table… Drop your slides. Open contact for constructive interactivity. Strive not to read exactly what is written on the screen or the documents, otherwise you have no interest. Additional “added value” is expected from you.
- Talk and ask for answers. Make them say. Do and get it done. Here is the best training method centered on mental and motor skills achievement. Organize your process in two steps. A presentation with demonstration and realization by the learners aiming for the success of all in the exercise.
- Be carefull during these two stages (Answers and do it yourself), but especially during the DIY one ( experimentation) that your students “take notes”. Once gone, they will be alone without your guidance. They must absolutely write the difficulties encountered and the key points of success.
- Offer attractive and concise teaching materials. Beyond your presentation, offer visual support. A flipchart or a table allows to transcribe the ideas expressed by the group, to schematize the thought and the sketches. The video is also very interesting in the learning process. Provide paper supports.
- Balance your personality. If you like improvisation, be rigorous and precise. If you are too rational, provide humor and listening. If you hate giving presentations and just like the hands-on, work on your creativity. Make a presentation in which you recognize yourself and which you animate with great pleasure. If you are introvert by nature, force the relationship. If you are excessively talkative, remember to listen and force yourself to be rigorous in your timing. Depending on the groups, you will have to use more or less all your teaching methods. Adapt yourself to the attendance.
- Make a list of dedicated exercises to help you get the group working in collective intelligence and engage the contact with them.
- Listen, observe, learn to answer questions at the right time. Be directive but flexible. Know how to rephrase questions. Stay neutral, transparent. Value the attendees as much as possible. Work on your empathy.
- D-Day
- Prepare the room
- Take care of your personal introduction and first impression and exchange with your attendees and create links.
- Collect everyone’s goals before you start
- Explain your plan and the rules. This is where you sell your method and your training.
- Constantly evaluate what has been learned. Ask questions. Reformulates demands or comments.
- Make a mini-assessment at the end of each chapter and a general assessment at the end.
- Set up a post-training evaluation.
“In learning, you will teach and in teaching, you will learn.” Phil Collins.
Happy CEO 