21ways to Deliver Excellent Training

8/8/2019 21ways to Deliver Excellent Training

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Dick Barton MA MBA MSc

21 WAYS TO DELIVER

EXCELLENT TRAINING

Copyright 2000

All rights reserved. The right of Dick Barton to be identified as the author of this work is asserted.

This book is freeware it can be distributed freely (subject to the conditions below) among training

professionals and providers on condition that, before use, they visit my website dickbarton.co.uk and

consider my services for their clients or organization.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise except in its original,

unchanged, unedited, unabridged version. This book is given subject to the condition that it shall not,

by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the authors

prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is issued and without a similar

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Dick Barton

2 Foalhurst Close,

Tonbridge,

Kent TN10 4HA

England (within UK): 01732 359201

(outside UK): +44 1732 359201

[email protected]

http://www.dickbarton.co.uk

Other titles:

21 Ways to Meet Your Personal Development Needs

21 Ways to Improve Your Meetings

21 Ways to Make More Time

21 Ways to Improve Appraisals21 Ways to Do Better Interviews

21 Ways to Build Relationships


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21 Ways To Deliver Excellent Training

Dick Barton 2000 - 2 -

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

1. MAKE AN ENVIRONMENT 4

2. FROM ROLE-PLAY TO RE-ENACTMENT 5

3. FROM CASE STUDIES TO LIVE CASES 6

4. QUESTIONNAIRES 7

5. PICTURES 8

6. DRAMA 9

7. VIDEOS 10

8. EXPERIENCE 11

9. SOMETHING STRANGE 12

10. REFLECTION 13

11. HANDOUTS 14

12. NEW TECHNOLOGIES 15

13. GAMES 16

14. EXERCISES 17

15. SIMULATION 18

16. CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES 19

17. BRAINSTORMING 20

18. DO IT YOURSELF 21

19. DISCUSSION 22

20. UNLEARNING AND UNBLOCKING 23

21. GIVE A PRESENTATION 24

Dick Barton MA MBA MSc FCIPD has been a software engineer, project manager,

HR manager, communications manager and trainer. He has provided training

management and consultancy for several leading firms and training services for large

and small organizations. He has developed and run training courses in the full range

of management, personal and interpersonal skills and worked as an independent

trainer, consultant and writer. He has contributed to books, journals and popular

childrens stories. Dick Barton has studied at the universities of Oxford, Leicester

and the Open University Business School.

Id love to hear your ideas, questions, problems and suggestions about training.

Please send them to [email protected].


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INTRODUCTION

If you were going to a training course, what would you like it to be? Interesting?

Fun? Relevant to your work? Something that will stick in your memory for years to

come? What a pity, then, that most training is dull. It is delivered in a standard,

predicable way and much of the content is taken straight from earlier courses, with no

attempt to find better or more up-to-date material. One trainer said to me, Trainersare the best re-cyclers in the world! He said it proudly. No wonder so much training

feels tired and worn out. It need not be like this.

Training evolved from ordinary lectures to the experiential phase, when good and

useful active training methods were swamped by courses which put participants

through experience just for the sake of it. Training then retreated to the safe style of

the participative lecture and the trainer-controlled case study that everyone is tired of

now. We are entering an age of creative training, which will use participative

presentation, group discussion and appropriate experiences and combine these with

other methods, but always respecting the dignity of each participant and the worth ofhis and her experience, ideas and values. Old ideas are compared with alternative

ideas to discover what they all offer. Most of all, training is fun, challenging and

memorable. A climate of fun brings out the creative, interested and open aspect of the

participants the childlike part of their personality. This makes them more open to

challenges and alternatives to their tried and trusted (although not always effective)

routines. Creative training sticks in the memory, and the learning it provides stays

there too, which means creative training has a much longer impact than standard

training.

This evolution has left us with a spectrum of training styles. At one end is the lecture:

one-way instruction. Next comes the presentation, which is likely to have a visualcomponent and could include some interaction between presenter and audience.

Moving on, we come to classic training: inactive sessions and trainer-led exercises.

Beyond that comes facilitation: a discussion in which the facilitator runs the process

but leaves the participants to create content. This style is good for personal

development training. At the far end of the scale is action coaching, in which a

trainer works with participants on their real, current problems, whether these are

tangible (such as how to negotiate well with a particular client) or intangible (such as

how a participant can overcome personal anxieties about behaving flexibly). All

these styles are useful and have their place in the excellent trainers repertoire,

providing they are all done excellently.

Creative training is more likely to be excellent training, so be open to its challenges.

Bring curiosity to this book and experiment with new ways of training which provide

alternatives to tried and trusted techniques. Beware of the Trainers Delusion: most

of us think we are more participative than we are. It is common for trainers to think

they elicit content from their participants, when in fact they give lectures. Also, we

compare other training to ourselves at our best, not ourselves at our average. So

examine what you actually do, not what youd like to think you do.

Male and female pronouns are used in alternate sections. No significance should be

inferred as both could apply to a man or a woman.


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1. MAKE AN ENVIRONMENT

Ive worked with trainers whose idea of a good training venue is a dreary room in an

ordinary hotel, set in its own car park, surrounded by main roads. The environment

for excellent training means much more than the physical venue, but choosing a good

venue is an important start. Ordinary business hotels can do a good job but they are

so ordinary your training will be tainted from the start. Choose somewhere pleasant:

many country houses have been converted into training centres and offer you better

facilities in more relaxed surroundings. Better still, choose somewhere memorable:

Ive run courses at London Zoo and given the day an animal theme. Can your local

tourist attraction accommodate a course? If so, the event will be much more

memorable than just another few days in a boxy hotel conference suite or the noisy

meeting room in your office.

Once you have a suitable physical venue you need to create a suitable emotional

venue. In general, adults learn best when they are treated as adults and, at the sametime, when their childlike part is inspired.

Treating participants as adults means respecting their expectations, concerns and

needs, and allowing them to make sense of the training in a way which makes sense to

them. If your attraction to training is the apparent opportunity it gives to control a

group, or make fun of them, or show how clever you are, you are going to encounter

problems with participants which are your fault, not theirs. So start by examining

your attitude towards others and improving any aspects which are more about meeting

your needs than theirs.

You can inspire the childlike aspect of participants by creating a sense of fun andcuriosity. Have appropriate games (see Way 13) near the start of your course. Create

some laughter, but not by poking fun at any participant or his organization (you can

poke fun at yourself, if you can be funny). Challenge difficult behaviour and fixed

ideas in a friendly manner. Make sure you have fun and make sure they have fun too.

There are many ways for a trainer to destroy a courses climate. Its common for

courses to start with an hour of introductory preamble, during which the concrete sets

and future group participation becomes a struggle. Trainers dictate groundrules, and

do it in a style which suggests the naughty participants want to break them. Trainers

refuse to discuss participants problems, and react badly if they challenge course

concepts. You can destroy participation forever by asking for ideas and responding to

them with No or Thats not the answer Im looking for.

Treating adults like this will generate rebellion: they may, for example, start coming

back late to annoy you. Some trainers complain of difficult groups but there are no

good and bad groups, just good and bad training. Trainers who want participants to

take what they can from their course almost never find participants difficult. Trainers

who want to control the group, or are using participants to meet any other private

need, frequently find participants difficult but the difficulty is not with the

participants.


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2. FROM ROLE-PLAY TO RE-ENACTMENT

Most people are familiar with the training role-play. Participants are issued briefs

which say You are Mr Brown, and you want to buy a fleet of cars or You are Mr

Green, and you sell car fleets The participants take the roles they are given and

act out a meeting. These role-plays are useful for basic skills practice: it gives

participants an opportunity to try out new skills and techniques in a safe environment.

Whether they will still know how to (or feel confident enough to) apply them when

they get back to work is uncertain.

To help participants bridge the gap between training and work, start off your skills

practice with some standard role-playing. Then have some role-plays in which

participants create the briefs themselves, based on situations they feel are real or the

worst they might come across. Taking it further, you could move on to re-enactments

or dress rehearsals.

Re-enactments are like role-plays but are based on real situations participants have

encountered in the past. An example is a mentoring course in which I invite

participants to think of a real, challenging mentoring situation they have encountered.

I make this a reverse role-play: each participant takes the role of the mentee she finds

challenging and briefs another participant who takes the role of the mentor. Most

participants find it very interesting to take on the role of their challenging mentee as

well as to see how another mentor tackles the case.

Rehearsals are like role plays but are based on real situations which participants

expect to encounter in the near future. An example is an influencing skills course.

After a couple of days of explaining the skills and practising them, participants areinvited to identify their next need to influence someone. Most think of the need to

influence their immediate manager! Someone takes the role of the manager and is

briefed on how she is likely to react. The participant can then rehearse influencing

her manager, getting feedback and ideas on how she could do it more effectively. She

will also acknowledge her anxieties about using her new influencing skills on her

manager. Once these have been uncovered, a supportive group (taking your lead) can

help her build confidence. This would never happen if the course stuck to pre-

prepared role-plays.

All these techniques make your training more real & relevant. You may not solve

participants situations perfectly but you will help much more than if you stick to

role-plays you prepared before you met any of them. Think how you can bring real

situations into your training.


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3. FROM CASE STUDIES TO LIVE CASES

The examination of case studies has long been a standard training technique. Indeed,

when a new topic is being studied for the first time, looking at case studies is the only

way to teach it. Then come simple checklists (such as the seven Ls or the four Ps)

and finally more sophisticated theories and models. A case study helps participants to

apply your training and appreciate the complexities of the ideas. A good case study

can act as a backbone to a course, providing a running theme through the different

topics an example is a course for IT managers in which I included a case study on

implementing an e project. After a training session on planning, organizational

design, dealing with interpersonal problems or whatever, participants were given a

new development in the case study project which allowed them to implement ideas

from the training.

However good your prepared case study, it will be different from the real cases faced

by your course participants. To help bridge the gap between your training and theirworking lives, the best case studies you can use are the real work situations they are

facing at present. An example is a negotiation skills course. After sessions on

negotiating and influence skills and a few pre-prepared role-play exercises, I ask

participants to describe the negotiations they are currently engaged in. The

participants then choose one or two to examine in more detail. We get a full briefing

and sometimes do a re-enactment (see the previous Way). These current cases have

far more complexities and interest than an historical case study. The application of

the course material is brought to life. Some amazing stories come out! One course

participant was negotiating with a client over who should pay for something which

cost 250,000 per year. It turned out that the real problem was not the client but the

participants manager, who always caved in to the client. This put the poorparticipant in a hopelessly weak position. What he needed to do was negotiate with

his manager to be more supportive and, with the group, we found ways for him to do

that. This real solution to his problem would never have been found if I had relied on

pre-prepared case studies.

Youll feel safer sticking with a case study you know. It will feel risky asking

participants to select a case study. Take the risk youll learn more and so will they.


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4. QUESTIONNAIRES

A popular training tool is to ask participants to complete a questionnaire and then

consider the result that comes out of it. Most participants find these questionnaires

fun and interesting but there are some pitfalls you need to watch out for, especially

the psychometric instruments which aim to measure aspects of personality.

First of all, remember that no questionnaire is perfectly accurate. If participants

complete a questionnaire about themselves, then self perception and social

desirability inaccuracies creep in. If participants ask others to complete

questionnaires about them, then relationship and limited experience inaccuracies

creep in. Even if questionnaires could be accurate, they are only snapshots in time;

people change as they mature, and in different circumstances, and in different moods.

So while questionnaire results cannot be ignored, encourage your participants to

challenge constructively what they say.

Secondly, these questionnaires often express their results in terms of archetypes: a

pure and extreme form of the behaviour. But it is easy to take the labels of these pure

forms and talk of ourselves and others in these terms. People say, Im a Shaper or

Youre an Activist or whatever, although no one is purely just one of these

categories.

Thirdly, people can see these tools as definitive rather than developmental. In other

words, people understand the tool to mean Im type A and thats that rather than

Im currently showing a preference for type A how do I want to move on from

there? Whats especially bad is when people hide behind the listed shortcomings of

their type by saying things like, Im an Activist, so you cant expect me to seethings through or Im a Shaper, so Im allowed to be abrupt. This type of reaction,

one of Im allowed to have these shortcomings, misses the point to a serious and

alarming degree. If the questionnaire helps someone identify her shortcomings, then

she has the opportunity to work on overcoming them. To see them as allowable or

unchangeable makes the training pointless.

Finally, a problem with psychometric instruments is the attraction of applying the

ideas to others rather than to oneself. I can either reflect on and learn from the

framework offered by a questionnaire or I can take the safer option of putting aside

what it says about me and start using the framework to categorise other people. I

might say I dont like you because youre high on control, which appears to

justify my likes and dislikes but in reality ignores my need to develop. Not only do I

fail to learn but I start treating others as little more than instances of types. If I apply

labels to people, my relationships with them will suffer.


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5. PICTURES

Our education system and business culture teach us to value thinking in language and

in numbers. We like to hear the arguments and consider the bottom line. As children

we think in other ways as well but these get neglected and we fall out of the habit.

One approach to getting back in touch with other ways of thinking is to draw pictures.

If you use any particular diagram formats (such as rich pictures, influence diagrams,

force field analyses, systems maps or multiple cause diagrams) you can include these

in your training. Ask participants to work in small groups creating diagrams of a real

issue or case study. They will find that the discussions they have while creating the

diagrams are of great value the finished product can almost be thrown away.

Straightforward drawing can also be used to explore a topic. For example, on a

course on personal effectiveness, I ask participants to create a drawing which, for

them, represents effectiveness. Ive seen all sorts of pictures as a result. Their varietyintroduces the idea that effectiveness covers many topics. Ive kicked off courses by

asking people to create drawings which represent their companies and their lives. Its

a non-standard way of breaking the ice within people as well as among people. Ive

had course participants create posters and cartoon strips to illustrate learning points.

As well as drawing pictures, you can ask participants to imagine them. Guided

imagery is a fairly well-known technique now. Get participants to relax, ideally by

lying on the floor and talking them through some stages of relaxation. Then describe

situations or events but without giving much detail. The participants create the

images in their own minds and afterwards you can discuss what they saw. On the

effectiveness course mentioned above, I ask participants to imagine they are on acountry walk, climbing a hill, then finding an obstacle. Some people see no more

than a stile they can jump over. Others have seen raging rivers, barbed wire and,

once, an infinite black wall. This leads to a discussion about perceived barriers to

effectiveness.

Using pictures encourages a childlike sense of excitement, wonder and curiosity.

This helps reduce adult-thinking cynicism and the if I dont know it already it isnt

worth knowing assumption that some of us carry.


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6. DRAMA

We use the language of the theatre in business: people have a role in the

organization, they have a part to play in a project and they act as coach. Role

plays are a simple form of drama used for training. Many organizations now employ

professional actors during their training courses to act as difficult clients or awkward

staff. This is expensive but drama can be included in training much more cheaply and

easily.

A course had a session on building relationships at work. It was a standard session:

collect some opinions from the participants then talk through a few slides which make

key points. It was boring and seemed like common sense even to those with poor

relationship skills. It was replaced with an exercise in which teams of four were

asked to put on a little show which made key points about building working

relationships or which illustrated some of the ways in which they can go wrong. The

session became one of the highlights of the course. Not only was it more fun butparticipants were able to relate to the little sketches much more than to the former

session. After each show, the audience were asked if they had any experience which

illustrated the main points being made, and they always came up with interesting

experiences, from which valuable learning could be extracted. Ive also had

participants make little shows to illustrate company policies and values, and perform

adverts for company service lines.

On a personal development course which helps people overcome their fears and build

self-esteem, I use The Wizard of Oz as a metaphor for the course. As you may

remember, Dorothy meets three friends who want a brain, a heart and courage. In the

terms of the course, these represent people with anxieties about their competence,likeability and significance. The cure consists of the Wizard pointing out that they

already have the quality they desire, they just need to discover it in themselves.

Rather than trying to labour these points in a training session, we get two teams to put

on a version of the story, providing them with copies of the book and a box of props.

The exercise is challenging, fun and different. It certainly encourages participants to

push beyond their normal behavioural boundaries and makes the course memorable.

Only after the shows have been performed are they invited to consider the

significance of the story as a metaphor for personal development.

People often feel they need permission or an excuse to try out new behaviours.

Asking them to put on a little show frequently allows people to behave in a way

which is different from their existing character. You can then invite them to consider

what new behaviours they want to demonstrate at work and so help them develop

their character to fulfil new organizational roles.


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7. VIDEOS

The use of video is now well established in training. The main uses are: using video

recordings to give feedback to participants and showing training videos.

Making a video recording of a participant and then playing it back can be a powerful

tool. Participants often report it as the best aspect of a course as they can see for

themselves what they do and discuss with others how they could do better. It is

sometimes hard for trainers to accept that seeing oneself on video is still a novel

experience for many people. This techniques works best in communications training,

such as presentations skills, and also can add to courses in appraisal, negotiating and

recruitment.

There are now dozens of training videos on the market. A few are excellent, some are

good and many are dreadful. Some which were once good are now hopelessly out of

date. Select training videos carefully and remember that lazy and ineffective trainerssometimes pad out their courses with them three in one day is not unknown. Its

always best to build a video into a session rather than have one as an unconnected

module within a course. Even if you brainstorm ideas for putting the videos message

into action after you have shown it, you are likely to get more result from the video

than if you just show it, then move on.

But as well as these now common uses of video, there are more creative things you

can do. Why not get your participants to make a video themselves? One example is a

teamworking course; towards the end of the week, each team is asked to make a video

about the learning and development of the other team. This is a teamworking exercise

in itself which also reviews the course and results in a permanent record of it for theparticipants. Ive seen a few dull documentaries but Ive also seen brilliant, creative

and insightful films. Some have been hilarious.

Another example is a management course in which teams were asked to make their

own training video. The participants had all seen training videos before and so knew

the typical formats. I helped them with content and they made the films themselves.

It was a useful evening activity to bring life to a short residential course and the

participants could keep copies of the films (no copyright issues if the video is

homemade). Making a training video is far, far more memorable than watching one.

How could you use video on your courses in a way which makes the events more

interesting and involving?


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8. EXPERIENCE

We dont always learn from experience but for many its the best way there is. So

much training consists of lectures, presentations, brainstorming and trainer-controlled

exercises; theres often not much real experience in there. Role plays and other

practicals provide useful skills practice and some degree of experience but it is

possible to go further.

The type of training which most obviously involves real experience is outward-bound

training, with activities such as rock climbing, rafting and hiking. Basing business

training around outdoor activities seems indulgent and absurd until you try it. There

is no doubt that putting participants into situations of real stress and pressure helps

them challenge cosy views about themselves and others which were formed from the

comfort of an office chair. Outdoor training must always be done with a qualified

expert for reasons of safety, so it can be beyond the reach of many tightly-budgeted

courses. Are there cheaper and simpler alternatives?

The alternatives may not have the excitement of abseiling down a rock face but they

can provide real experience. A widely used one is the Trust Walk. There are several

variations of this but basically participants work in pairs. One puts on a blindfold

while the other guides her around; halfway through, they swap roles. If you cant get

hold of blindfolds just strips torn from a sheet will do. Pillowcases over the head also

make vision impossible, even if your participants do look like executioners! Before

the exercise, decide on a route you want the participants to follow. Include some

challenges like steps, changes of surface, moving outdoors and so forth. Plan a

different route back when the pairs have swapped the blindfold. Some trainers

complicate matters with rules such as not being able to touch the blindfolded partnerbut I find contact helps in many ways. What matters is how you review the exercise:

draw out participants feelings on leading and being led and relate that to managing

and being managed at work.

As well as building experiences into a course, it is possible to make a whole course

into an experience. A consulting skills course packs a consulting project, based on a

real case, into a six day course. A mentoring course makes participants mentor each

other over real issues. A counselling course asks participants to share their genuine

worries. All of these provide real experience and so make better training than pre-

prepared role plays.


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9. SOMETHING STRANGE

Participants come to training events with a mind set. Some are keen and enthusiastic,

some are bored and cynical, some suspicious and anxious. The opening moments of

an event have a great impact on the climate which develops, which is why icebreaking

exercises (way 14) are so useful. But at any stage of a course it helps if you can

generate some curiosity. Doing something unusual or unexpected will achieve this.

Speakers at large events sometimes do something dramatic at the start of their talk to

grab attention: one poured a glass of water onto the floor to introduce a talk on waste;

another crawled along the floor to the podium to make a point about seeking

information that competitors miss. Such dramatic actions will not always work well

with smaller groups so beware of going too far unless you know your audience. A

more moderate way to attract attention is to take a large pile of overhead projector

slides out of your bag and then dramatically toss them in the bin, before explaining

that you do not intend to insult them with lectures (however well illustrated) butinstead have a more exciting event planned. Even having a room layout that is just a

circle of chairs, rather than the classic training horseshoe of seats behind tables, will

arouse interest and demonstrate that your event will not be like other courses they

may have attended.

Toys help to engage the childlike aspect of your participants. Many trainers include

juggling in their courses, both to give experiences in coaching, leading or whatever

and to include a fun, memorable aspect. Ive known trainers demonstrate different

learning styles by asking participants to put together toy aeroplanes (some people read

the instructions, others just try things out). On presentations skills courses I

sometimes bring a toy clown called Norman who I accuse of making every mistakewhen presenting (Dont use loads of fancy transition effects thats just the kind of

thing Norman does and its distracting.)

Trainers organise demonstrations of production systems by getting participants to

assemble electric plugs. Trainers address issues of openness by asking participants to

mill around and chat as if they were at a cocktail party. Doing something strange will

feel risky for a trainer used to conventional methods. Take a risk. You will capture

the imagination of your participants and they will be much more receptive.


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10. REFLECTION

Most trainers pack their programmes. Indeed, there is often an anxiety about any

unused time during a training course: it feels like a waste and the participants wont

believe they are getting value for money unless every minute is filled with lectures,

exercises and other trainer-led action. Yet we all know that people need time; why do

you think they come back late from coffee breaks? The natural reflectors want time

to digest course material and those who do not naturally spend time reflecting need to

learn to do so.

The more challenging your training, the more you need to build in reflection time. It

may not be crucial to a course in software development or financial accounting but

will be to a course in interpersonal skills or personal development. Even technical

courses can benefit from some time put aside for participants to think through all they

have learned and identify those aspects they are still not sure about.

So how do you build in useful time? Its not enough to ask participants to go away

and think about what they have learned: some will just go away, and those that do

stop to think may not be sure what you want them to think about. Its best to ask

participants to talk about the course in pairs or small groups. Discussion with others

usually helps the reflection process, and will certainly kick off more trains of thought

for participants to reflect on when they are alone. You can create learning

partnerships which continue throughout a course and beyond.

To begin with, provide some structure for these joint reflection sessions. Ask your

pairs or groups to consider some specific questions about the course or discuss some

specific issues. Give them an amount of time they should expect to spend on theirdiscussions. As a course progresses, you may be able to give less guidance and let the

pairs or groups determine their own agenda.

On residential courses, it is especially useful to schedule some small group discussion

time towards the end of the day between the end of the training sessions and the

evening meal. This is a good time, because participants will have received a lot of

new ideas and information and talking it over with colleagues will help them

remember it, apply it and identify areas which need further explanation from you at

the start of the next day. I have asked small groups to exchange feedback with each

other after a day of working together and it is common for participants to report that

receiving this feedback was the most useful element of the entire course.


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11. HANDOUTS

Even the name handouts has a depressing ring to it they sound like something you

might give to a beggar. There are two extreme approaches to training course

handouts:

One approach is to dish out the occasional document made of two or three sheetsof paper stapled in a corner. During a course, a number of these handouts are

issued; they are often in different typefaces and are clearly made from dog-eared

photocopies.

The other approach is to burden each participant with a two-inch binder stuffedfull. Those participants who get it home will use it to prop up their garage.

Trainers get anxious about the dilemma between giving handouts early (But then

they look at them rather than listen to me) or giving handouts late (But then they

dont know what to note down and what will be supplied).

So what are we to do? Consider the following suggestions, then make your choices.

After all, the documentation participants take away is the main tangible output of your

work and an advertisement for what you provide.

Package all handouts into a single document. Aim for something which is neithertoo small to show substance nor so large it is off-putting. Between 30 and 50

pages, spiral bound or presented in a smart wallet, is about right for most

purposes.

The visual impact of documents matters, just like the visual impact of food. Makeyour handout look attractive and consider giving it a brand or logo.

Leave lots of space in your handout for participants to write their own thoughtsand reflections. I often point out that the best documentation a participant can

take away from a training course is the notes, jottings and scribbles he makes

himself.

Give the document out at the start of the course so participants can write on it. Ifyou want them to close it, ask them to close it. If you get bothered by people

turning the page every time you show a new slide youre probably showing too

many slides.

The 21 ways to books originated as training course handouts and are now used in

many organizations. They have easy-to-read practical tips and avoid long sections of

theory. You can preview the books currently available and find out how to orderthem by visiting www.dickbarton.co.uk.

A creative approach is to get course participants to make their own handout. A

communication skills course in which participants identify key behaviours they want

to adopt results in their flipcharts being typed up, formatted and distributed. A

consulting skills course has participants create a networking book for everyone,

containing photographs, quotations from the course, key learning points and names

and brief histories of the participants and trainers.

So make your handout a document that participants will actually want to read. Judge

it by its appeal, not its weight!


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12. NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Like so many other lines of work, training is being changed forever by new

technologies. Some see them as spelling the end for the training profession: If

training written by top professors can be delivered over the internet, who needs

trainers? But anyone who understands how adults learn knows that technology is

still a very long way from being able to replicate the interaction between people

which is needed for effective training. Only those trainers who see their role as no

more than lecturing, showing slides and setting tests need fear that technology will

make them redundant.

For the rest of us, new technology provides the opportunity to unburden ourselves

from many of the straightforward parts of the job. The ideal situation is one in which

course participants get all the basic information, theory, concepts and so forth from a

CD or over a network, which can also provide some basic exercises. They then come

to a training session ready to discuss their learning and their questions about it, try outnew skills with support and work through applying what they have learned to their

particular circumstances. Then they return to work and exchange new ideas and

experiences through a newsgroup.

The reality is often very different from this ideal. Participants arrive at the training

event without having done the pre-course study. They didnt know about it, or they

didnt have time, or they could not get it to work. You then have the problem of

running a course with a mixture of people who have worked through the material and

people who have not. If you have an electronic forum for present and past

participants on a course, it will probably be dominated by a small number of people

who have the time and motivation to take part.

Some organizations have a culture in which participants will use new and old

technologies to create a combined learning programme. Unless your participants are

from an organization like that, its best to keep the two types of training separate.

Have traditional training events which build skills, explore understanding and develop

people. Also have training delivered through new technology which provides

knowledge, offers ideas and provides refresher and update information. Many firms

have bought the rights to place 21 ways to books on their intranets visit

www.dickbarton.co.ukto find out how you can do the same. If you have a learning

website on your intranet (and you probably should), create games, treasure hunts and

contests to encourage people to look at it. Use traditional courses to advertise

learning through technology, and use the learning provided through technology to

advertise your traditional courses.


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13. GAMES

Many people assume that learning and fun do not go together. Any training which

breaks this assumption has done something useful. Games bring many benefits to

training. They can break the ice by helping participants get to know each other,

they can raise energy levels and they can help anchor the learning: if participants

remember fun they had on a course, this recollection will remind them of the learning

they got from it too.

Icebreakers at the start of a course include asking pairs of participants to find

similarities and differences between them, asking them to draw (and then explain) a

picture or heraldic shield which says something about them and asking them to bring

three objects from home which say something about them. I have a bingo game in

which participants check off squares by finding someone who, for example, owns a

blue car, has been to Russia or has worked in a pub. Even if you ask participants to

include a fascinating fact about themselves in a standard introduction, you areallowing them to show that they are real people.

Energisers are useful after sedentary sessions or after lunch. Simple ones include

asking everyone to run on the spot, cross the room without touching the ground or to

try their acting skills (Act like youve got a pain; now laugh as if youve heard the

funniest joke ever). I like treasure hunt games: ask teams to collect objects, each

beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, or ask them to answer a list of

questions about the venue (such as the colour of the carpet in the office or the number

of pictures in the ladies toilet). Ask your participants to invent energisers.

If you want participants in groups, you can do it randomly by asking them to line upin order of their house or flat number, or the order of the number of letters in their

name, or the order of the time of year when they have their birthday, or the number of

first cousins they have, or anything else you or they can think of. Then count the

groups off from one end. This is fun and avoids more awkward ways of creating

groups.

An ideal is a game which helps meet the learning objectives of the course. There are

dozens of indoor and outdoor exercises which can be used to make learning points

about the need for planning, teamwork, leadership or the way we react under pressure.

I do a quiz show, in which teams compete for a prize by answering questions about

the course. This acts as an excellent review of a course and its fun to include

questions based on what you have learnt about participants (Who had to be carried

home after his 21st

birthday party?).


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14. EXERCISES

As well as games which are fun and make general points about working in

organizations, trainers have long made use of exercises which actually test the skill

which the training is meant to develop.

On the technical front, it is usual for courses in software design or computer

programming to include exercises in doing the actual work. Having said that, there

are still people who think you can train technical skills by lectures alone! Exercises

typically start off trivially easy then get harder. In general, the closer you can make

an exercise to the type of real work participants will do, the better. Some training

programmes have the skills training followed a training project in which participants

apply what they have learned in a situation close to their working environment but

with extra coaching and support.

On a less technical note, course participants can be invited to complete any kind ofproject as part of a training programme. On a graduate induction programme, small

teams of participants are given a task to work on between two training courses. They

have to investigate an aspect of their new companys business and create a

presentation on it, including the problems it faces and their recommendations to

improve that line of business. In the second course, these presentations are delivered

to an audience which includes company directors. Its a great way for the new

graduates to meet people and get known.

Exercises are also useful in non-technical training. Way 2 dealt with role-plays, and

how they can be improved by making them into re-enactments or rehearsals. If you

are training people in skills such as appraisal or counselling, you can createopportunities for them to apply these techniques to each other live during the course.

For example, on a coaching skills course, I put partners into coaching pairs and ask

them to go and apply the skills they have learned by coaching each other on real

issues. They can then give feedback to their coach; in effect, coaching the coach in

her coaching skills. It could get complicated! But they have the chance to practice

the skills in an entirely realistic situation, except for the fact they will get feedback

and do not have to worry about long-term relationships between the coach and the

coached. This arrangement is also useful for demonstrating that the coach does not

need to be an expert in the work of the person being coached; that, in fact, a nave

coach can be more useful. I once had a participant re-structure her entire department

after a coaching course in which she was paired with a manager from a different

business altogether. She wrote later saying that the benefits were considerable.


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15. SIMULATION

Many people (though not all people) learn best through doing. Thats why exercises

(Way 14) and role plays (Way 2) are standard features of training. Simulation means

inviting participants to perform work similar to that they are being trained for and

then giving feedback and extracting learning.

Role plays are a form of simulation, and the closer the role play is to real work, the

better. Other common forms are doing presentations for presentations training and

doing interviews for interview training. Training in managing teams should include

team exercises which require groups of participants to work together. Examples of

this are getting teams to build towers out of paper and getting teams to climb a rock

face (all outdoor training of this nature must, of course, be controlled by people

qualified to run it). Whole projects can be simulated by getting teams of participants

to, for example, uncover a client requirement for a building, design it and build it (out

of Lego), while having to deal with changes in requirements, staff turnover, budgetingproblems and other real aspects of project work.

All these types of simulation are widely used but where they differ is in how well they

are reviewed. I am always amazed when I encounter training courses which make

huge demands on participants, then fail to review the activity at all. I have heard tales

of participants being dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and told to go

orienteering then, after having gone through all that, no effort is made to review the

experience or even explain the point of it. I have encountered expensive training

consultants who have course participants swinging from ropes and climbing poles,

then leave the experience behind and get on with the next session. Perhaps they hope

the learning will happen anyway. It will to a small extent. But much more wouldhappen if the activity was properly reviewed.

A simple review is the collection of some learning points from the participants. Ask

them what they learned from the activity and write these on a flipchart. This will get

you learning of the We should have spent more time planning level. Help them find

ways to use their learning to do better in the next activity and specific steps they can

take to apply the learning in their work.

You can take it further by, for example, asking participants to give each other

feedback about what they all did which helped and which hindered the process. You

can ask participants to make self-disclosures about their feelings and anxieties during

the simulation. If your training aims to help participants understand themselves (how

they limit their range of behaviours, why they react to people the way they do and so

on) you can use the reviews of activities to explore choices and consequences. Take

care: too many trainers like to play amateur psychologist.


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16. CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

Many new training courses are put together by selecting bits from old training

courses, creating new courses in the familiar style. Even icebreaking exercises have

settled into familiar patterns, such as interview and introduce your neighbour.

Theres nothing wrong with any of the old techniques except they are over-used now

and a course which uses familiar techniques will be seen as just another course by

the participants and quickly forgotten.

There are dozens of creativity techniques available. They are invented to solve

problems and can be applied in a training context, to elicit ideas from participants.

By creating and developing their own ideas for improvements and changes,

participants leave the course with actions they feel greater ownership of and

commitment to than if they had been given these same ideas by an expert. They are

likely to be better ideas, too, as they have been refined by people who really

understand the details of the problem and its context.

The best known creativity technique, brainstorming, is covered in the next Way.

Others ways of generating ideas include the pinboard method: ask participants to

write ideas on sticky notes and then gather these on a wall (clustering similar ones

together). You can also ask them to list ideas on a piece of paper, but every couple of

minutes they rotate papers and so have to develop each others ideas. You can use

guided imagery to ask them to imagine an improved workplace, then ask them to run

the film backwards to see how the improvements were made. Ask them to think of

ideas which could not work, then identify the assumptions which are making the ideas

seem impractical. Reframe the problem in various ways to see if that suggests new

ways of tackling it.

Selecting ideas to develop can be made interesting by giving each participant six

votes to allocate to ideas in any way they please; the votes cluster around the ideas

they want to take further. The development of ideas can be given a creative structure

by asking what it would take to make the idea fail, then bullet proofing the idea to

prevent that failure happening.

Diagrams and pictures are useful for engaging participants visual thinking. Multiple

cause diagrams help analyse a problem, as do influence diagrams, process flow

diagrams and mind maps. Ask participants to create pictures of their vision of the

future: some trainers encourage them to use hand paints and collage techniques. You

can even ask participants to collect objects and create a sculpture which represents a

problem or a solution.

A critical stage is the development of ideas. Suggestions which seem crazy at first

start to seem like inspirational genius when they are developed. Help the group think

of ways to overcome the obstacles and make the ideas work. Ask What would it

take for this idea to work? Seek new ways of creative problem solving and find how

to apply them to the training you do. If youre stuck, think about any of the following

words and use it as a stimulus to help you think of a creative training session: logs,

banana, kettle, excursion.


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17. BRAINSTORMING

Brainstorming is the gathering together of ideas from a group, with no judgement

made on them, followed by the development of any ideas which seem intriguing. The

freedom to suggest anything at all results in ideas coming forth which might never

have been suggested if participants had done the usual thing of filtering out all ideas

which are not fully developed and clearly workable.

Brainstorming is great for generating lists of items, which are much more complete

than if they had been drawn up by one person; for example, participants on a

supervisors course are asked to brainstorm ideas on making a good induction for a

new team member. The brainstormed list includes topics such as fire drills and local

amenities, which are forgotten from typical inductions. The resulting list still needs

some work: there may be topics which are not applicable in every case and a thorough

induction needs to be planned over several days or weeks. But the result of this

brainstorming activity is likely to be supervisors who will return to work and inductnew colleagues far better than if they had sat (slept?) through a typical lecture session

on how to do inductions.

This standard version of brainstorming is well known and probably familiar to your

participants. It can be made new and different by using one of its variants. You can

generate interesting ideas by reversing the problem (asking participants to think of

ways to make induction, for example, worse) or by taking heroic roles (asking

participants to imagine themselves as a fictional hero before giving ideas for

induction) or by randomising (selecting a word at random and asking how participants

might relate the word to better induction). I have had participants think of ways to

reduce communication in a company, had suggestions from Captain Picard of theUSS Enterprise and Sherlock Holmes on ways to increase sales of books and used

the word picnic to inspire ways to increase motivation. Not only are these

techniques refreshing and memorable, they lead to ideas which may not have been

suggested using more conventional methods. Captain Picards suggestion of asking

his second in command to sell more books lead to a discussion of outsourcing the

problem, which led to books being sold through an independent web site.

Another way to vary brainstorming is to cascade the process through groups of

increasing size. Get the participants into pairs and ask the pairs to generate as many

ideas as they can onto a flipchart. Working in pairs is particularly helpful to quieter

participants, who are anxious about contributing to large groups. After a time, put

pairs together to form groups of four. They show each others flipcharts and, inspired

by what they have seen, the foursomes generate more ideas. Then combine

foursomes, ask them to share everything they have gathered, and ask them to add

more. Keep combining groups until the participants are back in a single group. Then

move on to the next stage: selecting ideas, perhaps for inclusion in a list (such as

topics for an induction or functions of a database system) or for development (turning

intriguing and original ideas into workable action plans).


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18. DO IT YOURSELF

If you find yourself struggling over how to teach a theory or model in an interesting

way, heres a suggestion: dont. Im all in favour of tried and tested theory but

sometimes its better to help course participants create a new one of their own. For

example, I was asked to include a session on decision making in a management

course. I looked at all the different decision making models and problem solving

frameworks. There were many of them, some aimed at specific types of problem,

some covering just certain parts of the process, none of them ideal and all seemed

likely to offer a dull training session. So instead, I decided to help the participants

create their own decision making model. Ive run this session many times now and it

has always led to a decision making model that participants own and which we can

use to work on management problems that we tackle during the rest of the course. I

start by asking them Whats the first stage in making a decision? and then asking

questions like What needs to happen after that? and What needs to be done before

that? I give some guidance and I draw their process up (on a whiteboard) in a circlebecause I want to end up with an iterative model. But the model which we derive is

mostly theirs and the session is far more lively and engaging than if I had talked them

through a model Id taken from a book.

I have also led groups to come up with their own checklist for a good objective, which

generated more enthusiasm than I have ever seen aroused by a trainer simply giving a

group a standard checklist of objective characteristics.

You cant have course participants create every model and framework for themselves

but you can have them create a few. Others you can show them in a presentation or

ask them to read about. The point is to create a varied training course which standsout from all the others they will have attended.


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19. DISCUSSION

Adults, unlike children, come to training events already carrying a wealth of

knowledge, experience, insights and beliefs. Adults are not empty vessels waiting to

be filled with new learning: they need to combine new learning with their existing

knowledge and experience. This is aided by reflection (Way 10) and by discussing

the learning with a group of course participants.

The skills of leading a group discussion are known as facilitation. This is unfortunate

because facilitation is an unattractive word. It is used to mean many different things.

I have known trainers who call themselves facilitators and then deliver

straightforward training (presenting slides, running trainer-controlled exercises and so

forth). Worse, I have known trainers use the word manipulatively: a few trainers

within a team declare that they are facilitators while their colleagues are just

trainers. They use this assertion to justify demands for higher pay, greater status or

simply to monopolise the most attractive work of the team. Managers of trainers needto watch out for such games.

Facilitation is just another set of skills which all trainers can use. It is one of those

skill sets which is never complete: there is always more to learn about facilitation and

trainers only stop developing their facilitation skills when they choose to believe they

have mastered the skill and have nothing left to learn. As with so many other areas of

skill, when this view is adopted, the learning not only stops but starts to go

backwards.

Basic facilitation skills are asking questions which prompt a discussion, providing a

summary of discussion which is accurate and undistorting, bringing quieterparticipants into the discussion, managing those who are contributing too much and

assisting those who are struggling to get their points across clearly. Facilitators also

have a range of group processes which they can offer to help groups move on (such as

problem solving techniques, analysis tools, diagramming methods and groundrules for

productive group behaviour). Facilitators challenge disruptive behaviour and fixed

ideas yet do it in a way which leaves the participants dignity intact. Facilitators are

aware of their own self-esteem needs and are careful not to put them first. However

experienced they are, facilitators regularly review their skills and know what they

want to work on next. Facilitators help others to develop their facilitation skills.


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20. UNLEARNING AND UNBLOCKING

Successful people take risks, show confidence and inspire others. Their success is

due, in large measure, to their positive attitude rather than to particular skills. Yet

traditional training is focused exclusively on skills and does not even try to develop

an attitude that would enable participants to use them. The result is courses in, say,

influencing skills which train people how to do what influential people do. Yet the

trained people return to the workplace without the confidence to use the behaviours

and so their influence skills are used ineffectively or not at all. Similarly, no amount

of training in the skills of effective listening will make a good listener of someone

who has a dismissive attitude towards others.

Dissatisfaction with skills-based how-to-do-it training has led to the growth of

training which takes different approaches to developing people. Some help

participants to unlearn skills they have picked up and replace them with more

effective habits. For instance, a course might help a participant replace his habit ofdealing with conflict by submitting to the other party with a habit of exploring the

other partys underlying need before proposing a solution which helps both.

Some training aims to unblock participants by surfacing, and then challenging, their

basic assumptions about the world. For example, an assertiveness trainer will probe

into why participants dont use assertiveness already. We often work to beliefs such

as Its risky to ask for anything or Senior people are not like me and its these

beliefs which make assertiveness difficult. No amount of training in assertion skills

will have a lasting effect if a participant continues to hold limiting beliefs such as

these.

A similar approach is to access the personal drivers which motivate participants. The

work of Will Schutz, to take an excellent example, suggests that I have fundamental

anxieties about my importance, my competence or my likeability. These anxieties

make me who I am; but the ways in which I deal with them can make me less

effective than I might be. By helping participants identify their fears, then helping

them find constructive ways to handle them, trainers taking this approach have a great

impact.

So training in how to do skilful behaviours, without addressing what lies behind

behaviours, has limits to its effectiveness. The reverse is true. Those trainers who

have taken the unlearning or unblocking or self-discovery approach sometimes

become dismissive of skills training. This is unfortunate, as releasing the potential of

a more confident person will not always help her if she has not also developed the

skills to use her new confidence well. A balanced programme is best.

There are risks with these alternative approaches to training. There are many trainers

who have read a couple of popular psychology paperbacks and assume they are

qualified psychotherapists. I have heard trainers make bold statements about human

psychology which cannot be justified. The trainer holds a position of power and it

must be used responsibly. Lets all be aware of the limits of our own training. A

little knowledge is a dangerous thing.


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21. GIVE A PRESENTATION

The last way to deliver excellent training is the obvious one. Delivering a

presentation, usually an interactive one, is the standard form for most training.

However, as this book has shown, it is just one of many different ways to deliver

training. Giving a presentation has the advantage of feeling safe for both trainer and

participants. Standard material can be delivered to large numbers of people.

However, it has the disadvantage of giving the trainer too much control. Participants

become passive and, while they may take in what the trainer is saying, they will feel

little ownership of it. They will get bored and forget much of what they are told.

If a large part of a training programme consists of giving information or facts or

instructions, consider using text or new technology to deliver it. This method will not

always be suitable but it might be much more effective than having everyone attend a

presentation-style course. As mentioned in Way 12, some organizations are

developing cultures in which mixed programmes work. For example, a programme isdesigned so that participants get the basic facts of the topic from a CD package, then

attend a classroom training event which uses other training methods to build on the

knowledge by developing skills.

If you are going to use presentations as a core part of your training, do what you can

to make them excellent and there is much that you can do. Presenting, of course, is

one of those skills which we continue to get better at until we decide that we are

good enough. At that point, we stop getting better and slip into lazy habits. So keep

working on your presentation techniques.

Make sure you present what your participants need. Good presenters start bycollecting the expectations of their audience on a flipchart and then tailoring (or even

completely changing) the presentation to meet those expectations. Poor trainers

deliver the session they like; perhaps the same session they have been delivering for

years.

Throw out most of your visual aids. Poor presenters like to create dozens of slides as

they seem to offer a support. Its tempting to create huge Powerpoint presentations,

stuffed full of clip-art (most of which we have seen before) plus fancy typefaces,

build and transition effects. If you have fallen in love with your presentation slide set,

its time to throw it out and start again. Great presenters know that they are the main

visual aid and more than a few slides creates an unwelcome distraction. You cant

build rapport with your participants if they are staring at a screen. Indeed, if they are

not participating, they are not participants, just a passive audience. So use

presentations, just make sure they are as excellent as all the other training you do.

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21ways to Deliver Excellent Training