One time I attended a training with some colleagues and instead of being encouraged to learn, we felt antagonized because instead of helping us discover the learning, the facilitator was insulting our intelligence. He acted and showed that he knew more (and better) than we do. As a trainer, there is nothing wrong with being knowledgeable – and you should be to be credible – however, if you want to encourage your learners to learn, you need to involve them in the learning process and help them discover the learning – not act you are a Ms-Know-It-All or Mr-Know-It-All and be high and mighty with them. The biggest mistake a trainer can make is alienating his or her learners. If you want them to be involved and participate in the whole training program, you need to give them aid and guide them not work against them. This is what makes your training program a success. After all, the program is all about your learners and not you. That trainer we had, since there were a several batches he facilitated along with us, we heard that the other trainees complained about him too and we did not see him again the next days nor was he a trainer for the succeeding batches that came along. Remember your goals as a facilitator: 1) Be knowledgeable but do not shove it in your learners faces; 2) Involve them in the learning; 3) Aid them do not alienate them; 4) Encourage them to participate and most importantly; 5) Remind yourself: It is all about them and not you. Once you keep all these in mind, you will find that you will a group of happy campers – in this case, learners throughout the duration of your training program.

If you are doing training for your team or trainees, I often talk about making your activities relevant to the topics in your training program. I am not changing my stance on this in fact, I encourage it very much. These activities after all will benefit your learners in the long run. I do encourage that you give them some variety sometimes, insert a non-relevant short activity like a game especially after the lunch break. Your learners (and even you – some times) are in that siesta mood state after having lunch and therefore, have not exactly shifted to the learning mode just yet. So what do you do? You need to wake them up and shake them up back to that learning mood and mode. Something as simple as a “Bring Me” game and give them prizes – I usually give them a candy or chocolate bar or some toy from the dollar store like a stress ball or those squiggly balls. You can be silly or be creative on the prizes there are no rules. Do keep in mind that these intermission games or activities are very short, will not take more than 10 minutes and be sure will not take most of your training time for the rest of the day. Once you have succeeded that your learners are awake and out of that siesta mode and ready to learn, segue on to the next topic in your training schedule. Be very wary though when inserting a non-relevant activity or game in your training day. Some trainers make the mistake of using non-relevant games way too much during their training day that they end up not being able to finish the topics scheduled or not getting the more important training aspects or highlights done on time. For the relevant activities, you can still incorporate the game-like aspect into them say like a “Jeopardy” game. Use the information in your training topics as the Jeopardy topics. Separate them into two groups, a number of players on each group to take turns playing and then giving the winning group a group prize. Why not do a “Family Feud” activity, again using relevant information from the training as topics. Learners learn the material more when it is infused in a fun-filled, yet engaging and useful activity. Do not be afraid to think of activities. When you are creating activities for your next training program, make sure that it is engaging, everyone will be able to participate, related to the topics at hand and do not forget to give time to give a wrap-up of the activity. Reiterate the takeaway from the activity and even ask your learners what did and did not work. By adding and giving variety in your training program, your learners will not only welcome it but thank you for it and everyone – including you – will be ending the training day on a high and positive note.

Ever gave an instruction to someone and they just end up doing it all wrong in the end? When you ask them if the instructions were not clear, you get a response of either 'no, everything was clear.' or 'some were and some were not.' Sometimes, you will even get silence as a response which really does not give you an indication if it was a 'yes' or 'no' or 'maybe'. Whatever response you get, however, if the end result was not what you had envisioned, then something went wrong. You would probably conclude that they were not listening very well to your instructions, right? Wrong! Most of the time, the problem lies on your instructions. It could be a number of things. One, maybe you were not clear enough. Maybe you used words that did not describe what you wanted to describe. Maybe it was how you gave the instructions too. You probably gave them way too fast that the person could not keep up with steps. Or you could probably given them way too slow that the person fell asleep halfway through it. You did not ask them if it was all clear or if they have questions after giving them the instructions. Whatever the case is, if you want people to accomplish something right the first time around (so time and effort will not be wasted for both you and the other person), you need to learn how to give instructions properly. Let us start with clarity in your instructions. When I was taking Toastmasters' speech classes several years back, the first thing I learned was to be clear about what topic you will have for your speech. What do you want to talk about and how do you elaborate on that throughout your speech? It is the same with giving instructions. What do you want your team to do? Be clear at what end result do you want them accomplish. If you are doing training, instructions for activities in your program are very common and giving instructions are very critical. Your trainees need to know what the relevance of the activities are to their overall learning and how the takeaways from these activities are can be applied and help them in the workplace. Choosing the right words to use in your instructions go hand in hand with your being clear about what you want them to accomplish. Sometimes, people use the wrong words when giving instructions that it should not be a surprise if their team gets it all wrong in the end result. Words are vital in giving instructions. Do not go hifalutin words to impress them with your vocabulary. Use words they would understand, simple and effective words. One thing you do not want to happen is that your words gets lost in translation, right? You want them to understand your instructions not analyzing them because of the would need a dictionary to look up the words you just used. Be specific, be simple, be clear. Phrase your instructions well. How you give your instructions, meaning, pacing is also equally important. Do not be in such a hurry to finish the instructions because you have other things to do. Give enough time to give instructions. However, do not fall into the monotone pace either that your team would be so bored that they end up daydreaming or dozing off to never never land instead of listening to you. Be sure to have a moderate pace so that people can understand and your instructions will sink in better as you give them. Probably the most important that most people miss out on when giving instructions is to ask the person you are giving the instructions to if they got it, understood it or they have questions about your instructions. How do you know if they got it the first time around? You can even take time asking them to repeat what you said. By doing this, whatever was missed out on or not clear can be addressed beforehand. Saves you time and effort too, instead of them coming back to you to clarify something about the instructions while they are already in the process of doing them. So remember these the next time you give instructions: 1) Be clear; 2) Watch your phrasing; 3) Watch your pacing and 4) Ask them to repeat the instructions or ask them if they have questions. Once you apply these, you will be sure that you will get the end result you wanted to happen from your team.

Whether you have finish training your trainees or have had a performance talk with your subordinate, remember to always do a follow-up. One common mistake a trainer or a supervisor does is not doing this and just think that the training done or the talk done is good enough. News flash – it is not! For a trainer's perspective, how do you know that the trainees will apply what they learned from attending the training? For a supervisor's perspective, how do you know that the subordinate will do what you have both agreed on? Well, you will probably say “I trust my staff” or “I trust my trainees.” The issue here is not about trust. The issue is about knowing that whatever discussed between you and your subordinate or trainee was understood. Whatever message you have conveyed was interpreted the way that you need them to get interpreted. Sometimes, along the way, the time gap that you have last seen each other plays a major role on the takeaways or advice given being misconstrued and by the time you do check-up on them, it is not a surprise that they are doing something wrong or that they are just plain confuse on what to do. You will then find that all this time was wasted. If you had done a follow-up immediately, then they would have been on the right path from the very beginning. I have encountered supervisors who say did a follow-up on a performance issue with their team members and yet the monthly performance results were still on the problem areas pointed out before. No surprise there that there were no changes. That is another thing that follow-up does. It reflects the results in the end. If your supervisor says they have done a follow-up to a subordinate on the problems areas and yet, every month, the same problems areas are still the same, then you have to look closely at your supervisor's way of following-up. Ask them, how do they follow-up? What do they say? How do they get their subordinates commitment on the performance improvement? Do the same if you are handling trainers instead of supervisors. Do the next step. Join them on their sessions with the subordinate or trainee. Observe how it goes about. Observe behaviors and reactions or the lack of it from both your supervisor or trainee and the person concerned. You can get a lot and learn a lot from these interactions. After the concerned person has been talked to and you have observations regarding the exchange, talk to your supervisor or trainer. Give feedback, give them advice on what went well and what did not. Give suggestions then observe them in the next exchange as they apply those suggestions and feedback that you have shared with them. It is not that you do not trust them, it is more of how all concerned parties will benefit from the follow-up once it is done properly and simply get done. Keep in mind that the follow-ups you do and how you do them will yield the positive results you want to see.