The Winning Trainer

Julius E. Eitington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781138138490
• eBook ISBN: 9781136355653
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Gestione delle risorse umane
• Index: Business

This book has more ideas on how to add involvement in learning than any one trainer could ever use. Your students and workshop participants will increase their understanding and retention when you design training activities using 'The Winning Trainer'. This updated and expanded edition is richer than ever before. It provides: * more than 100 ready-made handouts, learning instruments, and worksheets... all you do is photocopy * numerous examples, model dialogues, and sample answers * hundreds of exercises, games, puzzles, role plays, icebreakers, and other group-in-action techniques * samples of each technique and ways to effectively use them * advice on subjects such as unwilling participants, use of the outdoors, breaks, program endings, and storytelling Significant new additions to the book include materials on the following topics: * new, easier to accomplish approaches to evaluation - ROE (Return on Expectations) and Customer Satisfaction as a business indicator * a methodology to secure group feedback at the end of the program, concerning the trainer/facilitator's role and participation in the course * an instrument for the early screening of likely obstacles when transferring training * added techniques to ensure that training transfers to the job * a demonstration of how to conduct a quick assessment of needs when under pressure to do so * keys to successful training in other cultures * several new instruments including how to assess one's prowess as a facilitator, how to assess trust in a team, and how to measure one's CQ (creativity quotient) Two new chapters have been added to treat new material on intelligence and learning, principles of adult learning and distance learning. In addition, numerous new group-in-action techniques and conceptual materials have been added to the existing chapters. This is the one-stop source book every trainer needs.

1

How to Start Things Off

When we give our creative being its proper place in our lives, we have a sense of meaningfulness and purposefulness. The moment we touch upon this wellspring of life a change takes place in our personality. That is the moment of breakthrough.

—Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, head of the Sufi Order in the West, speaker and author on science, mysticism, and holistic health

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. naturalist, philosopher, and writer

SUPPOSE you could, through some magical gift, tune in on the thoughts and shared conversations of the participants who are about to enter one of your training programs. Intriguing? Or frightening, perhaps?

Assuming you could tune in on their wavelengths, you might hear thoughts and statements such as these:

“I wonder if I made the right decision in coming here.”

“I bet it’s the same old stuff.”

“It looks like I don’t know any one here at all.”

“I hope I can pick up all this stuff they’ll probably throw at me.”

“I wonder what these other people are like.”

“If my boss hadn’t insisted I come, I sure wouldn’t be here. No way.”

“I hope the lectures won’t be too dull.”

“I’m sure they’ll tell us they want questions. I wonder if they mean it?

How candid can I really be here?”

“Will I look good in this group?”

“Will the trainers be nice or just the usual smart alecs? I certainly hope they don’t treat us like we’re still in the fourth grade.”

If these thoughts are realistic, may we, then, pose the following questions to you: How do you start your training programs? Do you begin conventionally by getting all the announcements out of the way? (“I have been asked to announce that the painters will be moving their equipment into the training room at 3:45 P.M.”) Do you button down the usual “administrivia” concerning coffee breaks, starting and quitting time, the location of the rest rooms, and the nature of the luncheon menu? Do you launch things with an account of the history of this program? Do you crisply list (or worse, read) the program objectives? Do you zip into Session One in high gear so everyone knows you mean business? Do you introduce people to one another? Do you distinguish between icebreakers and openers? Do you use more than one icebreaker or opener? If you use one of these or another procedure, what is your training rationale for it? Have you reflected on that at all? Have you discussed it with a colleague or subordinate? Or have you merely acted out of habit?

Both icebreakers and openers are start-up activities that help participants ease into the program. Icebreakers are relatively subject-matter free, whereas openers relate directly to the content (subject matter) of the session, course, or program. Thus, if everyone knows one another, icebreakers may not be necessary. But regardless of the participants’ prior acquaintances with one another, an opener would seem to be quite desirable in any program.

Basically you can start a training program in only one of two ways:

1. By introducing the participant group to the content at the outset.

2. By easing the group into things before directly involving them in the subject matter.

Regardless of which start-up procedure you use, you should recognize that your approach to the opening of the program communicates the following loud and clear:

□ Your philosophy of learning

□ Your style of training

□ Your attitudes toward the participants as learners

□ Your anxiety level

In other words, your first communication effort, whether you have reflected on it or are conscious of it, is immediately creating attitudes toward you and your program. Why? Because a basic principle of communication is that all behavior with others is perceived (subject to the perception of others). Behavior does not take place in a vacuum. Rather, it is observed, sifted, weighed, interpreted, and given meaning by those who experience it. The meaning may not be the one we intend, but it registers its impact, nevertheless.

Hence the need to make certain that the opening of your program communicates what you really want it to. I think it is far more important to provide the right communication about ourselves and our program in the first hour than it is to bombard participants immediately with the course material per se.

A well-thought-out, professional training effort should give full attention to icebreaking and/or opening activities because they

□ Warm up (energize) the participants and thus put them at ease; learning proceeds best when the learners are ready to learn.

□ Set the tone for the program and indicate whether the program will be participative, sit-and-listen, or some mixture of these approaches to learning.

□ Indicate who has responsibility for learning. You want to communicate that the trainer is a facilitator and that only the participant can assume responsibility for what is learned.

□ Communicate immediately the kind of trainer you are—relaxed or compulsive, friendly or distant, super-sober or fun to be with, subject matter or participant oriented.

□ May provide later linkage with a particular topic or session; for example, an icebreaker that deals with values can serve as a bridge to such topics as motivation, career planning, management philosophy, and leadership style.

PLANNING THE USE OF ICEBREAKERS AND OPENERS

If you are convinced that icebreakers and openers have real merit, you will undoubtedly want to plan them properly. This means you should select ones based on such factors as

□ Composition of the group

□ Expectations of the group

□ Nature of the program

□ Length of the program

□ Culture of the sponsoring organization

□ Style and personality of the trainer(s)

The nature or composition of the group will obviously influence your choice of start-up activities. For example, if your participants are mental health professionals, they will probably be comfortable with activities that stress movement, fantasy, sharing of personal information, etc. Conversely, if your learners are blue-collar foremen with strong rural roots and limited communication skills, you would be well advised to avoid novel and threatening icebreakers, which might have boomerang effects.

Group expectations of their role in the learning process will also influence how active and involving your icebreakers or openers will be.

Program content will determine what icebreakers or openers will be used; for example, in a free-wheeling, experiential management development program in a cultural island setting, novel warmer-uppers would be quite appropriate. But a sales program, particularly one conducted in corporate headquarters, would probably put a damper on anything that might be perceived as “too far out.”

Program length should be considered, too. A program that runs a full week could easily absorb 30–60 minutes of icebreaking and/or opening activity. The three-hour program, in contrast, may only be able to spare five or ten minutes for warm-up time.

The culture of the organization is another factor influencing the choice of icebreakers and openers. Attempts at innovation, fun, and excitement have to be tempered with what the culture will bear. As one trainer who experienced a trust walk (see page 5) for the first time in a workshop I conducted said, “I like this technique, but I’m not sure I could explain it to my boss’s satisfaction should he happen to walk into the classroom while the activity was in progress.”

The style and personality of the trainer will (and should) influence the choice of icebreakers and openers.

If you are comfortable with start-up activities that involve the group in novel, experiential ways, though they may take time from the formal program and reduce your control over the group or the subject matter, then you should explore the wide variety of such activities that are available. But if you are concerned about matters of control, getting started, relevance, and so on, the choice of icebreakers and openers had best be limited to conventional, very brief devices.

One trainer offers a checklist to test the appropriateness of your proposed icebreaker [1]:

□ Is there a possibility the activity could build barriers rather than create rapport?

□ Is there a possibility that the participants might experience failure in involving themselves in the task?

□ Could it provoke embarrassment, especially for those who are introverted to varying degrees?

□ Would it be desirable to build more trust before asking for this type of participation?

□ Could the end result be accomplished with less threatening procedures?

□ Is this icebreaker one that I like to do, but one that is not appropriate for other learning styles or personality types?

□ Would it make sense to query a more conservative associate to assess the activity, so...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to the Fourth Edition
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• 1. How to Start Things Off
• 2. Using Small Groups Effectively
• 3. Basic Techniques for Small Group Training
• 4. Additional Techniques for Small Group Training
• 5. Role Playing
• 6. Using Games and Simulations
• 7. Using Exercises
• 8. Using Puzzles
• 9. Instrumentation: A Tool for Self-Discovery Learning
• 10. Defining a Problem and Generating Data About It
• 11. Generating Solutions to a Problem
• 12. Selecting and Implementing a Solution
• 13. Team Building: Overcoming the “Lone Ranger” Syndrome
• 14. The In-Basket Exercise—How to Conduct and Design It
• 15. Other Key Group-in-Action Tools
• 16. Involving Participants in Film/Video
• 17. Maximizing Participation and Learning in the Case Method
• 18. “If You Must Lecture …”
• 19. Using Participative Methods to Evaluate Training
• 20. How to Overcome the Transfer Problem
• 21. Ancillary Issues and Techniques
• 22. Intelligence and Learning; Principles of Adult, Experiential, and Accelerated Learning
• 23. Distance Learning: Boon or Bane?
• Glossary
• Appendices
• Index