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A friend told me that he was thinking of putting a training session together for his apprentices. He was also hoping he could work with the local trade association to see if they might like to help him expand this program. He thought their combined efforts would raise the level of professionalism in the industry. He asked me for some advice on training. He wasn’t a teacher and he wanted his lessons to be as interesting as possible. "I don’t want them falling asleep on me," he said. "They never fall asleep on you. I’ve seen you work. How do you do it?" Here’s what I told him. Never give people something to read while you’re talking to them. Even professional trainers sometimes make this mistake. If you hand something in writing to a student, I can guarantee you the student will start reading it right away. Now here’s the problem. You’re trying to talk to these people but you just split their attention between your words and the words on the paper you just handed them. They’re "hearing" two people speak at the same time. Have you ever tried to listen to two people at the same time? You know who also makes this mistake? People in sales. They hand the customer a proposal and then start talking about it. The customer starts reading while the sales person is talking. Next thing you know, the customer is interrupting, asking questions about the proposal and throwing the sales person off course. The sales person loses control. So does the trainer who makes this mistake. If you have a handout, tell them they’ll get it when they leave. Describe the handout in glowing terms and make them yearn for it. Think of it as training foreplay. When they dive into it later on, it will be like hearing you all over again. You’ll have reached them twice.
Use simple graphics with few words. "I know you can’t see this slide, but . . ." Don’t you hate it when someone says that? If the bozo knows you can’t see it, why the heck is he showing it to you? He might as well say, "I was too lazy to make a good slide, so this one will have to do." Makes a great impression, doesn’t it? If you’re going to use visual aids in your training program (and you should), make sure the images are large enough so that everyone in the room can see them. Remove as many words as possible from the slides and then describe them in your own words. Again, you want your students to listen to you, not the "voice" on the slide.
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| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
| The views expressed in this article are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of MasterPlumbers.com |
