5 most common training mistakes

There are hundreds!… But here are 5 to start you off…

1.THE UNPREPARED TRAINER

Have you ever been on a course where the person running it clearly hasn’t done any preparation? Watching the ‘expert‘ trying to get ready as they train is really entertaining, but a poor learning environment.

Just remember the 6 P’s…

* Proper
* Preparation
* Prevents
* Particularly
* Poor
* Presentations

The trainer may be a subject expert, but it is unforgivable to be unprepared.

2.THE TRAINER DOESN’T KNOW THE SUBJECT

Imagine how successful you will be training someone to fly, if you are not a Pilot yourself! We train to change what people do, so it’s important we know how to ‘do‘, ourselves! Learning the subject ‘from a book‘, doesn’t help from a practical perspective. You may be a ‘professional‘ trainer, but that doesn’t mean you are qualified to train in every topic.

3.JUST WATCH AND LEARN

Being a trainer is not about demonstrating how good you are at ‘doing‘ and taking every opportunity to make the people you are working with hold you in awe and wonderment! The role of a trainer is to pass on the skills, knowledge and the confidence for the trainee to go away and do something new or different. Making them think “I’ll never be that good” is just intimidating, not training.

4.TRAINING IS NOT JUST AN ‘INOCULATION’

In the past, we have seen situations where companies have sent people on a training course and expect that a single day will change their life forever and, overnight, they will ‘pupate‘ into brilliant sellers, or managers! You really need to think about changing what someone does as a journey: the trainer can show them how to take the first few steps safely, but then their line manager needs to put a metaphorical arm around them and keep them safely on the correct ‘route‘. The responsibility for motivating people to change passes from the trainer to the line manager.

5.NO EVALUATION OF THE TRAINING

If training starts people on the road to a change, then all businesses need to be able to measure if, and when, they reach the ‘destination‘ safely. There has to be a commercial imperative if training can be shown to be an investment, rather that a cost. What ‘value’ can be identified as a result of the training? There has to be a ‘before and after‘ measure in order that the business can objectively quantify the true value of training.