What is it about people when they get in front of a room?
I’ve seen the statistics too. People’s number one fear is getting in front of a group. However, once they overcome that fear, often they want to go on and on.
Rule number one about training and education: It isn’t about you. It’s about knowing your audience and what they want. Its about understanding their motivations and desires.
It is also understanding that the only reason they may be in your class at this particular moment is that their boss told them they had to go to “some corporate class” 10 minutes ago.
It isn’t about you.
Its recognizing that you have to adapt to address all the learning styles (and not just your preference). It is also recognizing that you have to sell the audience as to why the heck this is even important to them (also called WIIFM).
It is important to make the class come alive. Get them to give their opinions and then listening. Early in my career I attended an AMA (American Management Association) class on developing Supervisory skills. I watched the facilitator totally alienate the class by not listening to those opinions that were counter to her’s. Toward the end, the class had all but tuned her out. $1800 (per participant) investment by the various companies were down the drain.
It isn’t about you.
Often the folks who are in your class have past experiences that they can share, that may hold greater value than anything that you can put forth.
The important thing is to determine as much in advance about the audience as you can, be prepared to explain WHY the training is important, and find out their expectations.
In the end, you stand a far greater chance of success.
Hi, I liked this post a lot. I totally agree with you. I personally think that the reason why people demonstrate this type of behavior in class is due to their insecurity. You always need to remember that you are there to facilitate learning and not to push your point of view to others. I have seen people who are too afraid to interact and to hear other opinions because they won’t know what to do with that (it wasn’t in the plan). Other people only want to be seeing as STAR trainers/ educators, they want to be in front of others to show off their skills and they forget to customize their programs to suit other people’s needs. In the end they are not adding anything to anybody. What do you think?