Train The Trainer – Tip #7

We’re wrapping up our training tips series by talking about the best ways to debrief and wrap up your trainings! Watch the full series to hear Amy’s best tips from her Train The Trainer program. Thanks for following along!

Transcript:

Hi, I am Amy with Iluma Learning, and we’re gonna wrap up our series on Train the Trainer with a few tips that I have found really separate good trainers from great trainers. And so if you’re new to training, or you have just become a trainer, or you have been asked to train people on what you know, and you’re really a subject matter expert that doesn’t do a lot of presenting, these are some great tips that work for anyone who has to get up and try to convince a group of adults to do something.

So our last tip here is debrief and wrap up every activity so they know why it connects to the topic. So you spend a lot of time creating labs, learning activities, things that really make the understanding of the material come to life. And when you do that, it really deserves a debrief. So it helps the participant understand, Hey, this is why we took the last 30 minutes to do this activity, or 10 minutes, right? Sometimes labs, if we’ve got technicians getting out on machines, it’s an hour. So we’ve got them going through the paces learning things, and we want to connect with what they understand.

So this is where the questions from our introduction really come into play. So questions like, Hey, what happened when you checked the fault code? What happened when you did X? Right? What kind of troubleshooting process did you use? What went wrong? What did you do right? Other questions like when you’re out in the field, who was going to be asking you for an update about that? Who would benefit from you doing this procedure correctly? Who could really win some time by, you know, really focusing in and knowing how to do this? Who are you going to share this with? When you get back to the office, who do you need to go have a conversation with so that you get this conflict cleared up? If we had a different kind of topic, questions like how did you get to the result? How did you get it right? How did you shortcut so that you could win some time? How did we go about troubleshooting that is maybe a little different based on what we just learned in class? You know, I mean, anything. So that’s, what, who, how, why, don’t forget this one. It’s an important one. And we assume they know why, when actually it’s not natural sometimes for people to go there. But that’s where we get, Hey, we did this for a purpose that really matters. And here it is. Hey, why does it matter that you learn this? Why is this useful? Why do you care? Right? Why should we be concerned about doing this this way? Why is this a benefit to you to really understand it? If you give them and then pause, wait, let them answer. Let them really kind of come up with an answer to this. You don’t have to skip over it. You also don’t have to spend all day. But if you just will take the time to ask at least one from each of those, ask a what question. A how question. A who question. A why. And if it feels like you can go a little deeper, you can do one more round of those. If you feel like you got it and they really understand it, then it’s enough. And then at the end always say, do you have any questions or final comments? You’ll be amazed at the aha-moments that your participants are trying to put together that they’re interested in sharing with the large group.

Again, that’s, that 80% participation training becomes easier when you understand that you’re steering the ship and that your questions are your biggest ally. It helps create context for your learners, and it really makes the difference between a trainer that just shares information that’s useful to a trainer that really shares wisdom, that is transformative for the people attending your classes. So I hope you’ll try some of these techniques and good luck with training. We’re always here to talk about Train the Trainer as a certification process for your OEM or your dealer. We would love to talk about it. We’ve got a big heart for training. So thanks for tuning in.