Written by: Jeff When I first took my job as a Corporate Trainer many years ago, I had no idea that my new career and its responsibilities would be so misunderstood by others. After all, people seemed to have a full understanding of my previously held jobs. I never had to clarify or explain my job when I worked as a Tour Guide to put myself through college. Right after college, I was hired as a Flight Attendant for a major U.S. airline. Other than explaining to people why flight attendants point to the emergency exits with two fingers instead of one, most people had a full understanding of what I did for a living. Eventually, I made my way into sales. When I told people that I was a Sales Representative, they immediately understood. Occasionally I’d get asked, "What do you sell?" and that was about it. Fast forward to my current position. There seems to be no shortage of confusion when I proudly tell people I’m a Corporate Trainer. This confusion about my career became very evident a few summers ago when I traveled to my hometown to attend my high school class reunion. With 80’s music playing in the background, about 50 or 60 of my former classmates and I mixed and mingled over poor-quality hors d’ oeuvres. Occasionally, I’d bump into someone that I actually remembered without the aid of their "Hi, my Name is…" tag. After the basic conversation about marital status, children, and the city in which we currently reside, someone would inevitably ask the question, "What do you do for a living?" My response: "I’m a corporate trainer." With those four words confusion reigned supreme! Based on the number of blank stares I received, most of my classmates had no clue as to what I do for a living. A few even responded with, "Oh, so that’s how you stay in such good shape!" Judging from that response, many of them confused my job as a corporate trainer with the job of a personal strength/fitness trainer. (Little did they know that my "good shape" was as a result of a strict gym regime and a low carb diet that I started three months prior to the class reunion. Hey, you can’t blame a guy for wanting to look good!) My former classmates are not the only ones who are misinformed about my noble profession. I recall having a lengthy conversation with a fellow passenger on a flight from Atlanta to Washington, DC. Flight time from wheels-up to wheels-down is about 1 hour and 45 minutes. It took that amount of time to explain to him what I do for a living. We’ve all been there. Having narrowly survived the madness of boarding your flight, you attempt to get settled into your seat. The passenger seated next to you strikes up a general, yet cordial conversation. Passenger: "Business trip?" Me: "Yeah. I just finished delivering a training workshop." Passenger: "Oh, so you’re a teacher?" Me: "Well, kind of." Passenger: Blank stare, silence, interested, yet confused look. I won’t bore you with a script of the exact conversation, but just imagine trying to explain the difference between training and education, teaching versus facilitation, and working with adults in a learning setting as opposed to children. Before I knew it, the flight attendants were welcoming us to the Nation’s Capital and reminding us to stay safely seated until the "fasten seat belt" sign had been turned off. The misunderstanding about my job is not limited to the general public either. I’ve also learned that some internal employees are somewhat unclear about what training professionals actually do. When I was employed as an in-house trainer, providing training for a large call center operation, I encountered several colleagues who didn’t understand the full scope of my job. They knew I provided training, as most of them had attended a few of my courses. However, that’s where their knowledge of my job seemed to cease. I heard on more than one occasion "Gee, I wish I had your job. You really don’t have to do anything when you’re not teaching a class." Is that so? Little did my colleagues know that a well-versed (and hardworking, I might add) corporate training professional does a lot more than just teach classes. Most of us collect extensive amounts of data while performing needs analysis and evaluating our training programs. Most of us design and develop courses and course materials. Most of us partner with others within the organization to conduct performance consulting. Most of us manage our LMS platforms. And the list could go on. As trainers, we do a lot more than just teach classes. However, classroom facilitation is probably the most visible aspect of our job, so I can’t blame them for being a bit misinformed. Being a Corporate Trainer has been the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Despite having to periodically explain what I do for a living, I know I’m making an impact by providing people with valuable skills and knowledge. I’m honored to be among the ranks of thousands of others who do so every day. Please leave a comment if you can relate to my story.

Written by: Jim When setting up a room to teach a traditional instructor-led workshop, there are three areas on which to focus in order to create the best possible experience for your participants. I’ll explain each, and give an example of what might happen if that element is overlooked. Participation When arranging the seating, consider how your learners will be interacting with you and the other learners. If they’ll work in teams, set them up in table groups. If there is lots of hands-on computer work, have pairs of participants share work stations in rows. The classroom layout sends an immediate message to your learners about how you expect them to participate. What Might Happen if… I attended a session recently where we were set up in rows. Since there were not too many of us, we were scattered throughout the room. When we were asked to pair up, we lost valuable discussion time trying to navigate the room to find a partner. This problem could have been avoided with a little planning on the part of the facilitator. Comfort The learners will be less distracted if they are comfortable. When they feel too crowded or awkward, they lose the ability to focus on your training. A basic rule of thumb is to allow nine square feet of table space per participant. This may seem like a lot, but once you add books, supplies, handouts, and a little elbow room, it really isn’t that much space. Providing comfortable chairs with good back support, height adjustment, and arm rests, will also increase comfort. What Might Happen if… As I tried to find a seat at a recent event, the tables were set up in rows, the chairs were practically touching, and every second chair had a set of materials. I found a seat between two people but I couldn’t even take notes because we were literally elbow to elbow. Thankfully the session lasted less than one hour. Visibility Consider each learner’s ability to make eye contact with you and the other learners. Your goal is to position the chairs, so everyone has a direct line of sight to you, each other, the screen, and any charts in the room. When using table groups, participants may need to turn slightly to see different elements of focus. You can invite them to turn their chairs as necessary. What Might Happen if… In a workshop I attended we were in an L-shaped room. Being on the short end of the L, the screen was sideways to us because the facilitator decided to provide a clear view to the majority of the participants. Simply angling the screen on the corner of the L would have helped us all see the screen. Setting up your classroom with the learners’ participation, comfort, and visibility in mind will set you and your learners up for success. What experiences can you share where one or more of these elements were overlooked? How did it affect your training experience? For more amazing tips on how to set up your classroom to maximize success, enroll in our Instructional Techniques for New Instructors workshop!

Written by: Lynne I often ask my workshop participants, "What three groups of people must work together for training to be successful?" They always know the answer - managers, trainers, and employees. In this blog I will talk about how managers can either help training succeed or lead to its downfall. In future blogs I will look at how trainers and employees can contribute to training success in your organization. Let’s look at what managers might do to inhibit training’s success. Often managers will send their employees to training to "fix" performance problems that are best addressed by non-training solutions. Managers and companies who do this waste billions of dollars on unnecessary training. Many managers send their employees to training as a perk, whether they need the training or not. If training is not really needed, employees begin to see training as a vacation and not something to take seriously when they get there. Some managers will send groups of individuals to training when only one of their staff members is under-performing. It is kind of like giving everyone antibiotics if one person in the department is sick! Managers who do these things put training in a bad light. What should they be doing to ensure training success? Donald Kirkpatrick, in his book entitled, Evaluating Training Programs, gives us five different work climates that can either hinder or help training success: Preventing - Managers prevent employees from doing what they learned in training. Discouraging - Managers do not model the new desired behavior so the employees do not change their own behavior. Neutral - Managers conduct business as usual but do not object if changes are made. However, if negative results occur, the boss may create a discouraging environment. Encouraging - Managers encourage their employees to apply what they’ve learned in training and help them in any way they can. Requiring - Managers know what their employees have been taught and require change. If you believe that your work environment is like the first three climates in Kirkpatrick’s list then training programs will most likely fail in the long run. So, it is in everyone’s best interest to work together for climates four and five. What climate do you think you currently work in? In addition to the proper climate, training will be successful when you secure buy-in and support for training and performance from your entire organization. You need to create a training partnership between learners, trainers, and supervisors. Check out our workshop, Make Your Training Stick, which gives you a set of comprehensive tools and techniques to ensure this partnership takes place.

Written by: Paul If you have any spare time to allocate at a training conference, schedule a session that examines how the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) instructional design model is now considered irrelevant. Oh, and that topic works well for books, magazine articles, and yes, even blogs. Michael W. Allen and Richard Sites have identified the following seven problems with the ADDIE model: Comprehensive analysis up front is unrealistic. We need to conduct a quicker analysis and continue to analyze throughout the process. Analysis often overlooks essential success factors such as hidden expectations and who is really in charge. Specs and even storyboards can miscommunicate. Creativity becomes a nuisance to the schedule. Downstream insights are faults that may become trouble. Performance outcomes are rarely measured, so success is based on schedule and cost minimization. Post-tests provide little useful information. I’d like to address each of these suggested weaknesses and offer an argument in support of ADDIE: Analysis really needs to be done up front to decide: In relation to a performance gap, what has been identified as improved performance? You can’t hit a target that hasn’t been identified. If the subject-matter is new, what is the required performance in the workplace? What characteristics of the target audience will affect the design of training (e.g. reading level, motivation, existing job knowledge)? What does accurate performance of the task(s) look like? In other words, how do you perform the task(s) identified in the analysis phase to standard on the job? Identification of stakeholders and a sponsor and their expectations should be part of the analysis process. A series of checkpoints should be built into the ADDIE process. In fact, the acronym itself almost suggests where the milestones should be. One common technique used in many organizations is sponsor approval of some high-level design plan before the detailed work is done. Such a plan minimizes not only ineffective communication but also rework. Creativity is part of the job both instructional designers and developers are paid to do. However, that creativity can only be consistent with the program constraints such as deadline and budget. The ADDIE process is a cycle that is in most organizations iterative. A training product is generally not static. It will be tweaked and modified, not only at the validation and evaluation steps, but throughout the entire process. If the value of training is to be clearly defined, performance outcomes must be measured. Intuitively, people see the value of training. But you can’t rely on intuitive evaluations. Unless you can document performance improvement and organizational results, you are asking people to simply trust that your training is beneficial. This is not something you want to wait to do when people are trying to justify every organizational dollar spent. If the post-test relates to the performance objective and mirrors the organizational standard of performance in the workplace, it becomes a very sensitive and accurate measure of the outcome—and value—of training. In my opinion, as long as you keep in mind that the ADDIE instructional design process isn’t set in concrete (e.g. all tasks are not necessarily sequential or even need to be accomplished on every project) and apply the process while gaining buy-in from stakeholders at key points, you’ve got an effective roadmap that works efficiently with the creativity and effectiveness of your training department. Bottom line, like me, the ADDIE process was born after World War II and is still alive today.

Written by: Marsha So, you need a favor from me. What’s the best way to ask for it? Do you present me with facts and numbers? Do you use the model, "I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine?" How about trying to charm me into saying, "yes?" Or do you get me excited about the idea? What if you have no authority or power? With so many options, what’s the best answer? In our How to Influence People and Events workshop, we talk about how you can prepare yourself before approaching an individual. One tip is to select the most suitable influencing strategy (or combination) the person will best respond to. Here are the five influencing strategies: Logic: Use compelling, logical arguments supported by facts and data. Be prepared with answers to my concerns or objections. Vision: Use arguments that appeal to my emotions and values. Get me excited about the future and my career aspirations. Alliance: Tell me you have the support of people I respect and that by being on board I will be able to expand my personal and professional network. Bartering: Negotiate the exchange of favors with me. For example, bargaining for resources, personnel, time, and money. Power: Use your earned power, not the power given to you, in your position. Perhaps you have information that I need or personal attributes that urge me to follow you. So, how do you know which one(s) will work with me? Hopefully, you’ve interacted with me and we’ve built some type of relationship. Maybe you have colleagues who have worked with me in the past. Talk to them before you approach me. In our How to Influence People and Events workshop, we also discuss how to Manage Your Sphere of Influence, Develop Your Strategy, Build Your Case, and Present Your Case to achieve a win/win outcome. I absolutely love facilitating this course. Each time, we have so many meaningful discussions about relationships, image, power base, and politics. Maybe you can join me in an upcoming workshop where I’d be happy to share my knowledge with you! Now, back to the favor. I will tell you that I do respond to logic, vision, and interpersonal power. Keep that in mind, the next time you’re in my class! So, what’s your influencing strategy? You never know when you might need something.

Written by: Melissa If you’ve ever attended one of Langevin’s virtual classroom workshops, Learning in the Virtual Classroom, and/or The Virtual Trainer, you’ve been exposed to a virtual whiteboard (a.k.a. a PowerPoint slide you can annotate). Most synchronous software programs have them. They function in the same way a flipchart does in a traditional classroom setting, allowing everyone to contribute. The most common use of a virtual whiteboard is to record ideas during a discussion, but the possibilities don’t end there! Consider these five additional uses of whiteboards and annotation tools for your next virtual training: After a brief lecture, include a diagram, chart, picture, or blueprint (related to your content, of course), and have your learners annotate or label the various elements to reinforce what they heard. Use the same picture and list five to ten labels down the left side of the PowerPoint slide. Ask your participants to draw a line from each label to the correct element on the slide. For teambuilding in a virtual environment, ask a team to draw an elephant on a whiteboard. Give them three minutes to discuss/plan their process (this could be done verbally in breakout rooms). Then have the team remain silent while they execute their plan. Have the rest of your learners observe the creative teamwork that ensues. Create a grid on a slide with photos of your learners. As they arrive in the virtual classroom, ask people to "sign in" next to their photos, adding their names and favorite hobbies. You’ll build a collaborative learning community as people get a sense of their fellow classmates. For an end-of-session review, have the group discuss their key learning experiences aloud or enter them in the chat pod. While they make suggestions, have a volunteer (or two) draw pictures and type the various key points on the whiteboard. It’s fun and engaging to watch the images and words appear (no artistic talent necessary!). In the virtual classroom, we have the ability to turn almost anything in the share pod into a virtual whiteboard. Whiteboards allow everyone to participate at the same time, keep kinesthetic/tactile learners occupied, and reinforce learning for visual learners. So, how will you have fun with the whiteboard in your next virtual training? I’d love to hear your ideas! For even more virtual trainer and virtual classroom tips and best practices, check out these blogs!

Written by: Paul I often train in a hotel banquet room where the staff is professional and does a great job with room set-up, but as a trainer, I love to tweak. Fortunately, banquet staff graciously put up with my idiosyncrasies! Here are a few things I’ve learned to do the evening before training to stage a professional, yet comfortable, room for my class: Ensure I have all my materials for the next day. The facility staff usually leaves my shipped materials (participant manuals and other class items) in the training room. I locate and open these boxes the night before, rather than waiting for the morning. Rearrange tables for maximum visibility and comfort. I seldom do major shifting of tables, but I do move them just a little bit one way or another to encourage comfort, visibility, and participation. This also gives me a little psychological "ownership" of the room. If basic classroom set-up is new to you, check out the New Trainer’s Survival Kit or attend the Instructional Techniques for New Instructors workshop - Langevin’s got you covered! Check multimedia projector and laptop. Murphy’s Law (if it can go wrong, it will) has been one of the constants in my life. I like to get everything set for the next day and make sure it all works. I also check to make sure the audio-visuals are clearly observable from all the seats in the room. This is a great time to stow all excess cordage so things look tidy and tripping hazards are minimized. Set chairs in an arc. Usually there are round tables in the room which encourages small-group participation and conversation. However, banquet staff is used to putting chairs evenly spaced around the table. This means half the people in the room will sit with their backs to the front of the room. This is not comfortable for me or the participants. I arrange the chairs so they are in an arc facing forward. The participants generally move their chairs around the tables where they want anyway, but at least this gets us started off well. Position participant materials. I know this is the mildly neurotic side of me coming out, but I like to have everything symmetrically arranged. Participant materials equally spaced and positioned at their seats. Pens facing the same direction. A marker near each tent card. Hand sanitizer on the same side of each table and facing the same direction. Table toys are similarly arranged with the proper colors of Play-Doh at each table. My business card is tucked under the transparent cover of the student packet, of course on the same side of each packet. You only have one chance to make a first impression and I like mine to be a professional one. Arrange instructor materials. I arrange my handouts and leader’s guide so they are accessible when needed and present a neat appearance. I also make sure my tent card is filled out and neatly positioned. If I will be using flipcharts, I prepare as many as possible, including the two I always post - an agenda and a "parking lot." Is all this necessary? Probably not, and in some situations I’ve had to sacrifice some of these activities. However, when I do set up a room in just this way, it’s mine. The initial impact on the participants as they walk in the room is positive and, perhaps more importantly, I feel completely ready for the class.

Written by: Lynne In an earlier blog, I talked about three groups of people needed for training success in your organization. These groups are managers, trainers, and employees. In this blog I will look at how we, as trainers, can ensure training success where we work. This can be extremely challenging because not only do we need to learn and apply professional best practices ourselves, but we also must educate and influence those around us to allow us to implement those best practices! How do we learn and apply training best practices? Attend Langevin Learning Services’ workshops, of course! This will help you fill your own knowledge and skill gaps in the training profession. We have individual workshops, as well as certification programs, to meet all your training needs. Create an action plan with your manager to gain agreement that he/she will allow you to implement your new skills. When we write goals down with our managers and gain agreement, things are more likely to change. Be open to change yourself and do not be afraid to try new things to improve both the instructional design and the delivery of your training programs. It may be hard to dump the PowerPoint slides, but if we want to improve ourselves, we need to break out of our comfort zones. How do we educate and influence those around us for a better training climate? Encourage one very vocal and influential manager to allow you to apply best practices with a key training request as a "pilot" program. Then both of you show the results to other managers to spread the word! Create simple and quick tools, such as performance checklists, to encourage managers to ensure training transfer on the job. Find out how in our Make Your Training Stick workshop! Encourage managers to explore non-training solutions in addition to training solutions to solve business problems. Let them know that training is not a magic pill that will cure all performance problems. If you work on implementing some of these suggestions, you will be well on your way to a happier work climate for all!

Written by: Marsha Have you ever wondered what your training style is and where it came from? Do you like presenting most of the material in the course or do you prefer when participants direct their own learning? Do you like controlling discussions or prefer listening to what others have to say? Back in the day, if you were a trainer the focus was always on you: deliver the content and get through the material. You were like a "sage on the stage," standing on your platform, all-knowing and presenting the content. Over the years, training evolved with a new focus on the learners and the process. An alternative phrase emerged, "Be the guide on the side," meaning, you’re not the star of the show—the learners are! Your role is to use facilitation skills to monitor and coach them to desired performance. In our Advanced Instructional Techniques workshop, we analyze training styles, using a Learning Style Inventory. The inventory scores you on a continuum from Dependent, to Collaborative, to Independent. So, if your score is high on the Dependent side, you feel that learning is dependent on you, the instructor, and the participants need you for learning to occur. At the other extreme, if you score high on the Independent side, you feel that learning can happen independently of you. A high Collaborative score would mean that learning happens when instructors and learners work together. If you’ve been to any of my classes, you’d know that my preference is to assume the Independent role all day long. I enjoy experiential learning, where the learners discover the content on their own and learn by doing. Unfortunately, I can’t take on this style for an entire session. Let’s face it, there are times when I need to turn on the D (Dependent Style), become more assertive, and be the expert in the room. Or I may need to get people back from breaks, stop side-bar discussions, or manage time. So, what’s the best approach? Well, a true facilitator is always moving along this continuum, depending on the content, the learners’ job experience, and the training time available, just to name a few. Kind of like the Kenny Rogers’ song, "The Gambler," where "you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run." Well, hopefully, we’re not going to walk away or run! If I want to be more Dependent, I can do any of the following: stand, set up the room in rows, lecture, assign seating, answer all questions by myself, pre-plan all course activities, ask learners to hold their questions to the end, speak with a loud voice, always start on time, and direct questions to specific learners. If I want to be more Independent, I can choose from these options: sit, ask questions, set up the room in circles, use group exercises, poll for group opinions, have optional activities, use puzzles and cartoons, let learners choose their seats, use group discussions, be quiet at times, invite rebuttal, and find out what the learners already know. So, what’s your training style? Do you use facilitation skills or focus more on lecture? Are you comfortable at either extreme? Want to explore further? Consider taking our Advanced Instructional Techniques workshop!

Written by: Melissa How to cope with challenging participants is certainly not a new topic. In fact, you’ll find numerous blog articles written by my colleagues (and myself, for that matter) on handling challenging situations in a traditional classroom setting. But what about dealing with difficult learners in a live, online, synchronous environment or virtual classroom? How you respond to a challenging behavior can make the difference between a healthy, collaborative learning experience and an awkward, uncomfortable session everyone wants to escape. While many of the coping strategies are the same for instructor-led training and virtual classroom training, there are some subtle differences. Based on my own experience in the virtual classroom, I’ve put together a few tips to help you manage challenging situations: Separate the "what" from the "why." Instead of focusing on what the learner is doing, ask yourself why he/she is doing it. Does he want to be recognized as an expert? Does she seem frustrated because she can’t use the technology? Does he wish he were back at his desk finishing a project by its deadline? Once you’ve done this separation, acknowledge the underlying need with a positive comment. For example, "You obviously have a lot of experience in this arena," or "For someone new to the virtual environment, you’re getting a handle on this pretty quickly," or "I know you have a lot on your plate, so let’s make sure this session is productive." Because you lose eye contact in the virtual world, it’s even more important to be mindful of your tone of voice. You don’t want to come off sounding aggressive or threatening. Thank a challenging participant for their insights, questions, and challenging observations with comments like, "That’s a great question," or "I’ve never thought of it that way before," or "That’s a good point. Let me capture your thoughts on the parking lot, and we’ll come back to it at the end of our session today." Provide numerous opportunities for active participation. Allocate time for learners to express themselves and be actively engaged (every three to five minutes) in the virtual classroom. This will help manage the "chatty" learner (e.g. side conversations in the chat pod). Keep your sense of humor intact. An easy laugh and a willingness to playfully handle a difficult participant’s challenging comment can relax a stressful situation. Despite their contrary behavior, challenging participants usually want to be included in a collaborative, productive learning community. By drawing them in, instead of shutting them down or pushing them away, you can enrich the learning environment for everyone. If these simple, effective strategies don’t work, you can always speak to him/her one-on-one after the session or turn it over to your Producer to explore via private chat. What tips and tricks do you have for managing challenging behaviors in the virtual classroom? Please share your ideas with us.