Ask, Not Tell

I had an opportunity recently learning together with a number of trainers on selling / negotiation stills.   The event was led by a very experienced Master Trainer.   I learnt something new from him, which can be applicable to other training topics as well.

His intention was to highlight which stage in a sales call is more important.   He did not just tell us.   Instead, he first asked us to pick from the slide (showing the 4 stages) which one we believe to be most important.   Most chose B.   Then, he said, ‘Recall your sales call in the past few months.  In which stage you spent most of your time on?’    Most chose D.   Instantly, he highlighted a sharp contrast (or even self-contradiction) which drew a great deal of attention from the learners.  You can imagine that we then had heated discussion, and most importantly sticky learning on selling.

This technique can be applied to a lot of other topics e.g.

“How many glass of water we should drink everyday
VS
How many glass we really drank yesterday?”

Or

“Who in your team generated the most revenue last year?”
VS
“Whom in your team did you spend most of your management time on?”

There are often things which we know we should do but we do not put them into practice.   We can easily use this technique to bring out these ‘self-contradiction’.   It is like keeping them hiding in the training room, and then asking all learners to face them (or in fact ‘themselves’).

I mentioned an offsite meeting in HK.    I learnt something more about empathy.

The meeting room we used was spacious with a lot of natural light coming from the balcony.    But simply because it was so spacious, some slides were not legible to the participants at the back of the room.   Whilst I was showing the slides, I started to realise this issue.   And my first reaction to show my empathy by saying ‘…let me show you the activity instruction in writing….  I understand that the slide is not clear to those at the back…  let me read it out for you….’

It was alright until ……. I said the above a few times during the day.    It became annoying when I reminded them the problem without doing anything about it (at least from the participants’ perspective)   In fact, I only realised this after the event when someone gave me feedback.

I always think that showing empathy is always good.   But it seems that sometimes it is not….  when you cannot do about the underlying issue.

I observe something amazing when I looked at my posts in this blog in the last 12 months.  There are a few posts which I wrote about learning rather than training.  The post about the ‘70/20/10′ principle is an example.

In case you are not aware, there is big difference between being in the learning and the training business.   From the perspective of the  ‘70/20/10′ principle, if you are in the training business, it is about only the ‘10%’.   If you are in the learning business, it is about the ‘100%’.   In other words, other than conducting training courses, you will run projects about stretched assignment (an example of the 70%) or maintain a mentoring program (an example of the 20%).

When I left my front line job 4 years ago, I thought my new job is basically about standing up in the classrooms where I would talk and make them do things.    And I love conducting classes.   I love the interaction with the learners.   I love the environment of focusing on doing just 1 thing in the classroom.   I love facilitating group process, in particular, the intellectual challenges of keeping the group towards the objectives.

In a sense, training involves tasks of very different nature than learning does.

Yet, going back to the observation about what I wrote recently….   I am now thinking more and more from the ‘learning’ perspective, though I am still particularly energized when I stand in front of the learners.   Interesting shift….

Related previous posts

How much does training matter?

How much does training matter?  (Cont’d)

I learnt this analogy during my trip in Singapore.   I like it a lot.  It is a good reminder when we have to stay learner (or participant) centric.   Basically, the argument is that being a facilitator or a facilitative trainer, we should lead the interaction in a workshop to be like a ‘Pinball’ game but not a ‘Ping Pong’ game.       If the interaction is like a ‘Ping Pong’ game, it means the participants talk to the facilitator.  So, it is like the facilitator is playing ping pong with the participants.  The facilitator holds the conversation.   On the other hand, for a ‘Pinball’ game, the participants have the discussion with each other.

I have had a few great learning experiences in Feb.   First, I facilitated a one-day planning workshop in Shanghai for the HR team in Mainland China.   Then, I attended a TTT class for a managerial course in Singapore.   Right before the Chinese New Year, I facilitated an offsite meeting in Hong Kong for the HK HR team.

I have learnt a lot from these.   For example, in the Singapore event, I saw my fellow facilitators from different countries in action.   They are very skilled and I learnt a great deal from them!   There are so many things I want to write about.   However, since Feb started, work became very hectic.  Got to find time…..

The first thing I want to reflect on is my ‘journey’ to become more flexible at my facilitation.  In the past 1 to 2 years, I have noticed how rigid I tend to be.  Thorough preparation is a good thing.  But sometimes I get too upset when things are not in place.  Or I can be easily disturbed when the event does not progress as I plan.

I in fact mentioned something on flexibility before in this blog e.g. see my post back to late 2008 – Preparation – the fine balance between ‘task’ and ‘people’

Anyway, back to the Feb events.  I consciously pushed myself to act flexibly.  For example, during the Singapore event, I proposed some last-minute change in my teach-back session.  Since my session was moved to after-lunch, I decided it is better to run the ‘action’ part before the ‘discussion’ part.   It worked well at the end.   And I am glad that I received positive feedback.

And in the HK event, I also made some changes and added new things on spot e.g. the way to collect participants’ feedback.   (It worked OK but I realized that it could be better if I have prepared more.)

I am glad that I am progressing on this ‘flexibility’ journey.   And reflecting on these, I think it is a balance, again.  I should prepare as much as I can.   But then on spot, I should be ready to change, including even abandon the original plan.

Another key learning in the Shenzhen TTT experience – I met a training veteran.   He gave me a lot of valuable feedback on my delivery.   And in particular what I mention here is a great phrase I learnt from him.   It is the attitude we should be having in treating our learners.   In his original wording in Chinese:

维护尊严，提高自信
(Translation: Maintain self-esteem and raise self-confidence)

Isn’t it great?   It is very profound.  Not sure what to say when a learner does not perform well in the role play exercise?  Or when a learner answers something irrelevant to your question?  This phrase will be our guidance in how to respond.

(This also reminds me of one of my previous post ‘What a presentation class do for the participant’ – I talked about the importance giving the participants with confidence in the presentation classes.)

According to Anthony, there was supporting research for this – Learning happens more likely when the learners have good self-esteem and confidence (instead of just having fun in class)

Thanks Anthony for this great sharing!!

This post is the last of the ‘Continuous Improvement’.   The 1st one is ‘Continuous Improvement‘, and the second one is ‘Continuous Improvement (Cont’d)’.    In these 2 posts, I have talked about 6 pieces of thoughts for continuous improving my own training skills.  And here is the 7th – Do things right the 2nd time.   I like this topic:

When I entered the banking industry as a graduate trainee, I joined a campaign to promote the ‘quality management’ concept.   Together with my fellow trainees, we sang a song as performance with lyrics saying ‘Doing things right the 1st time’.

For me, ‘doing things right the 2nd time’ is however more appropriate for trainers.  In short, this means that we should always try out as soon as possible new techniques we learn.   We should be brave about this.  Of course we have to prepare well before trying this.  But don’t wait too long till we are totally ‘comfortable’.

Why?   It is only after we try a training technique, we will comprehend it.   More importantly, it is only after we try it, we will readily register the technique into our mind.

Being a trainer is a “here and now” business.   We give instructions, observe and react.   We facilitate learning.   It is like guiding how the water flows.  We should not (and cannot) control totally, but we facilitate.   After all, it is the learners who learn, but not the trainer.   With this mindset, we need to have techniques right at our finger tips.   We thus have to register them well in our mind.

So, we should try things out.  Occasionally, we made some mistakes when we try the first time.  But we had to make sure we commit no mistake the 2nd time.

Why Continuous Improvement?

One may ask – why is it so important to improve?   In some sense, being a trainer can be a self-destructing career.  When the class starts, you close the door.   There are only you and your learners.  You tell a few good jokes which are often enough to get you a good L1.   And because it works, you conduct the classes the same way as you do in the years to come.   After a few years, probably when you interact with other trainers, you suddenly realise that you have not learnt much.

It is just like the analogy of ‘boiling frog’ – we can get comfortable…. in dying!

Further to my previous post ‘Continuous Improvement‘, let me share some more thoughts on how to make our own training skills better continuously:

4.    Share – One of the best ways to learn is to teach.  I believe we as trainers know it well.   And after all, we are in the business of making others succeed, aren’t we?

This can be in form of helping other trainers to design, or even writing a blog…..

5.    Talk to trainers outside the organisation – I started making effort to meet up trainers in other companies around 2 years ago.  There are so many brilliant techniques / best practices / wisdom out there.

In some senses, we could be victims of our own success – when you work in a company with a sizable training department, we try to look inward rather outward.

6.    Be a learner – Don’t forget to look at things from the opposite perspective.   I always find it amazing when I have chance to be a learner.   Just settle myself into the U-shaped tables and following the trainer’s instructions or answering his / her questions.   Take a mental record how I feel, and then imagine what if I were him / her….   It is very effective in helping me reflect.

I have 1 more point to share.  But I like it a lot, I will write a separate post for it.   I shall post it before the Chinese New Year!!