Trainer Tools

I didn't want to leave a big gap over summer, so I thought I'd chuck in another short podcast about a simple energiser, or icebreaker (it can be either, or both) that anyone can use on any course. It's not just an icebreaker though, it also has positive health benefits (see here), including preventing hair loss! Something I wish I'd known about a few years ago. Seema Sarawgi explains how she uses this and how it's a simple, fun and energetic way to start a training day. Seema Sarawgi is a Learning and Development professional with around 8 years of experience of working with both public and private sectors in India and the UK. She last worked for the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a Regional Learning and Development Officer where she designed and delivered formal and informal L&D solutions for staff across South Asia including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. She has also provided HR advisory and consulting to some of the biggest public sector undertakings in I

It is a rare performance management training course that doesn't include the ubiquitous SMART acronym within it - and it is a rare organisation that doesn't demand its people create a yearly clutch of SMART objectives to meet the needs of their performance management process. And that's the problem. SMART objectives are often written to meet the needs of the process - not the people - they are written to fulfill the requirements of the clever acronym, but not actually to respond to the particular challenges of the individual job holder and their manager. This is a long-running bugbear of mine, and it was good to hear that one of this podcast's great supporters and contributors, Garry Platt, had encountered exactly that problem during his consultancy work. Garry Platt is an experienced training consultant with more than 30 years experience in the business. He has worked with a number of international organisations helping them to enhance their approach to training and development. Within the last 12 months

R equals e to the power of minus t over s. Or, to put it another way, people forget about 80% of what they learn on a training course. That might not be exactly true, Ebbinghaus's research and "curve of forgetting" equation is not the most rigorous of science, but it's probably true-ish and that's good enough for this podcast! In this episode I talk again to Roger Greenaway, an expert in experiential and innovative training methodologies. We talk about what "learning transfer" really means, and then discuss some unusual and creative ways of designing training courses so that learning transfer is more likely to occur. Roger Greenaway specialises in making experience-based learning more participatory, dynamic and effective. He does this by training facilitators in the skills and techniques of active reviewing (debriefing), what he calls "the game after the game". During the last 20 years Roger has worked with education and training organisations, departments and networks in 35 countries. Typical themes are

Human beings need to feel comfortable to be able to learn. To feel comfortable within a group they need a sense of acceptance and control. To build rapport with other learners and the trainer, they need to go through rituals. Icebreakers can help us do that. However, they can also help us achieve the exact opposite. If they are not well designed for the course content and the group they can make people feel uncomfortable and wish they were anywhere else but in your training room! In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Paul Tizzard, author of three books about icebreakers, about how to make sure they work! Paul Tizzard did his first "Train the Trainer" course in 1986 and has been a professional trainer since 1996 and independent since 2001. He is a trained presenter, coach and facilitator. Since becoming independent, he has been fortunate to work in many different countries with an eclectic range of industries and companies. I feel extremely lucky to have the best job in the world Pa

I thought it'd be a bit of fun to chuck in the odd short podcast at random intervals (this might stretch the definition of "fun" to breaking point) in a new sub-series of casts called TT Shorts. This is the first one, from our old friend Jon Kersey, and it's a quick and easy technique you can use during teambuilding events. Jon Kersey has over 15 years experience in the training and personal development world, significant experience of the retail (The Burton Group, Comet and River Island), financial (HSBC) and public sectors, and international experience having trained in organisations in South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. As an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner and Trainer he is able to encourage clients to achieve permanent behavioural change enhancing their business through a deeper level of personal understanding. He is qualified in various psychological profiling tools including MBTI, PRISM, TMI and is an NVQ assessor and verifier, and sits on the council of the IDM

How we begin learning events is vital in setting the right tone for the day. To get the best learning, we want to create a creative a safe environment that is fun and allows for people to express themselves playfully, allows for mistakes, lets people feel that they can challenge and be challenged, and above all exposes the learners to views and perspectives different than their own. There is no one single magic bullet for achieving this, it's done through lots of little things that together contribute to building that learning environment. In this (short!) episode I speak to Kevin Stephens about a simple technique he uses to kick off change management training. Kevin's whole approach to training is to focus on creating the conditions for learning using accelerated learning techniques, and in this episode he introduces us to a quick and way to start that process off. Kevin Stephens is a Learning and Development practitioner who specialises in helping people get the most of their working relationships by de

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, John Tomlinson talks to Larry Reynolds about three different ways he uses stories during his training events. Stories are memorable, they're fun, and they can be used to help break down barriers, build relationships between the trainer and the delegates, and to help establish credibility. Larry Reynolds is managing partner of Courageous Conversations at Work. He help business leaders to create high performing teams where people love to work. If you want to have more courageous conversations at work why not sign up for Larry’s free weekly leadership tips. Recent clients include Next, Tetra Pak, NHS, schools and universities.

"Some learning happens in the training activities, but there's a whole lot more learning that can happen in the review process" - that is the philosophy behind Roger Greenaway's Active Reviewing model.  In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Roger about his method to not only keep the energy, enthusiasm and inclusion of training activities high during the debrief session, but also to dig deeper and maximise the learning opportunities from training room activities. Roger Greenaway specialises in making experience-based learning more participatory, dynamic and effective. He does this by training facilitators in the skills and techniques of active reviewing (debriefing), what he calls "the game after the game". During the last 20 years Roger has worked with education and training organisations, departments and networks in 35 countries. Typical themes are 'Facilitating Learning from Experience'; 'Moving Bodies, Moving Minds' and 'Training for Transfer'. Roger's recent work has included traini

In the eighth episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I welcome back Garry Platt to begin a series of casts on his specialist subject: Transactional Analysis. Transactional Analysis, or TA, is a theory of how humans interact with each other - its main application being to help understand human behaviour and communication: each interaction between people being called a "transaction". It was developed by Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne and has been a tool in the trainer and coach toolbox for many years in helping us understand ourselves and our own interpersonal behaviours, but also understand those of others. We're going to do a whole series on this because it's such a broad and interesting topic, so this is just the start of something! Garry Platt is an experienced training consultant with more than 30 years experience in the business. He has worked with a number of international organisations helping them to enhance their approach to training and development. Within the last 12 months he has worked with De

How much effort we put into the very first part of training courses, in breaking the ice and building rapport, can directly impact the effectiveness of the rest of the day. This is especially true if you rely on input from learners and seek to create a social environment where people learn from each other, not just the trainer at the front. Jon Kersey always invests time here, more so than any other trainer I work with, and in this podcast he shares his three favourite techniques. Jon Kersey has over 15 years experience in the training and personal development world, significant experience of the retail (The Burton Group, Comet and River Island), financial (HSBC) and public sectors, and international experience having trained in organisations in South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. As an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner and Trainer he is able to encourage clients to achieve permanent behavioural change enhancing their business through a deeper level of personal understandi

Most of how we engage with other people in the workplace, on training courses, or in coaching sessions, is based on having conversations. The quality of these conversation directly impacts our effectiveness, and as educators and coaches, our ability to have powerful conversations that help to create insight and learning is a huge part of how we succeed. In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Catherine Thomson about David Kantor's theory of Structural Dynamics. In the podcast, Catherine explains how this theory of communication is applied to conversations in training and coaching. Catherine Thomson is founder of The Houston Exchange and is also an Associate Consultant within the People and Organisational Development (POD) Division with Edinburgh Napier University. A graduate of Sheffield University, she is an accomplished organisation development consultant with domestic and international experience across all sectors. Her expertise is in supporting organisations develop leaders to attain a

Role plays are one of the most powerful ways to learn we have in the training room. They're a way to bring the various strands of theory together in a practical activity, it's a way of turning the abstract into tangible action. It's active, a change of pace, it allows for physical movement and engagement, it forces the learners to think and try stuff out, it helps to turn knowledge into skills. It's hated by almost everyone. In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Larry Reynolds about his six step approach to ensuring role plays are a success. Larry Reynolds is managing partner of Courageous Conversations at Work. He help business leaders to create high performing teams where people love to work. If you want to have more courageous conversations at work why not sign up for Larry’s free weekly leadership tips. Recent clients include Next, Tetra Pak, NHS, schools and universities.  

In this episode John Tomlinson chats to Garry Platt about his approach to learning needs analysis, an approach that guarantees training is always lined up against the actual needs of the learners. Garry Platt is an experienced training consultant with more than 30 years experience in the business. He has worked with a number of international organisations helping them to enhance their approach to training and development. Within the last 12 months he has worked with Deutsche Post DHL, Formica, Siemens, Mercedes AMG F1 Team and was the keynote speaker at the SHE Conference in Blackpool. Academically qualified to Masters Degree level in Education, Training and Development his work combines current research and study in Human Resource Development with a pragmatic and workable approach. During the last 10 years an area of specialisation has become the evaluation and return on investment analysis of training delivered in organisations. Drawing from the experience of hundreds of companies and organisations he ha

In this episode John Tomlinson talks to Shirley Gaston about how to keep learners engaged throughout the training event. This is Shirley's specialist subject, something she's been passionate about for years, In the podcast she outlines three different approaches for ensuring the delegates on the course stay engaged. Shirley Gaston is the founder of  the experiential learning company Azesta which has been developing people for 21 years. As such, she is one of the driving forces within the company. She values openness and this quality is intrinsic to her award-winning learning programmes. It is important to her to be really approachable and, although professional, her overt friendliness is part of her style. Shirley’s passion for learning through experience has led to her working in learning and development for her entire career and also representing experiential tool maker Metalog and virtual exercise creator Gaminar in the UK. She has a first class degree in Education, a Post Graduate Certificate and Diploma

In the second episode of Trainer Tools, John Tomlinson talks to Paul Levy about his "Collusion of Mediocrity" concept. This is an idea that can be used with both the Consultant and Facilitator aspects of the job, and is about pushing for real change in performance as a result of training interventions. It also has interesting impacts on how we evaluate the impact of training. Paul Levy is the founder of CATS3000, a change and innovation company that helps people and organisations to realise potential and thrive. He’s worked with individuals and organisations all over the world for the last twenty years to challenge mediocrity, and to open space for change and transformation. Paul is also a senior researcher at the Centre for Research in Innovation Management at Brighton Business School in the UK. He’s the author of several books, including “Technosophy” and Digital Inferno (based on his acclaimed blog, The Digital Inferno. He is also lead facilitator with the Social Media Leadership Forum. He’s also a dir

In the very first ever episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, L&D professional John Tomlinson talks to Jon Kersey about one of his favourite training room energisers: "The Tangle" Jon Kersey has over 15 years experience in the training and personal development world, significant experience of the retail (The Burton Group, Comet and River Island), financial (HSBC) and public sectors, and international experience having trained in organisations in South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. As an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner and Trainer he is able to encourage clients to achieve permanent behavioural change enhancing their business through a deeper level of personal understanding. He is qualified in various psychological profiling tools including MBTI, PRISM, TMI and is an NVQ assessor and verifier, and sits on the council of the IDM (Institute of direct & digital marketing). Jonathan now owns his own consultancy: Red Consultancy