10 Things I Know About Training

I am writing this post as I change planes at the Santiago, Chile Airport. My trip home to Toronto from Buenos Aires is 20 percent complete.

The workshop I co-facilitated yesterday went well and I am feeling a post-training high. It's a mixture of fulfilment, satisfaction and exhaustion. 

People were engaged throughout the day, even after spending three 12-hour days at a conference (not including team dinners and evening activities). Also, my co-facilitators were superb. We achieved all of our objectives.

As I was typing the flip chart notes, I wrote down the following training 'truths' based on the comments I read:

• People want to perform better regardless of how   successful they are
• People intuitively know when new ways of working will help them be more effective
• Respect for learners' perspectives is an important requirement for engagement
• People learn best through dialogue with their peers
• Retention of new information is increased when facilitators make mistakes that are corrected by their peers--I increased retention twice!
• Real-life scenarios provide context for new ways of working
• Game-like activities make learning interesting, which increases engagement and retention
• People need time to ask questions as they process new concepts
• Training is only the first step to adoption of new ways of working; people must apply new concepts during their day-to-day routines and tasks for them to stick
• Asking people what they need to transition to new ways of working is the best way to create a plan to do so 

The next stop on our 'world tour' is Dubai. Applying these truths will help us achieve our objectives and give me similar feeling on my flight home.

Phil