The Questions Which Will Undermine Your Training

by Alan Matthews

You’re just about to start a training session. You’re all prepared, you’ve got all your resources and materials. You know exactly what you’re going to cover and how you want to deliver it. Your group are sitting in front of you waiting for the session to start.

But wait… what’s that above their heads? It’s a giant thought bubble! And what’s in that thought bubble? Questions! Oh no, what’s happening? How can you start your session when all these questions keep appearing? How can you get rid of them?

What are you going to do?

One thing you have to accept when you are about to start a training session is that your group will have a lot of questions in their heads. And, if you don’t do anything about them, they will get in the way of your training. In fact, they may completely undermine all your efforts.

So one of your first tasks has to be to address these questions and get them out of the way.

What are these questions? Here are the most common ones:

• What is this about?
• Why am I here? (Or maybe) Why was I sent here?
• What will I get out of this? What’s in it for me?
• Who is this person? What does he/she know about this subject? What does he/she know about me and what I need?
• What is going to happen? How is this going to work? What will we have to do?
• Is this going to be interesting?
• Will I have to do anything that might make me look foolish?
• Will I be able to understand it?
• Who are these other people?
• What time does this finish?

Your learners need to be reassured about all these issues before they can really focus on what you are trying to do. So you need to deal with them right at the start.

In fact, you should deal with most of them before people ever get to the training room – by sending out relevant information and materials before the training so people are already more relaxed and positive before they turn up.

So, when you are preparing a training session, don’t just focus on the content and the material, the resources and your plan for the session. Focus instead on your learners, on what’s going on in their heads and the questions they will be asking.

Because, if you can answer those questions, you’ll see a huge difference in terms of motivation, commitment, engagement and attention – and you’ll get far better results from your training.

About the author

Alan Matthews is the author of How To Design And Deliver Great Training and The Successful Presenter’s Handbook, available from Amazon. You can get his free report, “8 Steps To Excellence – the 8 key habits that make top trainers and presenters stand out” from the website at [http://www.alanmatthewstraining.com] You will also find lots of articles and videos to help you become an outstanding trainer or presenter.