You hear it all the time, when you're sitting right there next to them, “I know how to do this“.
When actually, they do not. How do you ensure that people apply what you have taught them?
Coaches and employers share this experience training participants who are confident they know what to do.
But an hour, week, or so pass and you realize your participants are not applying the information you worked hard to present.
Aside from being frustrated, slightly annoyed, and tempted to roll your eyes because their temporary self-confidence has consequences like:
not maximizing training time
mistakes or poor performance continues to happen
poor return on investment of training time and money
Then there's the perception that the training needs to be repeated or supplemented with another training. You know no one wants another training. So how do you combat "I know how to do it" without another training but get results?
The answer rests in the 3 parts of the training structure. Let's break these down.
1) IN THE BEGINNING: Do your training participants understand how the topic directly impacts them? Is the topic introduced in a way that mirrors how they think and feel, or relate to their experience? Engaging training participants is more than entertaining them with food, icebreakers, or a funny story. Rather engagement focuses on getting the participant to make an intimate connection between their individual values with the topic.
2) IN THE MIDDLE: Is your training content easy to remember? Content that does not give participants what they believe they need will not be remembered. Look beyond the overused ‘auditory, visual, kinesthetic learner approaches’ to develop content. Instead consider participants’ experiences, motivations, education and their abilities, when determining what information to include and how to present it.
3) AT THE END: Will they remember how to use the information? Here is your last chance to make sure participants know how and will use thetraining information. Participants will not use training content for 3 reasons:
They are not interested or do not value the content
They don’t understand the training information or confused
They do not know how to use the training
Summary: To prevent the chance of hearing “I know how to do this, are we done ”reconsider the beginning, middle, and end of how your training is constructed. Help participants value the training content.
Construct content in ways that they can understand. Provide participants opportunities to practice applying content.
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