JD Dillon once asked his network, “What was the BEST training experience you’ve ever had?
I spend a good portion of my year delivering train-the-trainer sessions to professionals in a wide variety of industries and I love asking this question of my participants.
When JD posted this question, I was quick to answer what “my” best training experience was. As I reflected on what made it so good, I think there are three fundamental things my experience shared with most memorable, impactful learning experiences.
The absolute best training experience I’ve ever had was a 2-day training on racial and ethnic identity development. I was working for an organization that focused on foster care and there was a significant disproportionate representation of children of color in the foster care system. The people that volunteered to work with us were overwhelmingly white. I was responsible for developing training materials for the organization.
Why was this experience so powerful?
Self-discovery + Dialogue
Think about the last “death by PowerPoint” session you sat through. Were you engaged? Or were you checking email? My guess is the latter.
I hope it wasn’t your best training experience.
For two full days, this training was designed to have us go through a series of activities and then engage in meaningful conversations. Activities such as the White Privilege Checklist or viewing a powerful video that clearly demonstrated the disparate treatment of people of color in every day activities allowed us context for personal reflection.
Small group conversations allowed us to listen to others perspectives and challenge each others thoughts and assumptions.
Adults don’t learn well by being lectured at. We learn by doing, by reflecting, and by talking to each other.
The facilitators in my session didn’t stand up and tell us about our identities. They created a structure where we could explore them ourselves and with each other. This is the heart of Dialogue Education, a practice we’re passionate about here (you can read more about its founder, Jane Vella, here).
It’s built on the simple (but radical) idea that the people in the room already have a lifetime of experience. The best training doesn’t ignore that experience; it uses it.
- Instead of: “Here are the 5 steps to better feedback.”
- Try: “Think about the best feedback you ever received. What made it great? Let’s list those characteristics.”
When you let learners connect the dots for themselves, the learning is stickier. It’s theirs.
Create a Safe Space for Learning
But here’s the catch: dialogue and self-discovery can’t happen without this second element. You can’t ask people to be vulnerable if they don’t feel safe.
As anyone who has ever talked about racism among a diverse group of people can tell you, it can be an uncomfortable topic with a lot of room for misinterpretation and hurt feelings.
the topics in my story were heavy. People were sharing personal, vulnerable truths. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. To ensure participants in this program could fully participate safely, the designers of this 2-day program established four non-negotiable ground rules:
- Speak your truth
- Stay engaged
- Experience discomfort
- Accept and expect non-closure
To ensure the facilitators were prepared to lead participants through this program while adhering to these ground rules, facilitators went through a rigorous certification process in order to be able to lead this training.
Endurance Learning’s Train-the-Trainer workshops are always designed to make sure participants walk away with practical skills that they can immediately apply to their jobs. While we have a core curriculum, every session is customized to meet the needs of the organization and its participants.
Make Training Immediately Applicable
This wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill, check-the-box diversity training. Anyone who completed the course was expected to put it to use in their work (and home life as well). Beyond such extrinsic expectations, however, this training session made me want to apply it in as many areas of my life as possible.
The “White Privilege Checklist” I mentioned wasn’t just an abstract theory; it was a tool. It gave me a new lens to look at my own life and work that same day.
This is where the rubber meets the road, and it’s the part so many training programs get wrong. They’re full of interesting ideas but leave you with no clear “what next?”
It gave me a new lens through which I viewed training programs that I created. I began to be intentional about the diversity of imagery we used in elearning programs – not because it was politically correct, but because it was appropriate. When trainers in different parts of the country reported that they would abbreviate the section in our standard training curriculum that focused on cultural competency (citing the idea that they lived in fairly homogeneous communities), I began to challenge them, and I now had information, data and a variety of new concepts to support my feedback to them.
Learning doesn’t stick unless people can use it. That’s why we’re such big believers in practical tools and performance support. We create things like the Endurance Learning Activity Cookbook because they help trainers bridge the gap between “learning” and “doing.”
The best training experience doesn’t end when the session is over. It gives you something tangible to take back to your desk—a job aid, an action plan, a checklist, or even just one powerful question—that helps you put the learning into practice immediately.
How to Evaluate Your Own Training Experiences
So, how does your own training stack up?
Next time you’re designing or attending a workshop, run it through this 3-part filter. Ask yourself:
- Dialogue: Are we creating space for learners to talk to each other and discover insights, or are we just talking at them?
- Safety: Have we intentionally designed an environment where it’s safe to be new, to be wrong, and to be honest?
- Application: What are people going to do with this information tomorrow? Is there a clear, simple tool or next step?
You don’t need a massive budget or fancy tech to do this. You just need intention.
Endurance Learning offers a range of services to help trainers deliver better training from our train-the-trainer workshops to self-paced Training Delivery Basics.
