Training Inspiration from a Train-the-Trainer

Training inspiration can come from anywhere, especially trainers in a train-the-trainer session.

A train-the-trainer program can and should lead to exciting results because you are developing trainers who have the potential to impact tens, hundreds, or even thousands of participants. Investing in and learning from these participants can be an incredibly valuable part of the process of designing and delivering a train-the-trainer program.

I had the pleasure of speaking with John Edinger, a trainer who I met several weeks ago at a train-the-trainer session I was delivering. We’ll get into all that in just a few minutes. While we’ll be talking about John’s experiences during the train-the-trainer session, I hope that anyone listening who also happens to design and deliver training will be able to find some transferable lessons from today’s conversation.

The reason I wanted to have John talk a bit about his experience is because he’s going to share just what it was about the design of the program that he went through that inspired him to be doing things new or differently or better, even though he’d already been training for a while.

Whether you’re designing sales training or leadership development training or other types of skills-focused training, what you might want to be thinking about are what are some things that John is going to share in this conversation about the things that inspired him that you might be able to use in the design of your own programs. So that’s just something to keep in mind as you listen.

But before we get into any of that, I just want to let you know that this summer series is brought to you by Endurance Learning’s Train-the-Trainer programs. If you and your team need some help with your training, design and delivery skills, drop me a note at brian@endurancelearning.com. We have half and full-day virtual sessions, as well as two and three-day in-person sessions. For more information, visit us at endurancelearning.com/train-the-trainer. 

Six-Word Training Inspiration Biography

Brian: All right. Let’s get to you, John. One of the things that we do as we start to introduce our guests is we let our guests introduce themselves and keeping in the spirit of short podcasts we give you six words to introduce yourself. So why don’t you go ahead and give us a little bit of a biography that is six words long. 

John: Hi Brian, and thanks for having me. So my six words would be positive, energetic, altruistic, loving, father, husband. 

Brian: You know, I love that. And before we get into some of these questions about your experience at the train-the-trainer program, you know, kind of what inspired you to do some things differently. When we got to talking and then as I started to scroll down and looked at your email signature, the only title that your email signature holds is living donor. Do you want to take a minute to share just what that means and perhaps even make a shameless plug in the event somebody wants to learn more? 

John: I would love to. Over a decade ago, my youngest son, Zachary, was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease called MPG, and we were fighting it you know, day in, day out, and it came to the point where we had to do a kidney transplant. Thankfully, myself and my wife were both matches. Six years ago, I gave my kidney to my son.

Unfortunately, everything didn’t work out as much as we hoped for and we had to do another transplant six months ago. It was actually our anniversary a few days ago, and my wife was a match as well, so we are a truly blessed family. And I encourage anybody to go to the Donate Life website for more information. And if anybody’s struggling or on the fence about donation, they can certainly reach out to me anytime. I will talk to anybody, anywhere, about organ donation and the positives. 

Brian: I appreciate that story. Before I started Endurance Learning, I used to work for an eye bank, so cornea transplant. The idea of organ donation is near and dear to my heart as well. Whether we’re talking about eye tissue or organ donation, sometimes people don’t even realize that you can be a living donor. If you do want to know more information, there is a website called DonateLife.net.

Training in the Propane Industry

Alright. So there’s our public service announcement, but why don’t we get into conversation here? You can you just start out by sharing a little bit about how long you’ve been delivering training and what kind of training do you deliver? 

John: We’re kind of in-house here. Over 10 years of hands-on technical, but as of late, it’s more the new software programs and technology that we’re trying to implement here. I’m trying to teach old dogs new tricks. 

Brian: And so the kind of training that you’re working on revolves around the propane industry, people who are working in some sort of trade craft. So can you tell us a little bit more about the learners that you’re working with? 

John: Correct. So most of my learners, I would say, are older than me. I’m pushing 50 and some people have a hard time downloading an app. So to get past that and, you know, just show them how easy technology is. A lot of people are apprehensive about trying the new technology because they’re so set in their ways.

Most people will tell you that the propane industry is an aged industry and some of the employees are on the older side. It’s exciting to see all the technological developments in the last decade in the propane industry and the choices that we made here so far in propane, we have not looked past and second guessed anything. We can hardly do our jobs without it now.

Brian: And, so, you’re talking about helping people learn a little bit more about how to use different tools, technologies, to do the job better. Do you also do safety training or hands-on skill training in terms of how to hook up equipment or things like that? 

John: Sure. Filling propane tanks safely, meter creep tests, gas leak checks, installations, filling propane tanks, driving trucks, all the above.

Increasing Engagement

Brian: And it’s been my experience just working with you and some of your colleagues that a lot of the training is one direction, right? So there’s a lot of lecture. There’s a lot of people sharing stories and experiences , from more experienced people to more novice people. We had a chance to meet during a two-day train-the-trainer session. Can you talk just a little bit about how going through that session changed how you look at, or maybe just in general, how you approach training? 

John: So, I think just sitting through training lessons over the years where I was the learner several sessions you are sitting in one place, listening to a presenter who might be in the same spot for the entire duration. And you’re always in the same seat and there’s really no interaction with the learners while the session or the curriculum is being presented or taught.

Right off the bat with your train-the-trainer presentation, you had sheets all around the room and you actually made us go up and interact with each sheet in different locations. We had time to mingle with other people when we’re thinking about their answers, seeing what they wrote on there. Like, oh, well, yeah, I didn’t think about that. Sure, that applies to me as well.

And I think you move it around. And telling us that we had to make a presentation and one of the foundations or expectations of that presentation is we want engagement from the learners. Now, I’m thinking, how can I engage people like you are now? And just walking around and participating and interacting with the other learners, I think really, hit a note with me personally. 

Increasing Participation with Creativity

Brian: Yeah, and it was so fascinating. It’s always fascinating to deliver training and kind of see what lands with different people. A lot of times when I’m doing a training session like this, I try to model a bunch of different strategies and hopefully kind of low-hanging fruit strategies, right? So, strategies for engagement that don’t require a lot of the facilitator.

Now, when you did a practice facilitation during the train-the-trainer program, when you had to get up in front of the group, and deliver a presentation and try to engage the people, you decided to draw a sketch on a piece of flip chart paper, and then you asked the participants to brainstorm what they’d add to that sketch based on some of the material you were about to teach them.

This was not a strategy that I introduced during the train-the-trainer program. It was completely original. I’m just kind of curious. How did kind of what you were learning during that program inspire you or open your mind to such an original and creative approach? 

John: Going back to the several classes that I was a learner, there’s always some people in that class that, you know, never answer a question, never participate, the quiet people.

So I’m thinking to myself, how can we get like this quiet person to maybe engage or have a positive, fun way to participate?

Every morning I make my wife coffee, and I start her car and if it’s cold, but every morning I take a Sharpie and I doodle something on her cup, whether it be current events, I love you, smiley face, hearts. And a doodle is a fun innocence that I think, you know, everybody at some point in their lives have made doodles or still doodles, and I just thought it was a fun way that people wouldn’t feel intimidated. I also gave them the option of drawing a potential obstacle or hazard.

And if they weren’t comfortable doing that, they could just write it down. Well, everybody doodled and it was pretty neat to see everybody having a good time laughing and participating. And I think if we had more time than 15 minutes to present that, I do believe everybody in that class would have participated and drawn something and it would have been a better picture than it was at the end, for sure.

How to Take Your Delivery to the Next Level

Brian: Yeah. And so, this gets into something, you need to see if people are getting it. And what you did was you found an activity that you drew upon from your own just personal experience, right? You drew inspiration from anywhere. You didn’t just have to rely on what was being presented during the session. You allowed yourself the freedom to draw your inspiration from other places.

A lot of times people are thinking, “Oh, what can I do that’s going to be a fun activity and be engaging?” but we always talk about this, kind of, Venn diagram between engaging and effective, right? So just doodling to doodle can be fun, but you had people doodle and it aligned with the learning objective that you needed to accomplish.

And so that was one of the things that I thought was so genius and one of the things that I think is really important for anybody who’s designing training, to really search within themselves for an activity that will be engaging. And you not only wanted to do something in line with the learning objective, you wanted to get everybody, even the quiet people, involved. So you found something that would get people involved and aligned with the learning objective.

Advice for Improving Training Delivery Skills

I’m kind of curious as we close out our conversation for people who are listening and feel they’re pretty good already at delivering training. What is a piece of advice that you might give them that can help them continue to take their training delivery skills to the next level? 

John: I think going back to the train-the-trainer presentation in Baltimore that I attended with you, you had a large group. and you separated them into smaller groups. This helped us interact with each other. There’s been plenty of conferences, training when it’s just a mass audience, and there’s very limited interaction or engagement. And I think that’s a positive outcome.

And I think that’s a positive outcome if you can try to get more engagement with the learners, they’ll retain more of the lesson you’re trying to teach. 

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. So the idea of it can be tempting, especially if you’re pressed for time to, to throw a question out to the large group. And a lot of times when you throw a question out to the large group, either you’ll get silence or you’ll get the same two or three people answering the questions.

The idea of putting people into smaller groups and discussing allows people who are a little bit more quiet, a little out of their comfort zone, to be able to engage and feel kind of obligated to engage. Because, when you’re in a large group, it’s really easy to disappear. When you’re in a group of two or three, it’s kind of a jerk move, to not, right so you have to participate.

Train-the-Trainer Training Inspiration

Is there anything else that you wanted to add before we, we wrap up this conversation, just in terms of things based on your experiences, other things that, you’ve found, over the course of your career, or some things that you may be taking away still, from that train-the-trainer session?

John: I think going back to that flip chart that you asked about and getting back to doodles and the coffee cups is just “keep it simple.” I didn’t want to have a DaVinci up there, like high detail, because I thought maybe if it was really meticulous, people wouldn’t want to participate. My wife shows off her coffee cups, like every day to the girls at work, “look what he did today.” And if you keep it simple and fun people will open up and play along and have a good time for sure. 

Brian: I love that. And let’s close on that because there’s nothing else that I could add that would make the conversation or that point even better. John, thank you so much for giving me some time. I know, it’s a busy grill season. So I know that you are busy with your customers. Thank you everyone else for listening today.

If you know somebody who might find today’s topic of interest, what to apply when you’re creating a training session to be helpful, then go ahead and pass along this recording. For those who are looking for different ways to up your learning and development game, we have a couple of books out. What’s Your Formula? Combine Learning Elements for Impactful Training, as well as Instructional Design on a Shoestring. Both of those can be purchased at Amazon.

Until next time, happy training, everyone and may you find training inspiration every time you step in front of trainees!