Tip #137: Don't Make Assumptions About Your Effectiveness

I am a highly interactive facilitator. This means that if the folks in my training session don't actively participate, my goose is generally cooked. And, by active participation, I mean being verbally rather than telepathically responsive.

A number of years ago, I was asked to conduct a workshop on different personality types for a conference of certified public accountants. There were probably 150 folks in the workshop. Now, this was a great topic, wonderfully interesting and engaging, and lots of fun for the participants and for me! I began by asking them to think about someone with whom they have terrible difficulty communicating. I cautioned them that hopefully this person was not a boss, a spouse or a significant other. That comment typically gets at least a titter, but I got NOTHING! There was absolute silence...

So, I tried harder! I began to explain the four different personality types and how they perceived each other. I used humorous anecdotes, drew on people in the audience (by using their names from their name tags) for mock role plays, and showed funny cartoons. Still NOTHING. The group was completely quiet. However, the good news was that they were all still looking at me. This told me either that they must be interested -or they had all learned how to sleep with their eyes open!

By the time the workshop was done, I was completely wiped out. I didn't have another ounce of energy, enthusiasm, or humor left. The woman who had hired me came up to me with a huge smile on her face. She told me that the group had LOVED me and would I come back the next year and do another workshop for them? I was absolutely stunned. Luckily, I restrained myself from asking her –How could you tell they were alive?”

I learned (again the hard way!) that folks can be totally interested in a topic, feel that they are learning a lot, and truly enjoy the experience, even if they don't show it. I slammed headfirst into the reality of different learning styles. Now, these days if I have a very quiet group, I draw a few participants aside at the break to check how things are going. Invariably, what I hear is that everything is fine and to keep doing what I am doing.

Tip #136: Don't Take It Personally

You know how you work hard to engage every participant when you are training? I certainly do! And I used to focus all of my energy on the ones who did NOT seem engaged.

I was conducting a training program and continued to notice that a woman, sitting right smack in the middle of the class (isn't that always the case!), was continually making unhappy faces at me. So I did everything I could to draw her into the session, being as charming and informative and entertaining as possible. Nothing I did made a dent in her negative demeanor.

When the break came, I walked behind her because I was planning to ask her what the problem was. Then I overheard her explaining to another participant that she was in great pain because she needed an operation on her leg. Her unhappy non-verbals had absolutely NOTHING to do with me or the training session!!! So I asked her if she would be more comfortable resting her leg on a chair and adjusted the seating arrangement to enable her to do just that.

I learned a very important lesson from that experience. When someone has to leave a session, or falls asleep even sitting in the front of the room, or makes unhappy faces, I do my best NOT to take it personally and, even more, not to notice and have the behavior affect me. I know that my training sessions are engaging and entertaining, incorporating ample participation and application of new learning. The one time a person actually did fall asleep, I knew he had to be incredibly tired- and found out later that he had been up all night with a sick family member.

Tip #135: Learning Respect the Hard Way

Back in the late 1970's, I was employed as an Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor and Trainer on a project basis by the state of Wisconsin in their first Affirmative Action Office. I investigated a prima facie case of sex discrimination in hiring, where the interviewing supervisors refused to hire women for lead building maintenance positions. As a result of that investigation, all of the building maintenance superintendents were ordered to attend a training session. They came into the session knowing that I had “fingered” them.

I began the session from a very self righteous position, knowing that I was right and they were very wrong. My tone, my demeanor, and my words all came across with a clear message to the participants: "You discriminate against women and you need to stop that right now!”

The men were all in their forties, fifties and sixties, and very large and strong, since they spent their days in physical labor. They were also furious with me. As I pontificated, one of the men stood up and started bellowing at me and moving toward me. I had no where to go- he was between me and the exit. I was so frightened, I couldn't move anyway. So I did the only thing I could think of to save my hide: I asked him why he was so angry.

He proceeded to tell me that he had a wife, sisters and daughters, and he would not want any of them up on the Capitol roof sweeping ice during a snow storm. It was much too dangerous! He had been raised to protect women and that was all he was doing when he refused to hire women into the lead building maintenance positions. It would be irresponsible and completely against his social and family responsibilities to allow a woman to be in danger.

It had never occurred to me. I suddenly realized that I had been sorely mistaken about their intentions. It didn't change the fact that their ultimate behavior was illegal, but it opened up a very different avenue for conversation. So I admitted that I had not understood before, apologized for never asking for their reasoning, and thanked the man for explaining their perspective on the situation.

Rather than telling them what they had done was wrong, I started to ask questions to help them recognize that women had a right to decide for themselves if they wanted a particular job, even if it was dangerous at times. I was able to draw on their love and concern for the women in their lives as I framed the questions. They certainly would not want someone else standing in the way of their loved ones'right to make decisions that affected their economic well-being.

I completely changed my tone, he sat down (whew!). we all had a great conversation, and every one of the superintendents voluntarily sent all of their supervisors to the next training sessions.

I learned a very important lesson from that group, to set aside my "holier than thou” mantle and ask questions so I could really understand where they were coming from and what they were thinking when they acted in certain ways. I learned the hard way to treat the participants with respect.

Tip #134: Let Learners Convince Themselves

That wonderful accelerated learning guru, Dave Meier, says that we should never do what the learners can do for themselves. I learned this truth a long time ago.

While I was conducting a team building session for an agency, the President came over to congratulate me on the session. He then proceeded to say that he wanted my help in converting his organization into a participative management system. He explained that he had run the organization for eighteen years and was now ready to retire and move to France. He wanted his employees to learn how to run the business- and he thought that I was just the person to help facilitate that transformation. The one challenge that he anticipated was convincing the psychologists and psychiatrists on his staff (this was a social service agency). Since they were paid only for client contact time, it made sense that a participative management approach requiring lots of administrative meetings might not be that attractive for them!

He scheduled a mandatory training session for all 150 of the psychologists and psychiatrists, where he expected me to do my magic. In the meantime, I fretted over how I was possibly going to “out-psych” the psychs!

I finally decided to place a flip chart next to the entrance with the focus question: "How will converting to a participatory form of management benefit you?” Everyone saw the question as they entered the training room.

I began the session by referring to the question and asking for their responses. Do you know, that was by far the easiest training day I've ever facilitated?

They proceeded to brainstorm thirty different ways the new management style would benefit them, including –creating a new system for compensation.” I spent the entire day in the back of the room drinking hot chocolate while they formed themselves into different task forces and proceeded to plan how to transform the agency! Afterwards, the President was thrilled with the results and thought I walked on water!

I learned a very important lesson from that group. It is much easier and much more effective to let the learners convince themselves!