Not paying attention as a trainer can make you take an unwanted bath

I once took a university course, early Friday mornings at 8:30 am, with only 3 others in the class.  There was another painful aspect to it other than the early hour.  The professor lectured from notes so old they were yellowed.  Plus his monotonous tone matched the static nature of his notes.

Mother of mertle take me now.

Talk about demoralizing.  Talk about not being able to hide my boredom (did I mention there were only 3 others in the class?).

Learning and development specialists take on a great responsibility when we sign on to create and deliver engaging workshops.  People carve out precious time and pony up hard earned bucks to be there.  Part of living up to our responsibility is paying attention.  Paying attention to those who:

  • are engaged and eager … and those who aren’t
  • are participating … and those who aren’t
  • are sharing the space … and those who aren’t
  • have big exclamation marks of interest above their heads … and those who have big, quivering question marks
  • love what you’re doing … and those who don’t

Being a great learning and development specialist also means paying attention to:

Paying attention is a key attribute to a great trainer.

Not paying attention means being on automatic pilot, like the fellows below.  If we don’t pay careful attention while we’re training we may end up taking a bath.

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