I was doing an all-day training session with a client yesterday. The room was filled with employees that ranged in experience level from one to 39 years. Most of the group had been with the organization for 10 years or more. My challenge, which I relish by the way, is to quickly win over the room so that everyone feels excited to be there.
The truth is that when a company CEO or sales executive calls me in to do work with his or her team, I know that I’m going to get three kinds of folks in the room. The first group is Prisoners. Prisoners are often the long-term employees who understandably feel like they know it all. They’ve been doing their respective jobs for 20, 30 years or more. So what the heck are they going to learn from me? The second group is Vacationers. Vacationers are just happy to have a day away from the office and will gladly sit quietly and distract themselves as I ramble on. Last, but not least, are the Learners. Learners are excited to be there and want to take in all the information. They are sponges and are eager to soak up the knowledge so they can put it to use.
A good trainer’s job (just like a good boss’s job) is to recognize and acknowledge these three types of participants and convert the Prisoners and Vacationers to be eager Learners. Having done corporate training for over 20 years, I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve.
While the strategies I use help me get enthusiastic participation, I share them because they will work for you if you are training staff internally, you are running a meeting or doing a workshop or presentation for a group.
While I incorporated over a dozen strategies to rev up the team yesterday, let me share three that can get you started:
- Have an opening that will suck them in. If you’re going to engage folks, you need to get them on-board as soon as possible. I always look for a way to peak their interest and curiosity at the beginning of my presentation. It may be a compelling story, a bizarre fact or a humorous picture. Yesterday, I understood something about the team that was unique to them that I knew they could all relate to and I presented it in a humorous and thoughtful way. Specifically, I used a juxtaposition of two funny pictures…one that represented what was on the surface for the world to see and one that mirrored their real world behind the scenes experience. It immediately endeared me to the group. I had the heads nodding and the “knowing” smiles popping up in the audience within 30 seconds of my opening remarks. In an instant, they knew I “got them.” I was one of the good guys and I was on their side. I glanced over at the CEO and he had a big grin on his face. He told me afterwards that I nailed it.
- Names and introductions matter. I walked into a room of 35 people yesterday. I knew two of them before the meeting. If you want people to pay attention and get involved, you need to know them. Knowing folks names (and what’s important to them) is a sure-fire way to connect with them. Learning the names of the participants came in handy throughout the day as I used ways to keep the program interactive. As I worked through one of the many exercises to get folks engaged yesterday, I said things like, “Pam, what did you and John experience in that exercise?” At the beginning of the program, I got everyone to introduce themselves and then it was my job to remember them. If you’re thinking, “I’m no good at remembering names,” you are not alone. Most people are astonished I can recall 35 names after a quick introduction (and no nametags). But that’s exactly what I want to happen; I want the group to know that I care enough to want to know their names and that I value their personal contribution. I want to forge a personal connection with all of the participants, and I can only do that if I know who they are and care enough about them to speak to them directly. There are lots of ways to remember names (perhaps a future blog post if you would like to know more), but I find the most important one is related to #3 below. You have to “believe” that you can do it. If you think you “suck” at it; you’re right. On the other hand, if you have the expectation (and belief) that you can do it, you will.
- My favorite strategy and the one that consistently gets me the biggest results with my clients is that I have to get in their heads. I don’t want to just deliver great content or be entertaining. For me, it’s about getting my clients results when it’s all said and done. In other words, they have to leave the meeting or training session and be excited to put into practice what they’ve learned. If I want to drive that kind of behavior change, I have to jog their noggins first. In other words, I have to shake out the “I can’t do this” “This won’t work for me” or “I don’t want to do this” mentality while creating an excitement over a new and better way. To make this work, I pull out lots of Jedi mind tricks, but they all boil down to a simple premise – Our beliefs impact our attitudes. Our attitudes impact our behavior. And our behavior impacts our results. So if you want different results, it’s not enough to simply change your behavior which is what 90% of folks focus on. So I spend some time crawling around in their heads to show them precisely how they are holding themselves back and what they can do to see huge shifts in their outcomes. I come back to their headspace repeatedly throughout our time together to reinforce the lesson and get the light bulbs to go off. Quite frankly, it’s one of the reasons I love what I do and am so passionate about it.
On a side note, I think the conversations I have with participants when I’m not in front of the room are often the most important. A good lesson for any leader, trainer or presenter is to look for those opportunities and create them whenever possible. Yesterday, one of the participants shared a side comment with me on a break while we were refreshing our iced teas. It was an insight or “ah ha” she had after she had shared a comment with the group in the session. As soon as she told me, I knew she was absolutely right. So I reinforced her insight and gave her a simple way to take the next step by building on this new revelation so that she could be more successful at work. It was a quick two minute conversation that will yield huge dividends for her because she was open and ready. And she was open and ready because I took the time to get into her head at the beginning of the program.
