Spend enough time in a job and you stand a good chance of being ask to train somebody, maybe a bunch of somebodies. It’s a compliment, really – you’ve been recognized at being good at what you do and are (hopefully) able to pass your knowledge and job skills onto others.
Great! So now what? How does anybody do that?
My name is Jerome Dawson and I’ve been in the training, communicating, and education business for quite a while now.
Let’s set the stage
As the saying goes, “I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two.”
For most of my adult life my work history has centered around training, documentation, process improvement, workplace safety, and process auditing and it goes back about 30 years. And yes, all those subjects are related – very much so.
The majority of those years I was working in the airline industry, most of the rest in biomedical fields. I’ve worn a number of different hats in that time; instructor, training manager, standards manager, technical writer, safety analyst, training administrator, and more. Often, when I was officially doing one of those jobs I was, at the same time, fulfilling another semi-official function (meeting facilitator, photographer, graphic artist, mediator, internal auditor) in the same organization.
I’ve managed a department with two managers and fifteen instructors reporting to me from two training centers in different states. I’ve also been on my own with no staff at all. I’ve taught classes with more than a hundred students in the room, accomplished “hands-on training” with a handful of students out in the work area, and performed one-on-one executive training in somebody’s home.
As a writer and training developer I’ve created one-page quick reference cards and multi-week training programs. I got to manage the production of government proposals often totaling more than two dozen volumes and thousands of pages. I’ve scripted videos, created multi-media displays, and helped design custom-built classrooms.
How did I do all that? Do I have advanced degrees in adult education, learning theory, communications techniques? Nope. Mostly I learned as I went.
Through it all, I found that having a clear understanding of the needs, requirements, and limitations of the training activity was key to developing and presenting effective training. And to do that you needed clear, easy-to-follow documents that provided you with the company policy and procedures – they are the foundation that you build upon.
That’s not news to most people, it seems that should be pretty obvious. But, too often, we don’t look far enough ahead or deep enough into the task at hand to do our best work. I didn’t start out all that good at it either, but I learned how to do it better and I’ll share what I learned with you.
Along the way I’ll share what I’ve learned about successful presentations, creating a solid training plan that will hold up to any audit, how to choose instructors, and how to please the customers of your training (and who is most important to make happy). And more.
Let’s get started.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw
Practical Training & Communication 