Q5. What are some tips for delivering a team training?

First, read this blog to understand why training often fails and what to avoid.

A successful training starts with a clear, specific training objective. In other words, what will the participants think, do or say differently when they leave the training? Once the objective is identified, the next step is to outline the needed conversations to achieve the objective; the last step is to design the exercises that will create the conversations. For example, if the training objective is for each participant to know how to coach their direct reports, then some of the training conversations might be:

• What is coaching?
• Why is coaching important?
• When does a manager coach or not coach?
• How does a manager coach?

From there, the activities could be:

• What is coaching? (define it via video from a famous coach)
• Why is coaching important? (list the business case, including the benefits of a coaching culture)
• When does a manager coach or not coach? (group discussion on when to coach and when to train employees)
• How does a manager coach? (identify coaching skills, teach the skills, have the class practice the skills on the facilitator, then have the class practice with each other in pairs)

It’s important to have some visuals for the participants to use as they learn; this could be handouts, graphs, a simple PowerPoint, games, video, dashboard, etc.

In general, an excellent training follows the 1/3-2/3 rule, where 1/3 of the overall time is spent teaching content and 2/3 of the time interactively applies the content to the participants’ work, so they can immediately use the training the next day.

Finally, it’s important to follow-up the training with evaluations. Most evaluations just rate if the participant liked the training; this doesn’t give meaningful data. Effective trainings use the Kirkpatrick method to rate how the training will be used by each participant, as well as the participant’s depth of knowledge.

One last tip: People need to move their bodies every 45 minutes to keep their brains engaged. So be sure to create an activity or break once an hour!