Handling difficult trainees: The shy trainee

(Image from: http://www.selfhypnosistherapy.com/overcoming-shyness.html)

In one of my earlier posts, I had written about handling nervous trainees. You might wonder what the difference is between a shy trainee and nervous trainee. A shy trainee and a nervous trainee are both difficult for an instructor – but for different reasons.

A shy trainee refuses to open up to conversation and discussion. He/She simply clams up and the instructor has no way of knowing what’s on the trainee’s mind, whether the content has sunk in, whether the trainee is comfortable or not, etc etc. Most of the time, a shy trainee is hesitant about expressing him/herself because of a fear of making a fool of him/herself in public. Shy persons are usually very concerned about what other people might think of them.

On the other hand, a nervous trainee is worried about learning it right. The instructor can usually find out if a trainee is nervous or not – body language and speech give it away. A nervous trainee is generally worried about whether they can learn and apply the skills correctly, and fear what might happen otherwise.

Shyness and nervousness in trainees are individually troublesome for instructors. A combination of shyness and nervousness is a perfect nightmare! It means a lot of work and patience is required from the instructor.

My thoughts on handling shy trainees:

• Identify the reason for their shyness. Is their shyness due to cultural barriers/language barriers/lack of confidence/learning anxiety ?

• Talk to them in private. Strike up a conversation and gently probe into what’s making them clam up.

• Compliment them on their work – without sounding patronizing.

• Never ever make them the target of your humour – even if you don’t mean to hurt them.

• Explain to them that overcoming shyness can actually increase the effectiveness of their training and enable them to perform better on their job. This is a very sensible reason for not being shy.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat….

Personally, I think one of the most important principles of effective teaching/presentation is repetition. Sadly, this is also the most forgotten principle. Presenters are in such a rush to pack more and more content into their presentation that they do not allow time for repetition. The net result is that they “cover” a lot of material, but very little actually percolates into the listeners’ minds. Most of the material simply remains in the Powerpoint slides or handouts.

My own style is to reduce the amount of content in my presentation to make room for repetition of key points through various means. I would much rather present ten key ideas/concepts and have seven of them sink into my listeners, than present twenty key concepts in the same time and have none of them sink in.

Ultimately, what matters is what the listeners take home with them in their minds, not how much the presenter has "covered".

Understanding the trainee's learning style

Everyone has a different learning style..some people are auditory (learn by hearing), some are visual(learn by seeing) and some are kinaesthetic (learn by doing). When a person teaches others he will use the same method to teach as the method by which he learns. So a trainer who is a visual learner himself will tend to teach by using visual displays.

Now, during a training session, it is very useful to understand the learning style of the trainees so that the trainer can cater to them accordingly. A good way to understand a particular trainee's learning style is to ask a few questions at the beginning of the class, when each trainee introduces himself. Asking a trainee about his hobbies is a good way to get insight into his learning style.

Is learning fun ?

Learning is a process of change by which new skills or knowledge is acquired. Any change is stressful..it involves some pain. Unless a person goes through this stress, change cannot be created in his/her mind. And this stress is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is within limits. This kind of positive stress is known as eustress - as opposed to distress.

Should a trainer try to project the training class as a "fun" activity ? I believe not. A trainer should definitely not scare trainees by making the subject sound very difficult. At the same time, the trainees should get the message that they are not in the class for fun. Learning involves work and the associated stress. There is no running away from this. Trainees should be mentally prepared to accept this, and trainers should not shy away from pushing trainees so that they can achieve the learning outcomes.

How close is the result owner to the trainer ?

A few thoughts on different scenarios in training management and organization…

Simple, ideal case: Results owner = Trainer

When the trainer is directly the person who is responsible for the results expected out of training, it is the best possible scenario. The trainer knows exactly what skills are required of the trainee by the time the training is completed. So the training is squarely addressed towards transferring the skills to the trainee.

Example : This example is rather awkward but absolutely effective. Think of a parent trying to toilet-train a baby. The outcomes are clearly defined. Trainer knows precisely what skills are to be transferred to the trainee. Trainer is also the person who directly owns the results. If the training is not effective, the trainer is going to have a lot of cleanup to do ;-)

A slightly more complex case: Results owner is one layer away from trainer.

In this case, the results owner sends the trainee to a trainer and explains the expectations to the trainer. The trainer is tasked with transferring the required skills to the trainee, but is not directly impacted if the training is ineffective.

Example: A dog owner who takes his pet to a professional trainer for obedience training. The expectations are directly conveyed by the owner to the trainer. But if the training fails, the pain is for the owner and not for the trainer.

As complexity increases: Results owner is several layers away from trainer.

Example: A field manager sends his report (say a field engineer) for an internal training course within the same company. The trainer has developed the curriculum based on what the product design team told him. The field manager thinks the trainee is going to be fully competent to address field issues after the training. The trainee has some idea of what skills the training is going to offer, but not a very precise idea. The trainer has some idea what skills will help the trainee in his job after he completes the training. The training need from the field is not squarely addressed. This scenario is common as the organization’s size increases. To make the training very relevant and effective, the trainer, the product design group, the potential trainee, the trainee’s manager should all be completely aligned.

In the first place, is the trainee in the right place?

In many cases, the person who makes a decision on whether to send people for training has no clear idea about what the training will impart. The trainees themselves arrive without much idea about the scope of the training. This creates a lot of confusion and frustration for the trainer and the trainees. Imagine a situation where a trainer teaches a class with a complete mismatch in expectations between trainer-trainee..and imagine further how frustrating it would be for the trainer to ask his trainees for feedback at the end of the class.

The trainee and the trainee’s manager (whoever is paying for the training) should be completely clear on what the training will accomplish. Otherwise it is likely that the training will miss the mark..it will not squarely accomplish the objectives. Resources are wasted without achieving real business results.

Establishing a connection with your trainees

A great practice that successful speakers and trainers follow is to establish a connection with their audience early on in their speech. Abraham Lincoln was a master of this practice and succeeded in connecting with even hostile audiences that were fundamentally opposed to his policies. Establishing a rapport with your trainees makes them more receptive to you and hence makes the training more effective.

One might argue that establishing a connection with the trainees is not always possible. But the key is to remember that, unless you are a reclusive cave-dweller, you are connected with others in probably ways more than one. (Even reclusive cave-dwellers are on some social-networking website these days!) It is impossible to not find some common ground or connection.

In a training class that I attended recently, we had to do a role-play activity that taught us how to find common ground with your audience where none seems to exist. I was assigned the character of Winnie the Pooh (a stuffed teddy bear kind of cartoon character) and I had to pretend that I was addressing a group of Manchester United (English football club) fans to reinforce their support for the club. First, I had to convince the Man U fans that I had plenty in common with them or their club. At first this seemed so completely ridiculous that I had to resist the urge to laugh out loud. But when I put my mind to it, I realized to my surprise that there are a few ways in which Winnie the Pooh can connect with Man U fans. For example, Winnie the Pooh often gets into trouble, but always wiggles out because he has a good support system – a bunch of loyal friends. In the same way, Man U can always bounce back from defeat thanks to the unflinching support of the legions of its fans.

The exercise taught me that it is quite possible to identify with your trainees one way or the other, if only you put your mind to it. And it is a worthwhile thing to do, because it makes your audience warm up to you and be more receptive. This ultimately makes training more effective.

Emerging trends in training

The advent of the Internet has accelerated the pace of change in the world. In order to survive and thrive, every industry needs to keep abreast of the changing environment. The training industry is no exception.

This is a wonderful article on trends in training.

http://www.trainersdirect.com/resources/articles/polson/trendsintrng.htm

A few points from this article that I found interesting:

- Four Trends in Training:
1. Globalisation
2. Business Focus
3. eLearning
4. War for Talent

- Seek Treasure in Niches: There are many niches to be successful in. Just because everyone is going one way, it does not mean that everyone is going the same way.

- Play to Your Strengths: We should all stick to what we are good at and what we love because people are swayed by passion. Moreover, you need to satisfy yourself as well as others.

- We do know that there will be an acceleration of change in the way training and learning takes place in the next 10 years. Training professionals need to be aware of these changes if they are to capitalise on them, or avoid become irrelevant because of them. There will always be niches in the market for people who excel in doing things that are not necessarily mainstream.

- Continued success is not guaranteed. Failure is not irreversible.

I have quoted the above from the article/speech by Reg Polson. All credit to him.

Very interesting, informative and inspiring.

ASTD head in Singapore

Tony Bingham, President and CEO of ASTD (American Society for Training and Development for the uninitiated) spoke on "The Power of Community: Transform your Organization with Social Media". He talked about how organizations are using social media (like Facebook and Twitter) for learning. Caterpillar, for example, encourages its technical staff to keep in touch with retired staff using social media in order to leverage their knowledge of legacy products. Interesting.

Handling difficult trainees : The talkative trainee

This kind of trainee is generally well-meant but tends to seize control from the trainer and start rambling on and on about his/her experiences. Such people are a trainer’s nightmare, because they hijack the class time and can get emotional and argumentative if they are interrupted. If you interrupt them and tell them they need to stop because of time constraints, they are quite capable of coming with something like “WILL YOU LET ME TALK ?” They can seek (and get) support from other trainees, and suddenly, the trainer becomes public enemy #1. Sometimes, they might be silenced temporarily, but can start off again at the earliest possible opportunity. If the trainer repeatedly stops them, he/she (the trainer) runs the risk of seeming rude. If you are a trainer conducting an on-site session for your customers’ staff, the last thing you want to do is to antagonize the trainees. At the same time, you cannot let time slip by, watching helplessly as the rambler imposes him/herself on the whole class.

How do you prevent a verbose trainee from sabotaging the class - intentionally or unintentionally - and yet, avoid looking like a villain ?

First, never get into an argument with the rambler. Remember, he/she is naturally talkative, and if you get into an argument, every word of yours will be countered with ten of his. Don’t let your blood pressure rise, and don’t get emotional – this makes you lose control and sound weak. Rather, gently wrest control again from the trainee. One way to do this is to agree with him very forcefully on something that he/she says – agree so forcefully and emphatically that it takes him by surprise. Thank him for bringing up the topic, talk about it for a few moments and gradually move back to your original line of talk.

A variant of this trick is to agree with him on something, thank him for bringing it up, and then focus attention on other trainees. For example, you might say, “Yes, Mr.Rambler (insert his/her name here), I am glad you brought this up..thanks SO MUCH for your insights..now let’s listen to what others have to say about it…OK, Mr. Someoneelse, what is your opinion ?” Now, if the rambler tries to butt in again, you can tell him “Let’s give Mr.Someoneelse a chance to talk about this”. Now, if the rambler tries to butt it, he runs the risk of sounding like the saboteur, and not you.

Handling difficult trainees: The nervous trainee

[Image from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/nervousness-treatment.html]

Recently, I had to train one of our customers’ engineers on the use of our tools. It was a one-to-one training session. This trainee had recently migrated to Singapore from a neighbouring South East Asian country and had been working with our customer for a couple of months. His English was quite satisfactory so there were no language barriers.

What made this gentleman stand out as a difficult trainee was his nervousness. He was a total bundle of nerves and as I showed him the technical content of the training, I could see his hands shaking. The shaking of his hands was so pronounced that, as he made notes, his handwriting was almost indecipherable, though he was writing in all capitals. I quickly realized that unless I eliminated or atleast minimized his nervousness, the training would be ineffective. His nervousness was creating so much noise in his mind that completely drowned out any information I was trying to convey.

In a bid to assuage his anxiety – without sounding too patronizing, I casually struck up a talk with him about his background. He had been working for over four years in the same industry in his home country and had been retrenched from his previous employer recently. Perhaps, the retrenchment had left a scar in his mind. Perhaps, it was the new environment in Singapore that he found difficult to adapt to. I tried to gently reassure him that it was easy to learn the subject and expressed confidence that he would master it with practice. All this mitigated his nervousness a little, but not enough to make the training effective. He was relieved when time was up, and left with a remark – “This thing is tougher than I thought”. After the training, I updated his supervisor. I had to make it clear that the trainee was in no position to operate independently and needed considerable practice to get there. This was the legal and ethical thing for me to do as a trainer. If I had certified this trainee as competent, he might have been put in charge of operations, which, if bungled, could result in serious losses for his company.

My thoughts on handling difficult trainees:

• First, try to minimize the nervousness. Unless you do this, you are trying to deliver information through a cloud in the trainee’s mind. It is easier and elegant to first clear the cloud and then deliver the message.

• To minimize the nervousness, try changing the topic – try to establish a personal rapport, try to understand the trainee’s background and figure out what’s causing the nervousness. Sometimes a change of place might help..for example, you might want to discuss the subject over a snack.

• Chunking is a great way to get the content to the trainee. Break down the subject matter into bits that are small enough to pass through the cloud of nervousness in the trainee’s mind. Gradually, the content will sink in and, as the trainee gets more knowledgeable and confident, the nervousness will disappear.


• Be truthful in communicating the training status to the trainee’s supervisor. It is best to do it confidentially and get the supervisor to understand the problem. You might jointly come up with a solution that eventually gets the trainee trained. But never certify the nervous trainee as trained, just to boost his/her morale. Reassure the trainee, put him at ease, but still convey the message that there is work ahead before certification can be attained.

Building a skill through baby steps

I once read a beautiful story that illustrates how a skill can be built by gradually and effortlessly, by incremental steps.

A cow gave birth to a calf in a farm. The farmer’s son was a teenage boy. He developed a fondness for the newborn calf, and would play with it everyday in the evening after school, carrying the calf around in his arms. As the days passed, the calf grew in size and weight. The farmer’s son continued his habit of carrying around the calf. As the years passed, the calf grew into a full-grown bull and the teenager grew into a strapping young man. Thanks to his daily habit of lifting the calf, the young man was able to lift a full-grown bull without even realizing the increase in his strength.

Now, don’t get fixated on the details – whether it is really possible for a man to lift a full-grown bull, etc..the point is that a skill can be built effortlessly through incremental steps.

• Learn one new word everyday and in ten years your vocabulary will have grown by over 3650 words. The average person’s total lifetime vocabulary is only about 5000-6000 words.
• If you are jogger/runner/walker, try adding just 0.1 km more every week. In one year, you will be able to cover 5 km more than what you can now.

Building a skill through small, incremental steps is a great way to develop yourself effortlessly. You will be amazed at yourself.

In this context, I am reminded of a quote I firmly believe in – Most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year.

Intangible benefits of training

In addition to imparting specific skills (technical or soft skills) to employees, corporate training has the following intangible benefits :

• Variety : Provides a refreshing break from the monotony of everyday work and gives the brain something new to feed on.

• Stress relief: For those involved in stressful jobs – for example frontline customer support – training provides a getaway (even if only for a few hours or a couple of days at the most). I am not saying training is a vacation, but it will most likely be less stressful than jobs like customer support.


• Networking: A training session can be a platform that brings together people from various teams within the same company. It can provide an opportunity for people to get to know each other better and exchange ideas.

• Team-building: Some teams are highly dispersed – for example a team of sales people who are always out of office meeting customers. For such teams, training sessions could be the only occasions when everyone comes together in one place.


• Employee reward: Providing training to employees is one of the best ways for management to communicate the message that they care about the employees’ growth. Thus, training is a performance reward. Also, if the training is at an overseas location, it is an added perk (if the employee likes to travel!)

Will instructor-led corporate training become extinct?

Until a generation ago, instructor-led training was the only form of training. Now, it is one of the many forms of training available. The other forms include a variety of methods –most of which can be encompassed by the term e-learning. With the world becoming more and more technology driven, will there be a point when instructor-led training becomes extinct ?

I firmly believe the answer is NO.

My reasoning for this conclusion:

• Some skills simply cannot be mastered by self-study or by e-learning. For example, a course of effective presentation skills would be effective only in a live, instructor led session. Trying to learn good presentation skills by watching multimedia would be no more effective than trying to learn swimming that way.

• Practically everyone has started his/her education in an instructor-led environment at school. Consequently, at a subliminal level, our mind associates learning or training with a teacher (a person as opposed to a set of CD’s or webpages). This is a very powerful association in our mind, and cannot be brushed away simply because instructor-led training could be more expensive or time-consuming. Ignoring this very real need for a live instructor will lead to ineffective training that wastes real dollars.

This white paper (web link below) has some excellent thoughts on why adopting e-learning may not be as easy as it sounds.

http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/adopting_elearning.pdf

Language and cultural barriers in training

I had a very interesting experience in the very first training class that I taught solo. It gave me valuable insight into how language can be a barrier for training, and also gave me a practical lesson on working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

My class consisted of one student from Israel, two from Belgium, three from Taiwan and one from Korea. The student from Korea was very reticent and almost never opened his mouth in class, except for a very terse yes or no. He preferred to respond through barely perceptible nods. Almost throughout the duration of the training, he kept browsing through a paperback novel (atleast that’s what it looked like) and kept flipping back and forth vigorously even as I was teaching. However, when I gave the class some practical exercises to do, he demonstrated a good grasp of the subject matter.

While I was happy at his skill on the subject matter, I felt intrigued – and also a trifle irritated – at the fact that he was browsing through a book while I was teaching. I did not feel comfortable about asking him to put the book aside (this being my first class as a trainer), but nevertheless, felt very curious about what he was reading.

Once, during a break, all the students left the class and I was alone in the classroom. Prompted by curiosity, I took a peek at the paperback that absorbed the Korean student’s attention. To my complete surprise, I realized it was a English-to-Korean translation guide. As I was teaching, the student was trying to figure out what I was saying! My irritation turned to sympathy at his struggle in trying to understand English. Like many Asian students, he felt shy about asking out loud whenever he did not understand my English.

Creating the right environment !

I sometimes like to visualize the learning process as being similar to the germination of a seed. When a seed is planted in the right conditions (soil, water, manure, nutrients, weather), it germinates automatically.



(Image from http://heliosmonroe.wordpress.com/)

Similarly, when a trainee is placed in the correct learning environment, an awakening of knowledge happens in his/her mind.

Three years back, I attended a three-day training course on instructional techniques. The course was conducted by a trainer from one of the world’s leading companies in this domain. It was a very intensive course, but when I was done, I had a strong feeling of satisfaction. I really came out of the training enriched in terms of knowledge that I could apply.

A remarkable thing about this course was the manner in which the trainer (who had flown in from overseas) created the right learning environment. Well before the course started, the trainer had sent a list of specifications – about the training room, layout of desks and chairs etc. A day before the actual start of the course, the trainer came to our company and spent a few hours transforming the training room into a great learning environment. There were posters and charts all over the wall – neatly and logically organized. The manuals and handouts were distributed on the tables, so there would be no distraction during the actual class. Teaching aids were arranged at strategic locations.

During the actual course, cellphones were strictly prohibited, as were laptops. For three tightly-packed days, we lived and breathed instructional techniques. By the end of the course, our mind was on a different level. I learnt the importance of creating the right environment. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that, in the right environment, learning happens effortlessly – even automatically – like a seed germinating.

In this context, I am reminded of a beautiful quote – “The human mind is not a vessel to be filled in, but rather, a flame to be kindled”. Trainers should bear this firmly in their minds.

Remote Training Perils - Part 2

A major problem in remote training is student evaluation.

How does the trainer know whether the student has really understood the material or ot ? It is easier to evaluate in a direct instructor-led class - by asking questions and by the trainees' responses and body language.

But in a remote training session, the trainees are thousands of miles away. Often they do not have a microphone or webcam and prefer to type their questions/responses in a chat window (atleast in my experience). And often, the trainees are sitting next to each other in an office at a faraway location. Even if they are not sitting next to each other, they probably know each others' email address and can easily communicate behind the trainer's back.

How does the trainer know if the trainees are giving individual answers or getting answers from their classmates ?

How does the trainer make sure trainees are not collaborating on the exam questions ?

Are the homework answers from one student simply copied from another student, with some cosmetic changes (font size, drawings etc) ?

It is a very convenient thing to believe in the honour system - to claim that, in a multinational company, employees are too professional to indulge in such malpractices. While this logic is politically correct, it is not foolproof.

When real business results depend on training, it is simply not practical to depend on the honour system. Let's face it - everyone has plenty of demands on their time today and the temptation to take a colleague's exam answer and pass it off as one's own could be too big to resist.

Without a foolproof method to evaluate trainees and qualify them, training is a waste of resources.

So how can students be evaluated in remote training ?

My thoughts:

1) Make it mandatory for every trainee to have a microphone and webcam - and use it in the training session. It is much easier for the trainer to evaluate the trainee by asking questions real-time and forcing the trainee to answer verbally instead of typing answers. Also, this makes it difficult for the trainee to consult with classmates before answering. I certainly concede that it is still possible for the trainee to get help from classmates, but atleast it becomes more difficult.

2) Have multiple sets of questions for evaluation, so that trainees get different questions with respect to their colleagues. Again, this will not prevent trainees from helping out each other on exams, but atleast it makes it more difficult to cheat.

3) Have a viva-voce exam with the trainer interviewing the student on a 1:1 basis. But the downside is this is very time-consuming for the trainer, and scheduling the oral exams can be a nightmare. One workaround is to have a local resource person in the same office as the trainee who can administer the oral exam and evaluate.

4) Wherever possible make the evaluation something like a case-study or an individual project, with completely different topics for individual trainees.

If you have any thoughts on this, please leave a comment.

Remote Training Perils!

A couple of years back, I was training a group of students remotely using an Adobe Connect online classroom. It was a five-day class, and I was in the beginning of the third day.

As a rule, I make my classes highly interactive. I use every possible opportunity to review material I have taught earlier in my class by asking questions. Obviously this is a very effective way to reinforce learning in the minds of students. I found out that there is another benefit from this method.

One particular trainee (let me call him Mr.P) seemed completely lost about the material I had covered in the previous two days. I found it rather surprising because, over the first two days of class, he had demonstrated a good grasp of the subject matter. Also, he seemed very reluctant to participate in the class discussions - a total deviation from his behaviour over the first two days. In fact even my direct questions to Mr.P elicited nothing beyond stony silence.

As the class progressed, I felt very uncomfortable about Mr.P's silence and lack of participation. Finally, I sent him a private message enquiring whether everything was OK, or if he had any problems with the network or audio. This brought a response that had me completely by surprise.

Mr.P sent me a private reply confessing that, in reality he was not Mr.P, but his friend Mr.Q. Mr.P had simply connected up to the online classroom and had asked Mr.Q to sit in front of the computer while attending to some of his personal business!

Now this is a grave issue..a student being AWOL and asking someone else to be his/her proxy without informing the instructor. An even more serious issue is intellectual property being at stake. How would I know if Mr.Q was actually from our competitor, trying to steal our company's IP.

What I learnt was that, it is imperative to engage students intensely in a remote class even more than a direct class.

Teachable Moments

When I was preparing to be a corporate technical trainer, my mentor introduced this concept to me. A couple of years later, I read the same phrase in a speech by US President Barack Obama during the controversy surrounding the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in 2009.

Let me quote Obama's use of this phrase:

"My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what's called a "teachable moment", where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute
to more unity."

Obama's use of this phrase generated a lot of interest in the media and among language and training experts.

So what is a "teachable moment" ?

WikiPedia defines a teachable moment as
"A teachable moment, in education, is the time at which learning a particular topic or idea becomes possible or easiest."

Robert Havighurst in his 1952 book, Human Development and Education, explained that, "A developmental task is a task which is learned at a specific point and which makes achievement of succeeding tasks possible. When the timing is right, the ability to learn a particular task will be possible. This is referred to as a 'teachable moment.' It is important to keep in mind that unless the time is right, learning will not occur. Hence, it is important to repeat key points whenever possible so that when a student's teachable moment occurs, s/he can benefit from the knowledge."

This is a very insightful comment. When a concept is first presented to a trainee, learning may not occur. The trainee might not be motivated enough, or s/he may simply not be paying attention. This is one of the reasons why repetition is important.

In my opinion, it is very important to capitalize on teachable moments especially when teaching adults.

Another thing I have noticed in my personal experience is that, a teachable moment can occur when the learner is away from the trainer or from the learning environment. The mind can regurgitate a concept from its database anytime. For example, a concept you learnt in a training session can recede into the depths of the subconscious mind, and later surface when you are on a train. And suddenly your mind can become receptive to learning and you might experience a teachable moment when you can teach yourself effectively.

The Power of Training

A successful training professional must really believe
in the power of training to improve performance. Training
can create value, make lives better and in some cases, even
save lives - as this example shows.

I read this on the website www.answers.com and was impressed
and inspired.

"Spotlight: One of history's most devastating earthquakes hit
Tangshan, China, on this date (this article appeared on July 28)
in 1976, killing approximately 250,000.

The Tangshan Earthquake registered about 8 on the Richter scale;
an aftershock registering 7.1 occurred less than a day later,
adding to the carnage. Nearly 80% of the industrial buildings
and over 90% of the residential buildings in Tangshan were
destroyed in the quakes.

In nearby Qinglong, where they had been warned some two years
earlier of the danger of earthquake, people were taught safety
measures.

The result: there was a single death in Qinglong —
of a heart attack."

A great example of how training can create value for mankind.