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Thursday, December 30, 2010

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.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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".