The trainer’s self-introduction

I consider a trainer’s self-introduction to be very important for the following reasons:

•  It is an opportunity for the trainer to establish credibility. Once a trainer has established credibility, it is very easy to command the attention of the audience. Conveying the subject matter becomes easier. 
• It sets the tone for the training session and provides a natural segue for the trainer to launch into the next topic – which could be a round of introductions from the trainees (if the class size is reasonably small to allow this) or the subject matter itself.

     My thoughts on a good introduction:

• It should be formal, but not pompous.
• The trainer needs to clearly convey the credentials that justify his/her being a trainer for the course.
• As far as possible, the credentials should be quantified. For example, instead of saying ,“I have a lot of experience in this area”, you might say, “I have 15 years of experience as a customer support engineer and that has given me a lot of learning opportunities in the area of handling difficult customers”
• A little bit of humor certainly helps and puts the audience at ease.
• You can talk about your personal interests and hobbies, but spending too much time of those can distract the trainees and take their focus off.

Handling difficult training situations: When your trainees know more than you do

I was once in a very awkward situation as a trainer.

I started off my career as a field support engineer. During my first days on the job, I was trained by a very senior engineer who mentored me well and taught me a lot of skills needed to survive on the job. A couple of years later, I became a technical trainer and started teaching courses for other field support engineers.

Once it so happened that I was teaching a course that was a mandatory certification requirement for all field engineers in my line of work. And guess what! My former mentor and a couple of his equally senior colleagues were “students” in my class. It was the equivalent of a high school physics teacher having Newton, Einstein and Galileo as his/her students.

Every student in my class knew that they all knew more than I did. And I was myself acutely aware of this fact. Luckily for me, they were all very understanding. Rather than wasting everyone’s time and energy, we decided to convert the class into a knowledge sharing session rather a one-sided lecture. However, for compliance requirements, they agreed to submit the required assignments.

So how do you handle it, when you find that your students are all much more knowledgeable than you are ?

My thoughts:

• First, don’t get embarrassed or flustered. No one knows everything. It is perfectly normal for even a trainer to run into people that are more knowledgeable and accomplished.
• Be willing to learn. Be humble. Do not try to impose your authority as a trainer on your students who know more than you do. This will only irritate the audience. Even if your knowledge of the subject is not as good as theirs, they will respect you if you are authentic. But if you try to hide behind a façade of false authority,  you will lose whatever respect you might have had J
• Change your approach: If you have a class of beginners who are new to the subject, you can be the “Sage-on-the-stage”. But if you have a class of experts as your trainees, let go of your ego and be the “Guide-on-the-side”. Be more of a facilitator and help everyone learn off each other. Remember that there is nothing disgraceful about this. You are also enriching yourself by learning from the experts. Gather as much as you can and then pass it on to your future students.