What could occur?

You may find yourself conducting training in a room that was never intended to be used for that purpose. You may be in a boardroom with a large table and no space to divide into small groups. You may find a large pillar in the center of the room. You may be in a room that is so filled with furniture, there’s little space for your participants. Your participants may have uncomfortable chairs. You may even find that you have no room at all. I once found myself relegated to the end of a hallway to conduct a training session because the carpeting in the training room was being torn out as I arrived!

In any of these cases, if you don’t find out until 60 minutes before the session starts, it’s most likely too late to expect a reasonable solution. Begin by asking whether there is a different room or one that could be available at the next break or lunch. If nothing is available, do a quick shuffle in the design. Look for other space for breakout sessions. I’ve even taken participants outside to sit on picnic tables for small-group activities. Participants will appreciate even the smallest things you do to provide additional comfort.

Prevent these problems

Preparation is key to preventing logistics problems. You certainly will never be able to think of everything, but the more you plan ahead, the fewer problems you will have. This is true no matter what kind of training you are conducting. Whether virtual, physical, remote, or one-on-one, learn from each experience. Begin to create a generic preparation checklist of items to help you remember what questions to ask, whom to ask, and what to pack.

What could occur?

Almost anything can go wrong with equipment, starting with it simply didn’t show up. Someone forgot, it was delivered to the wrong room, or perhaps it’s simply not available. The flip-chart pad may be filled with used paper.

In a virtual setting, someone may lose a connection, or perhaps a poll question doesn’t load. Sometimes participants are unfamiliar with the software.

Prevent these problems

Some problems with equipment can be prevented. Others can’t. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to prevent them from occurring.

Always double-check your equipment needs. Order it at least a month in advance, follow up one week before your session, and finally, call the day before to confirm date, time, location, and type of equipment.

Obtain the name and phone numbers of the person who is responsible for setting up the equipment. Having that person’s contact details has come in handy more often than I can count.

Check the equipment the day before your session. Make sure that it all turns on, works, and the cords are taped down.

In your virtual setting, the best preparation is to practice all the software well in advance. Create and follow a set-up checklist. And no matter how much expertise you have, if the session is critical, partner with a producer to manage the things that can go wrong. Be sure that you and your producer practice together as well. One last thing: Ensure that your participants know what to do and whom to contact if they can’t log in. Remember — it can’t be you because you will be facilitating the session.

When you can’t prevent equipment problems …

When problems occur anyway (and they will), you can do two things. First, have a backup plan, and second, use a process to keep your cool.

• Have a backup plan. Your equipment will almost certainly fail at just the moment that your presentation depends on your visuals. If you’re prepared to facilitate without the visuals, all will not be lost. If using slides, have a hard copy so that participants can see anything critical on paper that they would have seen on a screen. I always have a flip chart in the room. It’s available for sketching diagrams, creating lists, highlighting key points, or getting your participants involved in the presentation. You could facilitate from your participants’ handouts (which works for a virtual session, too). Use audio until your producer fixes the problem.

  Now you’re the focal point of the presentation; all eyes are on you, so focus on your presentation skills: good eye contact, planned body movement, and a confident stance. Use more descriptions and examples. Use words to paint visual pictures for your participants that they would have seen.

• Follow a troubleshooting process. Know what to try and in what order. Almost everyone uses an LCD projector and laptop computer. Unfortunately, they present the most complex problems to uncover. If this equipment malfunctions, ask these questions:
  • Is everything plugged in and turned on? Check extension cords, too. Are all cables firmly connected to the correct ports?
  • Ask whether any of your participants can help. There are usually one or two handy people in every program. One time when I had equipment issues, I was fortunate to have JD Dillon, TD computer expert, in my audience. How lucky was that?
  • Are the projector and your laptop set up properly? Be sure that your laptop is selected as the source and that the projector isn’t in standby mode.
  • Has your laptop been set to display through the external video port? Every laptop computer has multiple display modes and the capability to toggle between them. When toggling between modes, allow at least 15 seconds for the setting to change before trying another.
  • Have you tried to reset the equipment? Sometimes simply turning everything off and turning it back on works.

Be positive. If your equipment failure occurs in front of participants, don’t complain about the equipment or the situation. Offer a brief apology, take no more than four minutes to fix it, and move on. You may want to call a short break or put participants in small groups with an assignment. Don’t allow your participants to sit and watch you pull, poke, and prod your equipment.

Yes, equipment can be one of the most frustrating problems a trainer may face. But if you’re prepared, it doesn’t have to throw you off center. Always learn something from the experience. If you were unable to fix the problem, try to fix it after your participants leave. You may need to consult with the audiovisual technician. Learn how to fix the problem. If it happened once, it may happen again.

You forget what you were going to say

Many trainers are afraid of going brain-dead in front of participants. It happens to everyone during daily conversations with others. However, when it occurs in front of participants, it may be more uncomfortable. You may want to adapt some of these techniques to your style:

• Admit that you forgot, just as you would in a typical daily conversation. Continue and return to the point when you remember it.
• Take a sip of water that you have at your table. Often, the 10-second pause will be enough time to recall your train of thought.
• Try repeating the last point in a different way or give an example. Like the sip of water, the delay provides a couple of seconds of thinking time.
• Refer to your notes. Ensure that your notes work for you. Have the information that you need in a format that allows you to find what you need.
• Shift the attention back to the participants if you can do so without being too obvious. Ask them what questions they have at this point. No one knows exactly what you were going to do or say, so it’s unlikely that anyone will notice the shift.
• Have a standard phrase that you use, such as “I lost my train of thought. Perhaps one of you can find it” or “I just went brain-dead. Do any of you remember what I was going to say?”

You don’t feel well

Unfortunately, you can’t do much about feeling under the weather. Usually, the show must go on. As a trainer, you rarely have a backup. Certainly, if you have something contagious or if you’re so ill that you can’t facilitate the session, you need to cancel. It’s difficult to cancel a training session because so many other people are counting on you. At times, others may have traveled hundreds of miles for the training event.

If you don’t feel well and you’re going to continue to conduct the training, consider these suggestions:

• Don’t tell the participants you’re not feeling well. If you must, don’t make a big deal out of it. You may get sympathy, but is that what you want?
• Shift the session to put more emphasis on participant involvement and activities. You will most likely have experienced participants whom you can ask to assist with delivery or leading a discussion.

Working when you don’t feel well is never fun. Being a trainer is one of those professions, however, that allows little flexibility when illness occurs.

You get off track

It’s so easy to get off track. Thousands of detours will cross your path. Sometimes participants may take you off track with a question. At other times you may take yourself off track because you tell a story. As soon as you recognize that you’re off track, steer the group back. Try these techniques to help you:

• Try to connect what you’re saying to where you should be.
• Humor may work. Wrap up the topic quickly and say something like, “My, that was a distracting little detour!”
• If it’s difficult to get back on track, you may want to take a break.

You’re new to the job

Everyone must start somewhere. Being new to training is not something, however, that you need to announce to the group. Imagine that you were getting on a flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. You probably don’t want the pilots to announce that this is their first flight. Likewise, you don’t need to announce that this is your first training session.

You should never need to make excuses. Avoid using the phrase “bear with me.” It makes participants feel as if they’re putting up with something distasteful. Don’t use it. “Bear with me, this is my first training!” may establish participant hesitancy right from the start. This is not how you want to begin.

Why might this occur?

Participants’ style may not be a match for the training design. For example, if the design calls for a great deal of participation but the audience is made up of participants who prefer an analytical style, you may not get the level of discussion and involvement that is required.

The group may also be preoccupied by other thoughts. For example, if you’re training them to learn how to improve processes or make a change of any kind, and they know that the company needs to become more efficient, they may be concerned about whether downsizing might occur and how it could affect them. They may also be preoccupied with less threatening thoughts; for example, they may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of additional work after the training is implemented. Or they may simply be concerned with the work that’s piling up on their desks while they attend the training.

Perhaps participants weren’t told why they were attending training. Hopefully this happens rarely, but on occasion, participants think that they’re being punished because they aren’t doing their jobs well enough. Participants need to understand how the training affects performance, the vision and mission of the organization, and what’s in it for them.

It’s impossible to identify all the reasons an entire group may be causing difficulty.

Prevent these problems

The following tips may help you prevent some problems:

• Focus on participants’ needs during the design. Practice design thinking.
• Learn everything you can about the participants who will attend the training session, including such things as their communication style, their attitude toward training, what changes may be going on in their workplace, whether they are all at the same level, and why they think they are attending the training session. You may want to ask what expectations participants are bringing with them to the session, or what professional issues they may be dealing with.
• Interview participants prior to the training to identify concerns and how you will approach them.
• Contact participants’ supervisors to ensure that they discuss how the training session relates to their employees’ jobs and why they will attend.
• Be certain that the problem isn’t one that you created. For example, you may not have clearly stated how the training is related to the participants — what’s in it for them. You may not have established your credibility. Or you may not be providing enough breaks.

If you unexpectedly encounter a difficult group, it’s almost always best to address the issue as soon as possible. How can you do this? You may want to probe a few participants during the first break with “The group seems reluctant to speak up” or “Everyone seems preoccupied; is something happening that I should know?”

You may also just stop the training session and admit that something seems amiss and address it with the group. When I do this, I usually make some dramatic shift that says “We have changed focus.” I may pull up a chair in the middle of the room and sit down and begin a discussion. After a hostile or negative statement, I may take a very long pause, cap my pen, close my facilitator’s guide, and say, “Okay, we need to talk.” I open the discussion by stating the behaviors I’ve observed and then say something like “It seems to me that we need to address the cause of these behaviors before we can be successful with this training.” I then pause and wait for someone to speak up. At some point, I may list the issues on a flip-chart page to prevent people from repeating what has already been stated.

If you have a group that isn’t responding to you or the content of the training, it’s best to address it as soon as possible. If you don’t, you’ll probably just be wasting time — yours and the participants.

Note: Sometimes it may seem as if you have a problem group on your hands when in reality only a few individuals may be causing the problem. I address managing individual participants who may make the training difficult later in this chapter, in “Managing disruptive types.”

Calm down immediately

Although it’s difficult to do, the first step is to remain calm. Take a deep breath, focus on the situation, and determine the root cause. After the oxygen hits your brain, you’re better able to determine what to do next.

Open yourself to all the options

When something goes wrong, a can-do attitude may get you into trouble because you want to charge right in and “fix it.” There is no one right answer to any problem, so be open to all possibilities. If someone else is with you (participants or another trainer), ask for their ideas. Do a quick pros-and-cons assessment of all the alternatives in your mind and select one option.

Optimistically evaluate your options

After you select the solution, move forward, optimistically knowing that you have considered all the factors and have chosen the best alternative. Be positive and move forward. Don’t second-guess yourself with “should haves.”

Look at it from another perspective

Look at the problem from a “What’s good about it?” perspective. You could try other perspectives, too, such as “What’s funny about it?” or “What lesson did I learn from this?” Whatever perspective you try, this technique maintains your professionalism. It also ensures that you learn from the experience and transfer it to future situations.

Movie Stars

Movie Stars like attention and want to be the center of the action. Sometimes, Movie Stars just have lots of pent-up energy and need to focus it in a positive direction. They may be your most active participants, and you don’t want to squelch that. To address Movie Stars, you can

• Ask them to help with demonstrations or other tasks, thus using their desire for attention to your advantage.
• Tell them that you want to get others’ ideas: “Let’s see what others have to say.”
• Assign a specified amount of time for each response.

Deserters

Deserters come in several models. One Deserter may have side conversations; another may simply be reluctant to speak up; still another may have participated earlier in the session but now has pulled out. In your virtual classroom, the Deserter is the one who is checking email, revising a to-do list, or viewing another task. It’s difficult for participants to focus on learning when they are surrounded by dozens of other priorities.

Each of these participants has reasons for playing the Deserter role — and some may be positive. For example, the side-conversation Deserters may be so excited about the concepts you’re delivering that they want to share how they will implement them. (Yeah, that’s the Pollyanna in me!) They may not even be aware that they are causing a disruption. Some Deserters are too shy to talk. Many have told me that they feel they are participating 100 percent. Others are analyzer types who like to think more than speak.

The Deserter who was a solid participator earlier in the session but now has pulled out is the one who concerns me the most. Something has happened that changed the participation level. Perhaps the person received some bad news during a break. Perhaps something happened during the session that upset the participant. It behooves you to find out whether this is the case. To address Deserters, you can

• Manage side conversations by casually sauntering behind the two talkers and continuing to present over their conversations. This tactic often works.
• Ask a question directly of the Deserter who is reluctant to speak up, starting with easy questions that don’t test knowledge. Use a round robin (going around the group, one person at a time) or small groups to involve the shy participant.
• The Deserter who was once active but now is not should be a concern to you. Pull the person aside at the first opportunity (perhaps during a break) and ask what has changed. If something happened outside the session, you need not pry. However, sometimes you may have inadvertently done something that made the participant pull out. Find out.
• Ensure that the session engages everyone — especially in your virtual sessions. Make the content relevant to their jobs, use their names, encourage networking, and personalize the learning for everyone.
• If you desire participation from everyone, ask the class to write their answers on index cards. This technique gives everyone a fair chance. It keeps the vocal participants busy writing while the quiet participants have a chance to think through their responses. In a virtual session, ask everyone to respond in chat, but not to hit Send until you say so.

Comedians

The class clowns may be looking for attention with humor. I like to give these folks the benefit of the doubt. They may have a very positive attitude and are trying to add levity and pleasure. Here are ways to deal with Comedians:

• Ignore the humor if it’s not disruptive. Unfortunately, most people laugh at the first couple of comments, and that keeps the Comedian going.
• Ask the Comedian to relate their point to the discussion at hand.
• Give feedback to the Comedian during a break.
• Ask the Comedian serious questions. If they can’t provide serious answers, you probably need to address it one-on-one during a break.

Blockers

Blockers are the naysayers in the group. They are the ones who are negative and don’t believe that anything will work. I give these folks a break because I often find that they have valuable background information but don’t know how to explain their side of the story. To get them to disrupt less, you could

• Ask what alternative they are willing to propose.
• Be sure that they don’t divert the class to a tangential topic, based on some hidden agenda they may have.
• Ask them, “What would need to happen in order for this to work?” Expect them to say “It won’t work.” Keep asking, and eventually a response will roll out. In my experience, their thoughts are worth pursuing.

Attackers

Attackers toss out barbs directed toward the trainer and other participants. They may call people names and give dirty looks. Attackers may have never learned an appropriate way to disagree. To deal with Attackers:

• Ask them to confine their comments to the situation, not the people.
• Refer them to the ground rule that addresses respect.
• Because some attackers may not be aware of how they come across, your feedback may be accepted and appreciated.
• Sometimes it’s appropriate to explore their comments further.

Dominators

Dominators take up much airtime by talking, sometimes repeating themselves, and sometimes speaking slowly in detail. If you ignore the Dominators, others will get frustrated, bored, and lose interest. Here are ways to address Dominators:

• Break eye contact with them and call on others by name for answers.
• Consider holding your hand up as if trying to stop a car if they continue.
• Break into the middle of a long statement when they take a breath and ask for others’ opinions.
• Balance participation by asking people to raise their hands if they have a response. Then call on someone other than the Dominators.
• Create a bin list or parking lot to post comments that are inappropriate for current discussion. Dominators can write their comments and post them in the parking lot flip-chart page or in the Q&A in a virtual session. This approach prevents repetition of the same comment.

Although other types of disruptive participants exist, such as the Rambler, the Clueless, and the Know-It-All, knowing how to address the six covered in this section will prepare you for most situations you encounter. You would be wise to identify the disruptive person’s needs because doing so may help you determine a solution.

I usually ignore most things the first time. However, repetitive disruptions lead to a disaster. You can always call a break if things get out of hand. Never hesitate to talk to the person at a break. State the problem and what you need.

On very rare occasions, you may need to ask the participant to leave. If you have pulled the person aside and you can’t reach a win-win agreement about how to handle the situation, tell the person what kind you need. Ask whether the person would be more comfortable staying — and agreeing to your request — or leaving. Reassure the person that you would prefer them to stay and benefit from the session, but you can’t allow others’ learning to suffer from continued disruptions.

If you have established a climate of trust and support, often the rest of the participants will take care of the disruptive participant for you.

Remember that most of the problems identified are outside your control. You could not have prevented nor predicted them. If you feel that you could have done something better, consider it a lesson learned; if not, chalk it up to experience. Accept the fact that people attend training packing their own baggage with them. And sometimes, you do the best that you know how and move on.

Preparing physically: Relax and be ready

Prepare yourself and your surroundings before your session. Many of the suggestions that follow relate to relaxing and making yourself comfortable:

• Master relaxation techniques. Head rolls, shoulder rolls, or dangling your arms at your sides all work well. Practice these techniques and use those that work best for you just before you begin your session. Even deep yawning helps you relax. A yawn sends a message to your brain that you’re ready to relax.
• Use isometric exercises prior to training. Tightening various muscles, curling your toes, or squeezing on a rubber ball before starting the training session works for many trainers.

• Practice deep breathing. Several deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth, add oxygen to your brain and clears your brain. This technique is especially useful just minutes before you start.

  I take a couple of deep breaths during the introduction. No one can see what I’m doing. I get oxygen flowing to help focus myself on the task.

• Arrive early to ground yourself within the room and make it yours. When participants arrive, greet them. Mingle with as many as you can and learn something about those you meet. Getting to know individuals reduces some of the barriers you may have imagined and decreases the fear you may have felt. During the training session, find one or two of the friendly faces you met before the session started. Return to those friendly faces but be sure that you don’t speak solely to them.
• Don’t try anything new. No new suit, haircut, or shoes. Wear something that you feel comfortable in. This is one less thing to worry about. I once saw a trainer who appeared in a new suit — complete with price tags!
• If you have a crutch, use it. For some trainers, their crutch is to use audiovisuals early to divert the participants’ gazes. For others, it may be to have your notes outlined or highlighted in a particular way. For me, it means having a glass of water nearby. At any time, whether my throat is dry or I forget what I’m supposed to say, I can reach for the water, take a swallow, and compose myself.
• Organize ahead. Check out Chapter 9 for specific ways to prepare. Just knowing that everything is ready to go is relaxing. This point is even more important if you’re facilitating a virtual classroom. You have a limited span of time with virtually no recovery time allowed.
• Do something physical. Take a walk before the session starts. Do some stretches or wall pushups. One trainer told me that he goes into the men’s room and does a few jumping jacks to release pent-up energy.
• During the session, use up excess energy with gestures and your vocal presentation. Speak and gesture to the person who is the farthest away from you. Move about if doing so isn’t distracting or done in a repeated pattern.

Prepare mentally: Psyching up, not out

You can also prepare yourself mentally. Your brain perceives only what you tell it. If you tell yourself that you’re going to be nervous, trip over the cord, and forget what you’re supposed to say, you will most likely be nervous, trip over the cord, and forget what you’re supposed to say. It takes the same amount of time to paint a good mental picture as a bad one. These ideas will help you psych up for the next training session:

• Realize that you will be somewhat nervous. Accept it as a fact.
• Know what to expect. When nervous symptoms occur, say to yourself, “Oh, yes. There it is. I knew my heart would start racing about now!”
• Recognize that participants want you to succeed. Forget yourself and focus on the needs of your participants. Think about the importance of what you have to share with them.
• Think of facilitation as extended conversation. Imagine that you’re talking to your good friend Dan Greene — except that there are lots of Dan Greenes in the group. Look into their eyes and connect with each.
• Visualize yourself being successful. Don’t spend energy imagining the worst. Instead, imagine the best. Tell yourself that this is going to be the best darned training these participants have ever attended.
• Get your participants involved early. Ask a question, begin introductions, or start the icebreaker as quickly as you can. After your participants are involved, you will feel like you’re conducting a two-way conversation. Knowing that within three minutes participants will be actively involved and not staring at you gives you a real mental boost.

• Try appropriate humor early to help you mentally hear approval from your participants. Humor should not be translated as “jokes.” Humor can be many things other than jokes. And jokes are not always humorous.

  Humor can make you feel comfortable in front of a group. Telling a bad joke will not. To be successful, the humor must connect to the content and be politically appropriate. You must have practiced it at least three dozen times, with success almost 100 percent of the time. If you have any doubts about the humor or a joke, don’t use it.

• Keep your facilitation in perspective. What if you do something wrong? Can you correct it? Will the participants even know that something was incorrect? And is it the end of the world if you aren’t perfect?

Practice, practice, practice

Practice can assist you with nervousness. Virtual trainers should have one or more “dress rehearsals” and run through all the possibilities. Practice what you will say when you place people in a breakout room; practice opening polls. In a physical classroom, you have time to “wing it” when something goes awry, but that isn’t the case in a virtual classroom. If you aren’t clear and succinct, you will not come across as the expert you are. Then you will get even more nervous.

As mentioned, nothing is more important to a successful training session than being well prepared, and nothing is more helpful in overcoming nervousness than knowing your material, and knowing that you know your material. Use these suggestions to practice your training material:

• Memorize the first couple of paragraphs. Nervousness goes away for most trainers after 5 to 15 minutes. If you know what you will say for the first few minutes, you can get to the other side of your nervousness.
• Practice in front of a mirror. Many trainers swear by this method. Look yourself in the eye and train away. Although it works well for many, it doesn’t work for me. I prefer several of the next few methods.
• Record yourself. Besides hearing the content, a recording allows you to listen to it while you’re driving or doing other things. An added benefit of listening to the recording is that you can critique your pace, pauses, clarity, articulation, and other vocal characteristics.
• Practice activities with your colleagues. Try the training activities with other people in your department. Practice giving the same directions. Do they understand what to do and the purpose of the activity? I like to ask for a critique. What went well? What do they think I could do better?
• Practice using the visuals. Practice several times with whatever audiovisual equipment you will use. Being comfortable with the media you will use will reduce your anxiety level. Your visuals should feel natural — an extension of yourself.
• Practice using the wireless remote. Even just holding it a few times will add to your comfort level.
• Practice out loud. Practice pronouncing difficult words — or find a way to eliminate them. Practicing aloud allows you the opportunity to time your presentation. You may be surprised at how much more time it takes to deliver some of the material or how long it takes to tell a story. Nervousness decreases the more often you hear yourself state the content.
• Present the material to your spouse, significant other, or your dog. Really! Dogs make great practice participants. They make great eye contact, and some will listen forever, giving you only positive feedback.
• Get practice in front of groups in other situations as well. You could try out for a play, visit Toastmasters, or join the National Speakers Association. You could take a Dale Carnegie class or a speaking class at your local university. You could accept a club office or volunteer to give toasts for special occasions. Find opportunities to be in front of a group.

The more opportunities you have to present in other situations, the better you will understand, appreciate, and improve your training skills. The better trainer you become, the more confidence you will have, which will reduce your nervousness even more.