I have been in the corporate world for most of my professional career. Just before I branched out on my own, I was the Organisational Development lead for a multimillion- pound IT programme protecting a multibillion-pound government asset. I had in my portfolio the Culture, Capability and Resilience of both the IT and the Programme Leadership Teams along with the onboarding and pastoral care of the company’s talent pool onto the programme. Being the architect of their development strategies brought me once again closer to my training roots, and it quite unexpectedly reignited my love for facilitation and coaching, bringing me full circle back to my passion.
Being in a corporate environment for nearly 20 years, meant that I got to go to a lot of training events and away days. I look back now astounded at the good money we paid people so that they could take our dignity from us. Here are a few of the worst trainer sins I have encountered. I’d be delighted to hear your experiences too if you would like to share.
1. Setting people up to fail
One trainer had us build a rollercoaster for a can of beans to roll down, but of course, it didn’t! There were tins of beans crashing down everywhere as they broke through the runways we had made for them out of tissue paper! Yes, all we were given to work with was tissue paper and some pipe cleaners. I wasn’t expecting an Isambard Kingdom Brunel type construction kit, but tissue paper is for wrapping silk handkerchiefs in, not for propelling cans of beans around a room. I’m also quite bean phobic as it goes, so that was fun seeing all those little orange beans in their juice everywhere I looked.
2. Getting people too up close and personal
I was made to grip the hands of the sweatiest man alive while eight of us tried to untie knots in a rope without breaking the hand chain. He was quite literally slipping out of my grip he was so wet, and he was mortified too. He was then further embarrassed, when at the insistence of his dominating manager, he had to limbo under his lifted leg. The manager not realising that he’d have to drag me and all the others behind him too. So he stood there with his leg in the air spinning about like a ballet dancer as we shuffled through. We succeeded in moving the manager from the top of the line to the bottom of the line and removed one knot from the rope but added two in the process. It turns out the trainer had mixed up two of her exercises to form one big ball of tangled confusion. This took us 20 minutes.
3. Neglecting your group
On one course we sat in a darkened room watching a video of some customer service being poorly delivered by a guard on a train. (why do they turn the lights out for videos in training rooms? You don’t draw the curtains and kill the lights when you settle down to watch the telly at home.)
The video ended and we naturally looked to the trainer and quickly realised she was fast asleep. So, instead of stopping the tape and doing some sort of exercises, the tape ran on to the next video in which we saw the right way to spill a drink on a customer without pissing them off. She woke up confused at the end of the video when one of us turned the lights on and muttered something about “knowing how it’s done.”
4. Not taking into account capability or discomfort
During a long systems training session, the trainer insisted we stand up and stretch things, bending over and stretch other things and then balance on different feet. Brain gym she called it. All I know is that there was nothing about that in the joining instructions. If I’d known I was going to be touching my toes there was no way I would have worn that dress with the loose fitting neckline. I had to lie and say I couldn’t bend over because of a sore back, the silver lining being she insisted I have her more comfy chair for the rest of the course.
5. Inappropriate talk – maximum cringe
I sat through a motivational speaker’s presentation one evening at dinner following an event. He was from the sports world, and he told us about how he overcame adversity to win some race or other. He then went on to advocate not burning out and holding something in reserve, comparing it to masturbating. Explaining we should set ourselves a steady pace and as we approach the finish line go hell for leather at it, to reach our goals with energy, so to speak. I’m not kidding I didn’t know where to look, and it put me right of my desert
6. Exposing delegates to ‘behind the scenes’ processes and relationships
We had a double act, like Cannon and Ball, only they weren’t meant to be funny as the topic was IT Disaster Recovery. One of them contradicted the other more than once, and they ended up having a blazing row. Someone from the HR office next door, alarmed at the raised voices, popped their head in to see if everything was ok and at this point, one of them picked up his stuff and flounced out while the other began to instruct as if nothing had happened. He carried on like this until 10 minutes later when the first guy came back in waving a parking ticket and asking us who he could speak to about it. We looked at each other bewildered “well you’re all government aren’t you” he snapped “who sorts this sort of thing out.” We stared blankly at his colleague for help who eventually turned to look at him and said, “ha, ha, serves you right.”
7. Not being authentic
Another customer service one but this time in was a very shouty wee man, lots of energy, not so much colour on his face.
“If you don’t want to be here and you don’t care about customer service then f@ck off!” Those were his opening lines. So after exchanging a quick glance, two boys from the call centre stood up and started heading for the door.
“Where are you going,” he said sprinting like a whippet to block their path
“You told us we could go,” said one of the boys.
“I meant in your head lads,” he said laughing with awkward exaggeration, while physically turning them around. “I meant in your heads” he repeated as he ushered them back towards the table
“sit down, sit down, then just chill out man, drift off,, ” he said in a zen-like voice. He was sticking with it like it was a thing, you know, to leave the room but in your head. I was paired with one of the ‘lads’ in an exercise later that morning, but he just kept saying “I’m not here” when I read him out the questions.
At lunch, the trainer flitted from group to group saying things like “I’ve done it too you know, I’ve made a living out of dealing with Joe Public“ He was nodding and pulling sympathetic faces like he was an ex-drug addict who was now a rehabilitation counsellor. In the section of the evaluation form that asked ‘What do you think of the trainer?’ One of the ‘lads’ described him as – a cross between Alan Partridge, Ricky Gervais and Paul Daniels’.
The guessing game
I have also had to guess:-
- Whose baby picture was who’s (they mostly all just looked like Churchill)
- Who amongst us used to be a prawn fisher//greengrocer
- Star signs
- Two truths and a lie
I also once had to take my shoes off as I registered at an event and was asked to put them in a pile with everybody else’s. We each then had to then pick a pair of shoes that weren’t our own and guess whom they belonged to, then kneeling down Cinderella style and trying them on their feet to see if they fit. A fellow trainee sent me into a prolonged fit of hysterical laughter when he whispered to me, “I hate feet, I even hate my own feet, still, thank god it wasn’t false teeth.” We waited our turn as if awaiting our execution. And if there is a phrase that guarantees that your mind will go blank it is “tell us something interesting about yourself.”
I am an educator of adults, and I like to think that I made my training career count for something. When people are in your care for training, you have responsibility for many things; not least their precious time but more importantly their dignity. People are smart but bad educators can easily cause confusion and make people feel foolish or disengaged.
I say; if more than one person doesn’t ‘get it,’ you’re teaching it wrong or in a very one dimensional way. If someone yawns or the energy in the room dips, it’s your fault! You haven’t kept them awake by igniting their curiosity to learn in a brain friendly way.
I said this once at a meeting of a large training team.“Nonsense,” said a system trainer colleague of mine, “You do soft skills” (I hated that term, there is nothing soft about them) “Let’s see you teach a six step sequential system input pattern in a brain friendly way.” She did the bunny rabbit ears with her fingers to put ‘brain friendly’ in quotation marks and so the gauntlet was thrown.
“You’re on,” said I, “I’ll take the system refund training at the next induction”
The day came round a week later and I entered the training room. The 12 new cohorts stared at me, trainer manual open pen in hand. I only had an hour so quickly put them into four groups of three and handed each group a set of six clues to a ‘people’ treasure hunt.
“Right,” I said, “you each have a different set of clues. You must find the first department on your list by asking people where it is. When you go into that department, you must ask for the team on your list and then ask them for the clue. You must get back here and enter the first step onto the system. If you have the right one, then you can go off and find the second clue and so on. The first team to enter all six system steps correctly, and process a £20 refund, wins.”
For the few days previous, I had been placing laminated clues with different teams across the eight floors and throughout the 19 departments. Each laminate contained an ‘interesting fact’ about how that particular support team assisted with the refund process.
They loved it. The groups discovered where the different departments were situated, met the support teams on whom they would rely and a little about why. They had the sequence of going round the building as an anchor for the learning e.g. follow your path, follow the sequence. I gave one laminate to each of the Directors too, and all were happy to join in and meet the new guys. (well all bar one who left it with his PA.) I left the last clue for each team with Kate, the tea lady. I always included her where I could in any training, quite simply because she loved it.
And was it Brain Friendly? To the max!
I think to teach something, you need to make sure you have a good understanding of how people learn and how they reach outcomes. I pay good attention to the onboarding activities for learners because it pays its dividends later in the process. Welcomes Packs etc.help to put people at ease and can engage them with the purpose of the session, busy people like to know that their time will be well spent.
I drip feed: Introduction email, Welcome Pack, Leader support email, Agenda, Look forward seeing you email or video, plus any support resources or material. I remember to create a psychologically safe space for people to explore in, making sure that the culture I create supports both neurotypical and spectrum learners.
They key for me is understanding that you are the supporting cast, and as such you should check your ego and own needs in at the door. Avoid being the ‘sage central stage’. If you speak from the stage with your microphone people might listen, but listening is not all there is to learning. If it were we would need no schools, only recordings.
For our free Welcome Pack template. Please email lex@nakedtraining.org.uk and put Welcome Pack in the subject line
lexfarndell.com 