The First-Time Trainer: A Step-by-Step Quick Guide for Managers, Supervisors, and New Training Professionals - Softcover

Goad, Tom W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814415598 ISBN 13: 9780814415597

Verlag: Amacom, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

For managers, supervisors, and other professionals who suddenly find themselves being asked to play the role of an expert training facilitator, this information-packed guide will give you the tools and skills needed to transform your team.

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Tom W. Goad (San Diego, CA) has thirty-five years of experi ence as a trainer and human resources develop ment expert. He is widely published in the HR field, and is the author of the first edition of The First-Time Trainer (978-0-8144-7942-1).

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Your mission: to get a room full of participants ready to take on new challenges and responsibilities. The session is ready to begin. Are you prepared? How do you break the ice? Have you chosen the right exercises? What if no one’s speaking up? How will you handle participants who are unruly or disengaged?

And what’s that you say? You’ve never done it before?

Today, you as a trainer are faced with more choices than ever to facilitate learning. You’re dealing with a highly diverse workforce, with a mixture of younger and older workers, all of whom respond and learn differently. And with the latest possibilities made available by technology and e-learning, the possibilities are virtually endless.

The First-Time Trainer provides you with a set of state-of-the-art skills for getting employ­ees on board, engaged, and ready to learn. Updated with all new techniques—as well as including tried-and-true methods that work—this revised edition provides you with the information and confidence you need to quickly get out there and train like a pro.

Filled with real-world examples and dozens of field-tested tools, this concise, easy-to-flip-through guide shows you how to: prepare and give effective presentations • select media and delivery methods • communicate with learners • get people involved • ask the right kind of questions • cope with behavior problems • give and receive feedback • determine what to measure • and put objectives to the test

You’ll discover the eight key steps to effective training, and how to adapt them for the specific needs of your own learning environment. Whether you’re a new training professional, one who’s looking to brush up on important, fundamental skills and get up to speed on the latest advancements, or a manager or supervisor tasked with train­ing others, this long-trusted book helps you get people learning in no time.

TOM W. GOAD has 35 years of experience as a trainer and human resources development expert. He is widely published in the HR field, and is the author of the first edition of The First-Time Trainer, as well as the classic text Delivering Effective Training.

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The First-Time Trainer

A Step-by-Step Quick Guide for Managers, Supervisors, and New Training ProfessionalsBy Tom W. Goad

AMACOM

Copyright © 2010 Tom W. Goad
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8144-1559-7

Contents

List of Exhibits..................................................................................vAbout the Revised Edition.........................................................................viiiA Word for the First-Time Trainer.................................................................ixIntroduction......................................................................................1The Purpose of This Book..........................................................................2About Training....................................................................................3Step One: Facilitate Learning...................................................................7Step One Summary..................................................................................10Skills Trainers Need—Overview...............................................................10The Impact of Diversity and Multigenerational Learners............................................11Continuous Learning...............................................................................12Trainer Skills....................................................................................12The Eight Steps...................................................................................17Using the Eight Steps for Various Situations......................................................21Step Two: Focus on Performance..................................................................24Step Two Summary..................................................................................25Needs Assessment..................................................................................25Performance Objectives............................................................................44Step Three: Focus on Learning.....................................................................49Step Three Summary................................................................................49The Learning Process..............................................................................50Other Aspects of Learning.........................................................................59Building in Success Factors.......................................................................66Conclusion........................................................................................67Step Four: Be Prepared...........................................................................68Step Four Summary.................................................................................69Key Principles of Preparation.....................................................................71Making Selections.................................................................................71Organizing Training...............................................................................93Preparation for Training..........................................................................100Pilot Training....................................................................................104Step Five: Deliver Effectively...................................................................106Step Five Summary.................................................................................106The Trainer as Communicator.......................................................................107How to Give an Effective Presentation.............................................................111Accommodating Diversity and Multiple Generations..................................................126Conclusion........................................................................................134Step Six: Get Learners Involved.................................................................137Step Six Summary..................................................................................138Working with Groups...............................................................................138Dealing with Difficult Behaviors..................................................................140Techniques for Getting Learners Involved..........................................................145Step Seven: Get Feedback..........................................................................159Step Seven Summary................................................................................160Putting Objectives to the Test....................................................................160Determining What to Measure.......................................................................161When and How Much to Evaluate.....................................................................169Software Evaluation Tools.........................................................................169Step Eight: Improve Continuously..................................................................170Step Eight Summary................................................................................171Training Skills Revisited.........................................................................171Strengthening Training Skills.....................................................................172The Trainer's Portfolio...........................................................................174Technology and Training...........................................................................176A Word About Ethics...............................................................................177Eight Steps to Effective Training: A Summary......................................................178Appendix A: Resources for the First-Time Trainer..................................................181American Society for Training and Development.....................................................182Training Magazine.................................................................................183Web Searches......................................................................................183Appendix B: Additional Trainer Guidelines.........................................................186Guidelines for How People Learn (Step Three)......................................................187Guidelines for Dealing with Multiple Generations in the Workplace (Step Five).....................191Guidelines for Evaluating Training (Step Seven)...................................................192Guidelines for Determining Return on Investment (ROI) (Step Seven)................................196Professional Development Guidelines (Step Seven)..................................................202Index.............................................................................................207

Chapter One

Step One Facilitate Learning

"Learning and development professionals have got to think like line executives who constantly deal with customers and suppliers, both internal and external." —Stephen Covey, Training, February 2006

The successful trainer facilitates learning. It's as simple as that. Facilitating means assisting adults in acquiring the skills and knowledge required by the workplace. These skills and knowledge may range from work rules a new employee needs to know, to how to operate a computer-aided design software system for an engineer, to how a manager can motivate employees (possibly spread around the globe) to increase production in the wake of massive layoffs. One of the key growth areas for training has been such softer issues as maintaining motivation, fostering interpersonal communication, nurturing self-esteem, achieving maximum potential, preventing sexual harassment, managing stress, and promoting healthier lifestyles. Clearly there is no limit on the topics that may need to be covered at some time or another. And, with the use of social Web sites on the Internet and technology that delivers training anytime, anywhere, training has expanded well beyond the workplace. Principles and techniques explained in this book work for all training needs and applications. See Exhibit 1-1 for a representative list of major training applications.

Training is a facilitation of learning. It focuses on identifying, ensuring, and helping to develop, through a carefully planned process, the key competencies that enable individuals to perform their jobs more efficiently. Although our concern here is workplace learning, the concept extends to training in such areas as learning how to plant an organic garden or to throw a clay pot; how to do your own plumbing or plan your vacation; or how to be a Scout leader.

You might think that a trainer is a person who may fill a number of roles, but the number-one role is to facilitate learning. When you've completed a training session, you should expect that participants will have gained knowledge or acquired skills they didn't previously have. Think of it as the process of filling a gap—the difference between what participants know or can do and what they need to know or do—called gap analysis (see Step Two). The best way to ensure that this happens is to consider yourself the facilitator of the process. Sometimes, particularly if their jobs depend on it, participants will learn even if the process is improperly or ineffectively done (more on this in Step Three). If you think back to the teachers and trainers you've had, you'll likely agree that the best ones were those who allowed learning to take place, as opposed to those who considered themselves the experts and didn't let you forget it (and sometimes got in the way).

A further word about gaps: It could well be that the gap between diverse and multigenerational learners is your greatest challenge. The solution, as will be noted throughout the eight steps, is variety in how training is designed, developed, and delivered.

Step One Summary

This step, facilitation, provides the background needed to acquire skills. Since the primary role of a trainer is to facilitate learning, it is essential that every trainer approach any project from the perspective of helping learning to happen rather than attempting to force it. Key materials are:

A detailed definition of training

Skills trainers need for success

Diversity and multigenerational learners

Continuous learning concept

Skills related to knowledge learning and technology that are essential to today's workplace, providing the knowledge framework to successfully facilitate training

Overview of the remaining seven steps and how to apply them

Skills Trainers Need—Overview

To be effective facilitators of learning, trainers must have a number of skills. They include but certainly are not limited to:

Managerial Ability. The entire training process requires effective management to ensure success, especially within tight budgets. A trainer manages time (including the time learners are away from their jobs for training), resources, and funds, as well as staff members.

Communications Skills. A complete repertoire of these skills includes the ability to motivate and familiarity with electronic methods.

Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills. Analysis is an ongoing requirement.

Information Literacy. Workers need to find information and implement solutions to problems.

Computer Literacy. Because so much information is digitized, communications rely on automation and digital technology, and computers deliver a significant amount of training conducted.

Take a brief personal inventory of your own skills, and you'll likely see you're already in good shape for your new training role.

The Impact of Diversity and Multigenerational Learners

Diversity is one of the words most commonly used to describe today's workplace, and for good reason. Many companies are discovering that if they make the most of diversity and manage it to a purposeful end, productivity and effectiveness go up. It's a good return on investment. Because of globalization, management may have no choice but to make the most of a vastly diverse workforce. Diversity continues to suggest more than divergent cultural and racial backgrounds. It has grown to encompass as well:

People with disabilities

People who speak different languages

Women, who are continuing to enter and move up in the workplace in large numbers

Disadvantaged people

Older people

People who are functionally illiterate

People of various sexual orientations

People with various religious beliefs

There's another aspect of diversity that needs to be included— one dealing with workplace age differences. There are actually four generations in today's workplace: persons born before or during World War II; baby boomers, who were born after the war (between 1946 and 1964); Generation X, who were born between 1965 and 1980; and Generation Y (also called millennials and the Net Generation), who were born in the 1980s and 1990s. Having workers from three different generations (and possibly all four generations, as noted) is increasingly common today, and the difference between the technology orientation of the youngest (say a seventeen-year-old) and the oldest (say a sixty-five-year-old) is tremendous. How the two learn, what they are capable of doing, and particularly how they adapt to different training delivery methods varies considerably. Accordingly, your training approach needs to accommodate everyone. This is one of the exciting challenges of training, and there's plenty you can do to help deal with diversity. (This aspect of your training challenge is addressed in Step Five.)

Continuous Learning

Continuous learning is at the heart of the learning organization (see Step Three) and thus must be foremost in the mind of all managers and trainers. Like organizations, people must continually learn if they are to be successful and remain competitive. Technology, which seems to move at the speed of light, is a primary driver of the need to keep learning. Competition plays a key role, as well.

The explosion of information keeps us well supplied with material to learn from. What this means is that the trainer and the manager need to create an environment of continuous learning. Formal training sessions are necessary. So are opportunities to learn and grow, such as opportunities for taking classes outside work or learning by watching others or having access to an information base that people can use to learn on their own. Purchasing built-in training with new software packages and communications systems is another example of how to ensure continuous learning. This is where the creative trainer can greatly enhance learning on the part of all people on the job.

Electronic learning—e-learning—makes opportunities to learn a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week proposition. With device portability, learning can occur just about anywhere a person might be. This is one of the developments of training that has brought new energy to the training process—but not without a cost in development, as well as stress on learners.

Trainer Skills

The skills needed for the future workplace are quite different from, and probably more complex than, the ones that got us to this point in our organizational lives. These new skills are some of the most important ones trainers are involved with. Indeed, there are skills we'll need down the road that haven't even been identified yet! A key question emerges: "If we must continually learn, what skills must we acquire?" Fortunately, there's plenty of guidance here. These key skills are shown in Exhibit 1-2. It's not a long list, but each element is vital. It's no coincidence that these are skills you need for virtually any job today.

Information Literacy

Much has already been said about the knowledge- or information-driven economy, which in turns means a knowledge-driven workplace. Just about everything we do involves acquiring and applying information in a knowledgeable way. First we have data, which the Internet, via the computer, has given us in enormous quantities (often too great). Next we turn the data into information or glean from them potentially useful information. From the information, we gain knowledge that allows us to be competitive and to succeed on the job. This is where training comes in. From knowledge comes (we hope) the wisdom that sustains us, propelling us to succeed. Keep this thought in mind when developing and implementing training. For short-term operations, it may not mean much. But, for the long haul, it can help keep us on track to develop meaningful long-term training and development for all workers—full-time employees, contract workers, part-timers, and all the others.

Information literacy has been defined as the ability to access, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources. It sounds simple—but think for a moment about each segment of this sentence. To access information means that you know how to get your hands on potentially relevant information, which in turn means you must know where to find it. Evaluating the mountains of information showered upon us can be an enormous task in itself. To use the information once it is selected is the mark of the truly successful manager and trainer. An information-literate person has the following characteristics:

Recognizes the need for information before taking action.

Recognizes that accurate and complete information is essential in order to make intelligent decisions.

Formulates questions, based on information needs, that will lead to desired information.

Develops successful, possibly diverse, search strategies, based on all potential sources.

Accesses information sources—digitally based (e.g., Internet, World Wide Web, individuals, data banks), analog, human, and other sources.

Evaluates information to discern its relevance, setting aside anything that is irrelevant (which might easily be the bulk of it).

Organizes information for practical application.

Integrates new information into the existing body of knowledge (so that it fits in and potentially enhances it).

Applies the information to critical thinking and problem solving (not hesitating to reenter the process at any step when the need arises).

And one last point: If you don't know how to apply the information once you've acquired it, you're not fully information literate.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

This skill set, which includes the full spectrum of how humans communicate with each other, has always been vital to workplace success, but, if anything, it is more important today because of such practices as empowerment and working at home, along with the multitude of ways we communicate. The skills include:

Having the ability to read and comprehend, sometimes as a rapid response to a particular work situation.

Having the ability to write. This encompasses memos, e-mail messages that are well thought out yet quickly written, letters, reports, documents, and all those other communications, written and digital (e.g., e-mail, blogs, text messaging, Twittering), that are common in the workplace. (This includes training materials, discussed in Step Four, and particularly material written for online learning.)

Speaking (addressed in depth in Step Five).

Listening. This is an absolute necessity in the age of empowerment, team orientation, coaching, and mentoring.

Using nonverbal skills. This means the ability to sense how you are perceived as a total person (e.g., from your body language as well as from your words) when communicating and the ability to perceive someone else's total person and to fully comprehend what that person has to say.

Coaching and mentoring. These involve the total spectrum of communication skills, as both require working closely with the learner. Rapport must be built up between you and the person you are coaching or mentoring. (See Step Four for more on these skills.)

There is a direct relationship between success and having good "people" skills. Yet another consideration, one we're still learning to deal with adequately, is how to accommodate the fact that many of the people we communicate with speak English as a second language, if at all. This is one of the challenges of a workplace that is diverse and multigenerational.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

One consequence of flattening in organizations is that more people than ever need good problem-solving and decision-making skills. The process is continually being pushed down to the lowest levels of the organization. If people are to become empowered in the workplace, they must have appropriate skills—that is, the ability to solve problems and make decisions. Managers want to hear solutions, not requests for advice on how to solve problems. Although it's a responsibility of managers to help develop others, the business environment today doesn't allow much time to pay a lot of attention to others.

Successful problem solvers have a proven problem-solving technique or model that they have mastered for solving challenges; many of these techniques contain most of the ones listed in Exhibit 1-3 (maybe all of them). The similarity of these actions to the eight steps to effective training isn't a coincidence.

Creativity and Innovation

Successful companies have the ability to motivate employees to be creative and innovative. Encouraging risk taking and fostering an environment where failure is okay are fundamental elements of creative organizations. A number of approaches have successfully been taken here, and new techniques, including mind mapping (placing the main topic in the center and branching off in different directions with sub-topics), various thinking styles (thinking, using different, unconventional patterns), and special courses designed to take advantage of brain theories and strategies (e.g., left brain, right brain) have been developed. With carefully planned and executed training, people can learn on the job how to expand their creative horizons.

High-technology companies need creative employees if they are to stay on the cutting edge of competition—and so do all other organizations if they are to survive in the marketplace. Sometimes it is the person who can be creative in determining how to reduce the time that inventory stays on the shelf, for example, or figuring out how to take care of customer questions faster who can make the difference in the organization's success.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The First-Time Trainerby Tom W. Goad Copyright © 2010 by Tom W. Goad. Excerpted by permission of AMACOM. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Amacom
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0814415598
• ISBN 13: 9780814415597
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: WordUnited GmbH; distribution@wordunited.com; ; Theodorstrasse 105; DUSSELDORF; 40472; Deutschland