Trainers can't call in sick. The show must ALWAYS go on.

I was once booked to run a series of workshops for a legal firm all around Australia. My itinerary had me flying out on the Sunday afternoon around 2pm and travelling to Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and then back to Melbourne. Five days, five trainings.

On the Saturday night before this big week, we decided to have fish and chips for dinner. Because he knew how much I loved them, and how infrequently I ate they, my husband surprised me with a Chiko Roll. For those that don't know, a Chiko Roll is an Australian savoury snack, originally called the chicken roll and inspired by the Chinese egg roll and spring rolls. They are yummy, in my view.

Later that evening, around 11pm I had the first rumblings that something wasn't quite right. By 3am in the morning I was experiencing full blown food poisoning, and by 7am I couldn't move out of bed. I called the airline at around 10am to reschedule my flight to the last possible one that night and spent the day trying to recover.

I had flippantly claimed food poisoning in the past when I wasn't feeling 100%, and those of you who have had food poisoning....and I mean REAL food poisoning know that there is nothing flippant at all about it and it is horrible.

However, trainers can't call in sick. The show must ALWAYS go on.

I arrived at the gig that morning, and delivered the session. I then continued through the week to deliver. No mean feat when you are feeling that any moment you could have an "incident" in front of the whole group.

To this day I believe it was because I use a structure in my training that not only means I know what I should be doing or saying, and what the group should be doing or saying....but it also halves my preparation time.  My structure looks something like this:

1. Frame

This establishes why your participants are here and what is in it for them. There are a number of techniques for building motivation and momentum for your topic, including storytelling, meaningful icebreakers or activities, allowing the group to define the purpose of the session, or using contrast. 

The role of the trainer when framing is Motivator.

Framing sets the tone for the session and should also include building the safety net, or a safe learning environment.

2. Explain

Explaining is when you step into the role of Expert. You explain the theory, concepts, steps, and process to your group in a way that is chunked and sequenced appropriately.

When explaining, go from global to specific: start broadly then move into the details of your topic. 

3. Experience

You need to allow your participants to experience your material and acquire the skill you are teaching.  You become the Silent Partner.

If your explanation has hit the target, here is where you take a back seat and allow the participants the opportunity to experiment, play, fail and learn the skill.

The trainer’s job during Experience is to keep a peripheral eye and ear on things. This is so your participants don’t go off the rails, and also allows enough space that the participants don’t feel watched and pressured for their performance.

4. Generalise

This is where you debrief your session. Your role is Coach.  After completing the exercise you facilitate a discussion on: what was discovered, what they learnt, what meaning did they derive, and how will they apply the lesson outside of the training environment.

Generalising is where you can encourage ‘stories from the field.’ Your participants can tell stories about where they could use their new-found knowledge, where they could have used it in the past, why they would not use it, and so on.

In the past, I was wary of ‘what if?’ or ‘yes but’ questions that would appear to disagree or be negative about my topic. Now I welcome those questions. Firstly, it shows an appropriate level of skepticism from the group, and secondly you can’t ask an ‘it won’t work’ question if you don’t know how it would work in the context in which it was taught.  It demonstrates they got it.

After my week of food poisoning training delivery, I checked in with my client for feedback and they were happy with the week and surprised that I had been so ill.  None of the participants had seemed to notice it and she applauded me for being such a Pro!

I believe having a sound process to follow is what saved me that week.