I spent the first part of my Learning & Development career as a field sales trainer. I loved it! Running around the country helping sales people get better by sharing what I knew. It was great!
With the helpful (and sometime critical) feedback from the audience, I became a decent presenter. As time progressed, I build my confidence level and experimented with different approaches. I knew, intuitively, that my role as trainer depended on the audience believing that I knew what I was talking about. I mean, who wants to learn from someone that isn’t an expert?
I first ventured into the scary area of ‘sounding uneducated’ when a subject matter expert was presenting information to the class. See, when you really know a subject well, you sometimes forget to bring people along on the journey with you. You assume they already know things that they haven’t heard before.
My role as trainer was to listen for those times. And, if the class didn’t ask the question, I would. Although I had heard the presentation several times and could probably present it myself, I would raise my hand and ask the question on behalf of the class because I knew what was missing. That’s probably when I learned how to ask questions to be sure that everyone was on the same page, even if it means I look uninformed.
But my real breakthrough in the art of facilitating learning (not simply presenting) came during a session on year-end accounting. I remember the incident as if it were yesterday. It was a small class of only about a dozen trainees. Things were going well. We were on schedule and discussion was strong. Then it happened …
A lady towards the back raised her hand. She had a thought and she shared it in the form of a question. “If that’s true, then that means we can use this information to help us as we prepare for our customer conversation.”
“Tell me more”, I said. And then I stopped talking.
I wanted desperately to say, “What a great segue to the next section. I was just about to share that with you.” But I didn’t. I responded as if I had never considered that before. I facilitated a discussion in the class in which they all explored the possibilities together.
That young lady had no way of knowing that I had just stepped from being a presenter into the world of facilitation. The room never knew that I had a whole section prepared to present on the process they worked out on their own. And none of them would know that my entire approach to training shifted dramatically that day.
Equally, the lady who put two and two together will always remember what she discovered.
What I learned
Sometimes, it takes silence to allow learning to occur. This is true whether you are leading a training session or helping your staff work through something new and challenging. Just because you have the answer doesn’t mean that you need to share it immediately.
The point is NOT to show how much you know or how prepared you are. The point is to help others learn in a way that they will remember the lesson.
You see, people remember what they discover. Just as I remember that class when I discovered the power of humbly staying silent to allow the learning to occur.
The true art of facilitating the process of learning is to set up the environment, foundation and curiosity so that you can silently watch as others discover lessons that will stay with them for a lifetime.
What about you? How have you helped others make discoveries on their own?