Leadership Training Chapter 1 – Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Mentoring is a form of training. Training is Communicating.

Welcome to The Training Cycle. Our goal is to train you, the mentor, to present material in an organized way that the mentees you work with can understand and retain. It is not relevant what topic you are teaching, it is only relevant how you are communicating.

The Training Cycle workshop applies to any intellectual property, any topic. We’ve trained corporate trainers, public safety trainers, software trainers, non-profit fund raisers, attorneys, scuba and other recreational trainers, film industry trainers, and many others.

This material is based on a series of techniques that you can use as a mentor. You overlay your content – your intellectual property – then train your mentees using The Training Cycle protocols.

Training, or any form of education, is communication. Proper communication is a process, and that process can be taught to anyone. The idea of a “natural educator,” or “natural teacher” is a misnomer. There are passionate teachers and passionate educators, but the best educators are generally the best trained communicators.

When you choose a trainer to communicate to your employees, clients, and teams, you need someone with two skill sets: they have to know the content and they have to be able to transfer that knowledge to others. In other words, a great employee AND a great communicator.

We often see trainers with one or the other of these skill sets. They know the material but do not communicate it well, or they are great communicators who are not comfortable with the material.

Knowledge transfer, or communication, is more of a craft than an art. We can train people to communicate effectively in a much shorter period of time than you can train someone to know and understand your specific intellectual property.

Law enforcement is a great example of this. It takes years to become a great police officer, but we can train a great officer to be a great trainer in a very short period of time. On the other hand, you would not take a rookie police person who is a great communicator and have him/her be your trainer – there is no credibility there.
When you choose your trainers, choose the people who know your content. Choose your “best employee.” We will train that person to present the material in a way that is easy to understand and can be retained by employees and teams.

The Training Cycle Workshop

This is a program on how to communicate effectively – or, how to make a successful knowledge transfer from mentor to mentee. The program is divided into units that encompass some of the following:

Defining Education

Education is classically defined as creating a change in the behavior of your students. That behavior change may be as simple as a client buying your product instead of someone else’s, or someone donating to your non-profit instead of another charitable organization. The desired behavior change could be much more complex than that. In public safety departments, or in aviation, a behavior change could be the difference between life and death. Think about the behavior you plan on changing.

Training techniques are just that – training techniques. They can be applied to virtually any content. The Training Cycle program focuses on the process of training. Once that process is understood, it is a simple matter of overlaying your content. We separate intellectual property from the teaching system.

Education Must Be Entertaining

How do you make a behavior change stick? Or, more formally, how do you increase retention in your mentees? The answer is simple: be entertaining. Retention increases exponentially when mentees feel like they are being entertained. This does not mean you have to do stand up comedy during each session, but it does mean you must be engaging, personable, and ready to have some fun.

Your Path to Mastery

We are going to look at your process of understanding your content to a point where you can reliably and repeatedly communicate it to others. This is your path to mastery. It is a four-step process that begins with discovery, then moves to training, then practice, then teaching. We are going to guide you so you know you have mastered the topic that you are communicating. We will help you define the steps you took in your own life on your path to mastery.

Common Ground

One of the most dramatic problems we see in untrained trainers is “firehose education.” This is a type of communication where the trainer knows the content so well that he or she presumes that the students do also. There is a theory in education that says the teacher cannot teach the student anything unless both the teacher and the student already know it. This may sound like a contradiction, but it is the basis of creating common ground with your students which, in turn, becomes the antidote to fire hose training. To combat firehose education, we will show you how to create common ground with your trainees.

Building Block Training

Building block training is the process of using common ground in a practical way. Once we’ve established a communication link with your audience, you will progress through your content. The most important aspect to this is to not move forward until your mentees have a clear picture of your underlying topic. In other words, A builds to B, B builds to C, and so on. It is imperative that you never skip a step. Presenting material without underlying reasoning is confusing to the listener and blocks most forms of knowledge transfer.

Levels of Learning

Once we put your content into the context of building blocks we move to levels of learning. They are:

• Rote
• Understanding
• Application
• Correlation

It is critical that these levels be presented in order.

• Rote learning is memorization.
• Understanding is how something works.
• Application is why something works.
• Correlation is how to manage a skill in a new situation.

Testing Comprehension

The worst question in any education or training system is, “Do you understand?”

We will address a variety of methods for testing and assessing comprehension including the use of open ended and closed ended questions, oral and written assessments, and critiques. We will also prepare you to use leader-led critiques and student-led critiques.

The goal of assessment is not to see how your trainees perform. The goal is to be sure the trainees have the material anchored in such a way that it sticks and can be applied in proper situations.

Your Stories

Finally we will look at the power of storytelling during any training or educational event. Stories are powerful tools that guide trainees to an understanding of how your content can be applied in the real world. Stories also present a wonderful opportunity to lighten the day, add some humor, and create camaraderie during any training. The catch is managing your stories so they are a productive part of your educational program.

Exercises

Each unit will be accompanied by a series of hands on exercises.

Our goal is to give you all the tools you need to take your specific content – your intellectual property – and wrap it in a training program that is clear, fun, and powerful.