Common Mistakes Made When Training Adults

Over the course of our careers, we have experienced a wide variety of training styles, deliveries, and techniques. Depending on the approach used by the trainer, these experiences have yielded varying degrees of effectiveness in our lives. For example, dynamic, entertaining, and hands-on approaches keep adults engaged whereas our interest can be lost after just 5 minutes when instructors default to reading from oversaturated PowerPoint slides. Regardless, studies have shown that after just one hour, people retain less than half of newly presented information. After just one day, people forget more than 70% of that new information; after one week, that climbs up to 90% forgotten. What’s the trick to training adults? All it takes is a little preparation, creativity, and practice. Thanks to my colleagues David Kocol and Jeff Ramirez , here are some of the most common mistakes that we've seen trainers make and simple ways to avoid them:

✔️ Ignoring Individual Learning Styles: We have different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Cater to these different styles throughout the training event so that participants do not get frustrated and disengaged. As a society, our attention span is getting shorter. For training to be effective, adult learners need a visual, audio, or active “attention booster” every 5 minutes.

✔️ Lack of Relevance: Adults are more motivated to learn when they see the relevance of the material to their personal or professional lives. Making the connections between the training content and real-world applications can result in disinterest and a lack of engagement. Using storytelling in training is vastly underutilized. Stories force learners to pay attention and listen. If done well, stories demonstrate how the new information is applied in their jobs and the customers and/or markets they serve. Effective storytelling assembles new information in a memorable manner.

✔️ Neglecting Participant Knowledge & Experience: Participants bring a wealth of prior knowledge and experience to the learning environment. Ignoring, dismissing or not exploiting the knowledge in the class can undermine participant confidence and hinder their ability to integrate any new information. Always begin with an ice breaker. Especially one that helps to identifies each participant’s profession and job duties, as this will help transition into the training topic and how others in the class use the product, service or information being shared.

✔️ Overloading with Information: Presenting excessive amounts of information – whether visually or verbally – without clear organization or structure can overwhelm adult learners. Chunking information into digestible pieces and providing opportunities for reflection and practice are crucial for effective learning. PowerPoint slides are the most abused training tool and usually used inappropriately. Limit your words to bullets and use a memorable and relevant image. Slides are the most effective when you show a picture and tell a story.

✔️ Lack of Interactivity & Engagement: Passive learning experiences, such as lectures or presentations, are not engaging for adults, especially considering how easily we can be distracted by our devices. Incorporating interactive elements, such as group discussions, case studies, simulations, or hands-on activities, greatly enhances motivation and retention. Gamifying the learning (e.g., Kahoot) promotes interaction and forces participation, not surfing the internet or checking email during training.

✔️ Inadequate Feedback & Support: Adults benefit from timely and constructive feedback to gauge their learning progress and identify areas for additional study. Without feedback and support, learners may feel lost or unsure about their performance, leading to disengagement and frustration. Incorporating interactive polls using smart phones is a great way to accomplish this. Randomly asking questions and inviting interaction will keep students interested and “on their toes.”

✔️ Neglecting the Social Aspect: Learners often value most the opportunity to connect with peers and share experiences. Neglecting this social aspect of learning where the instructor focuses solely on content delivery can lead to isolation and hinder collaborative learning opportunities. You might think you know your product or topic, but customer use cases will better prepare the customer to use your product in their environment and circumstances. Choose strategic times in your training to ask the participants how they would use the product or who would be involved.

✔️ Failure to Address Barriers & Distractions: Participants will face a variety of barriers and distractions during training events that affect their ability to focus on learning. These could include work-related stress, mobile devices, personal responsibilities, health issues, or technological challenges. Recognizing and addressing these barriers up front can help create a conducive learning environment.

✔️ Lack of Flexibility & Adaptability: Adults have diverse schedules and responsibilities. Providing flexibility in training options, such as offering different formats (in-person, online, blended) or accommodating different time frames, always enhances accessibility and participation. Most training events are conducted by a single individual, but if there is the opportunity to train in pairs, break up training sections between the two and make it a conversational dynamic between the two trainers. Keep it dynamic.

✔️ Insufficient Reinforcement & Follow-Up: Learning is an ongoing process, and it is essential to provide opportunities for reinforcement and follow-up after the initial training. Without reinforcement, newly acquired skills and knowledge will fade much faster. If a participant has a challenging question, acknowledge the question and commit that you will get back to them on the answer. Write it down, so you don’t forget, and follow-up after the training event concludes. Additionally, always end with a final Q&A session. Have commonly asked questions from previous sessions prepared in advance in the event participants are not as engaged as you’d like.

By being aware of these common mistakes and spending a little extra time to be creative and plan ahead, trainers can design and deliver more effective training programs that cater to the unique needs of adult learners.