TRAINING WITH HEART

Reading and listening to Philip Scott, a Peruvian catholic priest, founder of the community “Family of Jesus Healer” last year and having connected his teachings to Abraham Maslow and Neuro-Semantics, I decided to apply it to my trainings with excellent results.

Any participant would like to be treated as a one and unique human being, as a true person, different from the rest. He/she has a unique history, experience, biology, learnings, conditions, circumstances, temperament, wants and life. I find this to be true, as well as Maslow’s motivational model, easy to understand and yet not commonly applied

It refers to five basic trainer’s behaviors to make your trainings memorable for the participants:  

1.- Participants want to be treated affectionately. Before anything else, the first human common language is the language of the heart; our basic human connectivity system. Participants feel the need of an emotional connection to their facilitator and an emotional connection to the rest of the participants. A sense of value, importance, uniqueness. A really felt “I am someone here”. They feel human when hearing from us, expressions of affection to each one of them. “It is good to have you here, John”, “I am pleased you came”, “You are very valuable as a person in this group”. These expressions, written and verbal have the power to give participants a sense of acceptance, belonging and love. The participant’s states will promptly show a positive, embracing and reciprocity response. There is a popular saying in Mexico regarding facilitating learning: "To teach Juan, love Juan” (“Para enseñar a Juan, querer a Juan”) 

2.- Participants seek approval from the group and from their facilitator. Yes, they seek and care to hear verbal expressions from the trainers that approve them and affirm them. “Good Larry, way to go my man”, “keep it up that way Mary Alice, you will end up a master!!” This turns to be basic recognition that invites the participants to repeat the good practices and behaviors.  Is it too difficult for us as trainers to keep the eye on what the participants do well and recognize it to them verbally, emotionally, and even celebrate together? Doing this, the training will become memorable for the participants; anchors will be present and connections to their hearts, their emotions, to their own sense of high value as human beings.

3.- Give participants time. We are there to facilitate their learnings, right? So we are there for them. They expect you to give them your time, personally, one-to-one. So make sure you connect and relate to everyone in the room. Memorize their names by linking it to a referent -Paul, the medical doctor, Joe, the executive, Mary, the teacher- posing the correspondent picture over their heads -in your mind of course- while introducing themselves or when speaking to them. Make personal and memorable interactions with each one, relating to them by name, and other personal characteristic, such as their work, accomplishments, personal goal or passion; thus, the relationship will jump to be an emotional one and consequently, memorable.

4.- Get to know your participants: They expect you to know them. Why did they fill out the registration form anyway? It is not acceptable that we as trainers, do not even know their names. So, we go through the registration forms and ask what we need to know in order to get to know them as much as we can. When saying hello by email, WhatsApp or personally, we ask them questions about them, so we thus, gain familiarity, closeness, the fundamentals to build connections and long relationships. At the very beginning I run a presentation round. They are asked to present themselves to the group, give their names, what they do, why they signed up for and are asked to open to the group a personal ability, hobby or personal passion. This is a valuable practice to get to know your participants a little more and give them their own personal space among the group. They have come to the training for personal growth; they are certainly not coming as if they were taking their cars to a carwash.  

5.- Participants are expecting you to correct them by delivering timely feedback: this is the moment of personal instruction. Valuable to their eyes, mind and souls. The very reason why they signed up for the training. So, make sure you connect personally, stay close when exercises take place and deliver immediate feedback, connecting with the person, giving them examples, showing them what behavior needs to be changed and how. Being two facilitators in the room can make this task easier to cover up everyone.

Other recommended practices: writing down participant’s expectations at the beginning of the training and review them at the end. Using metaphors, story-telling and grounded games could enhance and make your trainings memorable.

Conclusion:   At the very end, what are we doing as trainers? Connecting, relating, influencing, facilitating and changing through managing states to facilitate participant’s learning experiences towards their own self-actualization -the need for knowledge and transcendence-, assuring the fulfillment of basic human needs.