When I left my job at Google 10 years ago I never wanted to be in sales again. Not my cup of tea, thank you very much. Imagine the irony when I discovered that in order to be a great trainer, you still need to employ your sales skills on the regular. Introducing the goal of the session is the first moment for this.
During the session you will invite participants to step out of their comfort zone. As the wording implies this isn’t necessarily -well- comfortable… Participants may feel awkward, uneasy or vulnerable as they try something new. Therefore, few people will venture out of their comfort zone without a good reason. There needs to be something worth having outside of your comfort zone to endure the discomfort that inevitably follows when you leave it. The goal of the session is that reason. It is this goal that you have to ‘sell’ to the participants.
You do this by framing the goal in such a way that it appeals to your participants. It needs to be so alluring that they buy into it and sign up for whatever is coming next.
Now I can imagine you might be curious what a ‘salesy’ goal might sound like. In that case, fret not: here are two examples.
Training Protecting your Focus: ‘In our chats before the session you’ve mentioned that this quarter is especially busy for your company. Some of you told me that it feels like treading water sometimes, keeping up with all of the things that need to get done. In times like these it is increasingly difficult to remain focused on the things that matters most, am I right? [check for non-verbal confirmation]. This session has been designed for you to enable you to keep that focus, even when demands are high. Sounds good? [hold space for some reactions].’
Training Situational Leadership: ‘Since you have all started leading your own team in the last year, you’ve probably noticed already that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to leadership. Different people in your team require different things from you at different times. [check non-verbals of the group to gauge whether this resonates]. Figuring out what approach would work best in a specific situation can be difficult and actually carrying out what you intended can prove a struggle. The two days of training ahead of us will tackle these two challenges. By enabling you to become flexible in the leadership style you display, you will yield better results with your team. How does that sound? [hold space for some reactions]’
Have you noticed that I’ve inserted space in my delivery of the goal for some (non-)verbal reactions from the group? You probably suspect by now that that is intentional. You would be right. I take in their reactions to gauge whether they are on board with what I’m saying. If their reactions are positive, I keep going. If their responses are lukewarm, that is my first cue that there might be some resistance that has to be addressed. How you do this will be tackled in a later blogpost.
Let me share three common pitfalls you might want to elegantly step around as you start putting this into practice:
Skipping the goal altogether. That sounds something like: ‘So today’s topic is Bad News Conversations. In the morning we’ll learn the 4 steps of delivering bad news and how to avoid the most common pitfalls and in the afternoon we’ll practice with your own cases.’ By skipping the goal, you deny participants the opportunity to buy into the end result and build up intrinsic motivation for the session ahead. Plus, you miss the moment to check for possible resistance.
Mistaking the means for the end. This sounds something like: ‘The goal for today’s session is to learn how to give feedback and practice with your own cases’ In fact it is not. Those two things are merely means to achieve a bigger goal. That goal might sound like: ‘The goal for today’s session is to empower you to build a high-performing team. How you as a manager encourage effective behavior and discourage ineffective behavior will heavily influence how your team performs. The tool you have for this is feedback. At the end of this day, you will feel more confident in giving feedback and you will have the skills to deliver the feedback in such a way that it motivates the employee to develop while nurturing the relationship.’
Framing the goal from the company’s point of view. This sounds something like: ‘So the reason for today’s session is that the Employee Engagement Survey showed that 73% of employees feel they do not receive enough feedback from their managers. By spending the next two days learning how to give and receive feedback the goal is to bring that number down to less than 20% by the end of next year.’ Even though this might very well be the reason the training is happening, framing it in this way is a no-go. Why? Because it is unclear to participants what is in it for them personally. Only when you frame the goal in such a way that it communicates an end-result worth having for the individual participant will you entice them to leave comfort behind and go on the training-journey with you.
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Opening a Session. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.