Trainer Tools

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, Garry Platt gives the ubiquitous learning styles theory (or theories) a jolly good kicking and talks through research that calls into question their validity and usefulness (to put it politely).

I stopped using learning styles to structure learning workshops some years ago, mainly because I continually tweaked things and replaced things that worked less well with things that worked better, and this meant, quite unintentionally, learning styles fell by the wayside. This was a pragmatic approach that accidentally stumbled into the same place as Garry discusses in this podcast.

Garry Platt is an experienced training consultant with more than 30 years experience in the business. He has worked with a number of international organisations helping them to enhance their approach to training and development. Within the last 12 months he has worked with Deutsche Post DHL, Formica, Siemens, Mercedes AMG F1 Team and was the keynote speaker at the SHE Conference in Blackpool.

Academically qualified to Masters Degree level in Education, Training and Development his work combines current research and study in Human Resource Development with a pragmatic and workable approach.

During the last 10 years an area of specialisation has become the evaluation and return on investment analysis of training delivered in organisations. Drawing from the experience of hundreds of companies and organisations he has drawn together a large range of methods and approaches which many organisations have selected from and introduced into their own.

Garry currently works for EEF and can be contacted via his LinkedIn profile or email ([email protected])

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, Garry Platt gives the ubiquitous learning styles theory (or theories) a jolly good kicking and talks through research that calls into question their validity and usefulness (to put it politely).

I stopped using learning styles to structure learning workshops some years ago, mainly because I continually tweaked things and replaced things that worked less well with things that worked better, and this meant, quite unintentionally, learning styles fell by the wayside. This was a pragmatic approach that accidentally stumbled into the same place as Garry discusses in this podcast.

This is a Trainer Tools Essential Podcast

Quite a while ago, I received a mail from a listener asking the following questions:

I guess many of your audience are freelance so it would be an interesting topic to discuss how they learn from or get community feeling when working alone.

How do you trust your own internal feedback when all your clients think you're great (but you only have a happy sheet).

In an organisation how do you champion best practice when the culture is content with chalk and talk?

We recorded something that touches on the first part of this with Claire Simmons (called "Training can be a tough and lonely business, so look after yourself") but I thought we could dig deeper and so I asked Paul Tizzard, someone who has worked as both an internal and external consultant, to have a crack at providing some sage advice.

aul Tizzard did his first "Train the Trainer" course in 1986 and has been a professional trainer since 1996 and independent since 2001. He is a trained presenter, coach and facilitator. Since becoming independent, he has been fortunate to work in many different countries with an eclectic range of industries and companies.

I feel extremely lucky to have the best job in the world

Paul set up Virgin Atlantic's Flying Without Fear programme, has written five books, is a Fellow of ITOL and has run more learning events than you could shake a stick at.

If I am lucky, I will pop my clogs about 95 years old whilst writing on flip charts!

Click here to visit Paul's website

A few months ago we chatted with Krystyna Gadd about her Five Secrets of Accelerated Learning, and then we talked about the first of those secrets in What's your objective. In this latest podcast we drill down into the second secret: be a facilitator and not a trainer.

This is about moving away from being the font of all knowledge, the sage on the stage, to being a guide on the side who is in charge of creating an environment and ensuring an engaging process so that learning happens.

Krystyna Gadd is a leading authority on accelerated learning and its application in the UK. As an engineer in a former life, it has shaped her thinking towards creating learning that creates measurable performance impact. She has been training trainers since 2008, through CIPD professional programmes and her own workshops. She has published a book “50 ways to Accelerate Learning”, which expands on her “5 Secrets of Accelerated Learning” that she shared in the Training Journal article “Quick off the Mark”. Both these publications help to dispel some of the myths surrounding accelerated learning. There are 5 broad areas or “secrets” to accelerated learning, that Krys shared in a recent article called “Get up to speed” that appeared in the Training Journal in 2016.

Krys finds working with trainers an absolute joy and she constantly seeks out ways to enable trainers to cut down on preparation time, improve retention of information and accelerate the learning though their organisations.

Krystyna is the founder of How to Accelerate Learning and creator of The Learning Loop® a brand new and innovative way to train trainers, facilitators, subject matter experts and line managers.

As I get older, wiser, more knowledgeable, more skilled ... and more impatient, ... OK, and more stroppy, I am increasingly dissatisfied with the idea of rocking up and banging out a few training courses and calling it a learning and development strategy.

It doesn't matter how good the workshop is, how dedicated and talented the facilitator is, if the learner goes back to an environment that doesn't support learning.

This means that I am increasingly interested in, increasingly fascinated by ... and OK, increasingly going on and on about, the important of creating an environment that is conducive to learning. This doesn't just mean pre-work and follow-up activities surrounding a learning event, it means support from leaders, managers, colleagues and the organisational culture that will allow for learning, sharing, growth, opportunities and all that good stuff.

In this podcast, I talk to Robin Petterd who calls it a "learning ecosystem" ... I hope you find it useful!

Robin Petterd has a PhD in creative interactive digital media and has worked in that field since 1993, training people since 1995. He has been involved in all parts of the education sector and established Sprout Labs in 2007.

Robin has a particular focus on employing the 70-20-10 learning model and digital learning to maximise learning effectiveness in organisations, and takes a strategic approach with his clients to ensure the model is deployed successfully.

This isn't a podcast, it's just me making excuses for not having finished editing this month's cast ... plus, a short explanation as to why I am maybe thinking about changing the name of the podcast

Despite our best efforts, our thorough preparation, and our fantastic facilitation, sometimes training programmes don't go as well as we hope. Sometimes people turn up with quite different expectations of what the event is all about, or they feel like political prisoners who have been coerced into attending by managerial pressure, or perhaps they are seeking to spend a day playing with their phone instead of working!

In this podcast Sunita Sehmi talks about her approach of engaging before, during and after the programme to ensure that the event is as successful as possible for the organisation and for the individuals who attend.

Sunita Sehmi is a Certified Executive Coach, Consultant, Speaker and Trainer. She is of Indian origin and was born in London before moving to Geneva in 1992. She has a Psychology degree, specializing in Occupational and Developmental Psychology and a Post Graduate certification in the Development and Training of Adults from the UK. She also has a Masters in Human Resources, Coaching and Career Management from HEC University of Geneva. Where she wrote her Master Thesis “How does proficiency in English affect French-native professionals at work?” A qualitative research conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

She is the founder of Walk The Talk, which provides tailor-made professional coaching consultancy and training.

Her business background includes working with International companies in banking, finance, media, pharmaceuticals, and FMCG industries. Sunita’s coaching style advances the skills and approaches needed to develop performance. Her forte is the fact that she has studied and worked in several different countries and thus her understanding and knowledge of language communication and culture is compact and solid.

During her twenty-five years of international experience, Sunita’s objective has always been to support people to uncover and utilise their potential and to help individuals and organizations to perform at their very best.

Sunita is an accomplished speaker and business writer furthermore she has had several articles published articles in the press.

In her free time Sunita is a Mentor for the Richard Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship and a proud member of the School in The Cloud Team.

Hi I'm John, and I'm biased.

I am not the only one. You are too.

In fact all human beings are born with a set of biases and mental shortcuts that help us survive and deal with the world around us.

In the past such biases were vital to survival. We didn't need to worry about being fair and inclusive when we were living in caves; we were more concerned with finding the next woolly mammoth and avoiding being eaten by lions. Issues such as creating a diverse community were way down our priority list.

Times have changed. Now we live and work in a multicultural global environment and need to broaden our vision beyond our own narrow bias-filled perspectives. This isn't easy, and in fact a lot of biases will persist even if you are aware of them and intellectually believe they are wrong ... but we can only manage what we're aware of, and in this podcast we discuss what unconscious bias is and how as learning and development professionals we can improve our understanding of our own biases in order to improve our performance.

Paul Tizzard did his first "Train the Trainer" course in 1986 and has been a professional trainer since 1996 and independent since 2001. He is a trained presenter, coach and facilitator. Since becoming independent, he has been fortunate to work in many different countries with an eclectic range of industries and companies.

I feel extremely lucky to have the best job in the world

Paul set up Virgin Atlantic's Flying Without Fear programme, has written five books, is a Fellow of ITOL and has run more learning events than you could shake a stick at.

If I am lucky, I will pop my clogs about 95 years old whilst writing on flip charts!

Click here to visit Paul's website

Hi I'm John, and I'm biased.

I am not the only one. You are too.

In

In

Times have changed. Now we live and work

I have found SDI (Strengths Deployment Inventory) to be a really valuable tool in leadership development, despite my being a skeptical curmudgeon about most of these workplace psychometric tools.

What convinced me was partly personal - I felt it offered valuable insight into my own self (not a pretty sight) - but also because of the impact I've seen it have within the training room. I've used it mainly for leadership development, so that's my main experience, and I've seen many people (not everyone) find it really useful in not only raising self-awareness, but more importantly giving them a roadmap for strengths development that remains true to their authentic self.

In the podcast Simon Gallon talks through the basic theory and its wider application within L&D, in particular in teambuilding and leadership development activities.

It's another long one, but it's good stuff.

Simon Gallon is the Managing Director of PSP UK (Personal Strengths Publishing) and a member of PSP Inc.’s Board of Directors and is an expert in the application of all SDI (Strengths Deployment Inventory) related products and services. (TSDI® and Core Strengths®)

The TSDI® (TotalSDI) suite of tools is based on Relationship Awareness Theory, a unique approach to learning and development which focuses on the reasons why people behave in the ways they do. Through this expertise Simon has helped people across the world understand and apply their core strengths to make a difference to both their professional and personal relationships. By improving relationships between people, performance can be elevated on an individual, team and organisational level.

Simon’s skills as a facilitator, speaker and consultant have been honed over 20+ years of working with individuals at Partner level of major financial institutions, Senior Leaders in the Armed Forces, Managers and Leaders from a wide variety of organisations and cultures, Sales personnel and young people embarking on their next steps into further education.

His innovations as owner and manager of PSP’s largest, and most well-established distributor have led to the creation or improvement of many SDI-related products and services, such as: facilitator certification training programmes, feedback and expectations assessments, and many tools, tips, and techniques to improve overall SDI facilitation and organisational implementation. His areas of expertise are in interpersonal communication, teamwork, appreciative enquiry, conflict management and leadership development.