Trainer Tools

Accelerated learning is a term that is oft heard, but not oft understood, and even less oft applied effectively.

It's not just about playing some music, putting a load of fiddly toys out, and then forcing delegates to flip chart stuff for hours, there's more to it than that.

In this episode, I talk to accelerate learning expert Krystyna Gadd about her five secrets of accelerated learning: five areas that need to be considered to ensure that a learning event takes full advantage of all the benefits that accelerated learning can bring.

The only problem is that we went on too long, so I decided not to inflict an hour-long podcast on the poor listener, and instead split it into two halves.

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.

Accelerated learning is a term that is oft heard, but not oft understood, and even less oft applied effectively.

It's not just about playing some music, putting a load of fiddly toys out, and then forcing delegates to flip chart stuff for hours, there's more to it than that.

In this episode, I talk to accelerate learning expert Krystyna Gadd about her five secrets of accelerated learning: five areas that need to be considered to ensure that a learning event takes full advantage of all the benefits that accelerated learning can bring.

The only problem is that we went on too long, so I decided not to inflict an hour-long podcast on the poor listener, and instead split it into two halves.

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.

With so much great content available freely online, why would anyone bother paying for a training course? It's almost like people can go round learning stuff, willy-nilly, without us learning professionals getting involved at all!

Obviously that would never do, so what can we do to rise to the challenge of technology?

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Larry Reynolds about his ideas for the future of the training facilitator, including his experimental use of social networks and online communities to help reinforce learning.

Larry Reynolds is managing partner of Courageous Conversations at Work. He help business leaders to create high performing teams where people love to work. If you want to have more courageous conversations at work why not sign up for Larry’s free weekly leadership tips.

Recent clients include Next, Tetra Pak, NHS, schools and universities.

In this short extra episode of the Trainer Tools podcast series, I talk to Seema Sarawgi about a simple but effective technique she uses in teambuilding events.

The Paper Tower is very simple to prepare for and run, and can be used as a quick way to get people talking and moving about, or to develop deeper learning around teamwork, planning, communication and leadership in the context of the organisation.

Seema Sarawgi is a Learning and Development professional with around 8 years of experience of working with both public and private sectors in India and the UK.

She last worked for the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a Regional Learning and Development Officer where she designed and delivered formal and informal L&D solutions for staff across South Asia including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. She has also provided HR advisory and consulting to some of the biggest public sector undertakings in India such as Indian Oil, Indian Railways, Steel Authority of India, Delhi Metro etc.

She is very passionate about L&D and always goes an extra mile to deliver something innovative and sustainable. A particular highlight in her career was when she received an HRD award for “improving quality of working life” for unskilled labourers for an Indian Public company from the President of India at IFTDO, 2013.

Seema has a master’s degree in Organisational Behaviour from London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). She is also an MBA and a certified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) practitioner with a strong sense of business strategy further developed through working with one of the Big 4’s and similar boutique consulting firms.

Click here to visit Seema's profile on LinkedIn

Some things come up again and again in learning needs analyses, whatever the organisation, whatever the circumstances, and "assertiveness skills" (or something similar) is one of those things.

It crops up in the middle of loads of different structured training courses, it forms part of many coaching relationships, even pops up on teambuilding workshops from time to time. It seems like many of us human beings just aren't naturally that great at being assertive in a positive way, we tend to be either naturally passive or naturally aggressive, and struggle to calibrate assertiveness correctly.

In this episode, Kevin Stephens talks us through his approach to running an assertiveness workshop. As always with Kevin, it's a very practical and active approach that I hope has some good ideas for others facing the same learner needs.

Kevin Stephens is a Learning and Development practitioner who specialises in helping people get the most of their working relationships by delivering bespoke management and leadership programmes.

He has a large well of experience, gained from over 20 years working in senior management within a large international organisation and from having worked extensively with public and voluntary bodies. This has enabled him to help people overcome leadership barriers, whether they are experienced leaders or new to management.

His approach is to focus on making the learning environment fun, engaging and social, giving people the time and space to share experiences that help them to think through and address their personal challenges.

Kevin is Chief Executive of Winning Edge (UK) Ltd - a training company with the motto "Bringing your training to life".

He can be contacted on 07860 514314

Many managers are keen to create great teams, and there's no better way to do this than ask someone from the training department to come along and deliver a teambuilding day!

This is true of internal and external training providers equally, and although a teambuilding session can be truly effective and a lot of fun, it can also be an enjoyable waste of time, or even a total disaster.

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Paul Tizzard, author of The Teambuilding Pocketbook, about his approach to teambuilding events and how to make sure they are valuable, effective and fun.

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

Most of us working in learning and development get involved in training delivery. This usually involves a bit of teaching and a lot of facilitation.

We work this out over many years. Maybe we start by giving PowerPoint lectures, and only over time, as we learn more about our craft and gain in confidence, are we able to take a step back and focus on the process and a lot less on the content of training sessions.

This is facilitation: the management of the process that allows learning and understanding to emerge from discussion, activity and feedback.

I've been doing this for years, and I think I'm pretty good at it - but like many other trainers (or facilitators), I have no theoretical foundation to understand what I'm doing or how I could do it even better.

In this discussion with Nick Eve, he explains the theory that underpins great facilitation, and shows how this leads to effective facilitation behaviours.

Nick Eve specialises in developing people's facilitation skills.

His work is all about developing people's ability to run groups professionally and effectively.

He has been doing this since 1994. Before that he worked as a facilitator in organisational development. His fascination with groups and the role of the facilitator in enhancing their effectiveness has grown out of his own experiences, both with organisations and also from his group psychotherapy background.

His main expertise is in the provision of training to develop people’s facilitation skills and their facilitative management styles.

His overriding interest is in groups, how they operate and the role that a positive, supportive and impartial facilitator can have on improving their effectiveness in both the long and short term.

He underpins his practical facilitation skills training with relevant theory so that facilitators understand why they do what they do and where the theory comes from. Overall his aim is to increase awareness of what learning facilitators do, the effect it has, what is going on in the group, and how these dimensions interact with each other.

He has extensive training and experience as a group process facilitator. This ensures that his work is well founded theoretically and his ability to explain the core processes to participants from a wide range of backgrounds is second to none.

Click here to visit Nick's website

More and more people are turning to the Internet for training opportunities.

Face to face courses are expensive, often in inconvenient locations, and at fixed times in the distant future that may not suit your requirements.

They survive because they're often very good. You get the opportunity for social interaction and discussion, key factors in creating knowledge and understanding, and it's a very engaging experience away from normal work so you can focus and get on with it ... but the drawbacks mean that sometimes an online option is better.

Online learning in quick and easy to access, cheap, flexible and covers a massive variety of topics.

In this episode I speak to Bogdan Vaida about how he has taken his training courses and put them online, creating a suite of learning opportunities and amassing thousands of students - and a steady income - in the process!

Bogdan Vaida burst onto the training scene in 2009 using extremely old PowerPoint presentations. Luckily, 2 years later he switched to experiential training and learning by doing, methodologies that he practiced devotedly in all his training.

Known for his no-nonsense approach to getting results, Bogdan has been told that he helps participants get their own “insanely practical insights” that they can instantly implement into their lives.

What does he do?

He travels around the world doing experiential training in fields ranging from time management to personality types and trainer training.

While doing this he also manages his online courses that have over 7624 students from all over the world.

In 2015 he beat the record for total time spent in airports.

Cultural diversity can be a real minefield. It's very easy to put your foot in it and say or do the wrong thing, making learners feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.

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.

I didn't want to leave a big gap over summer, so I thought I'd chuck in another short podcast about a simple energiser, or icebreaker (it can be either, or both) that anyone can use on any course.

It's not just an icebreaker though, it also has positive health benefits (see here), including preventing hair loss! Something I wish I'd known about a few years ago.

Seema Sarawgi explains how she uses this and how it's a simple, fun and energetic way to start a training day.

Seema Sarawgi is a Learning and Development professional with around 8 years of experience of working with both public and private sectors in India and the UK.

She last worked for the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a Regional Learning and Development Officer where she designed and delivered formal and informal L&D solutions for staff across South Asia including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. She has also provided HR advisory and consulting to some of the biggest public sector undertakings in India such as Indian Oil, Indian Railways, Steel Authority of India, Delhi Metro etc.

She is very passionate about L&D and always goes an extra mile to deliver something innovative and sustainable. A particular highlight in her career was when she received an HRD award for “improving quality of working life” for unskilled labourers for an Indian Public company from the President of India at IFTDO, 2013.

Seema has a master’s degree in Organisational Behaviour from London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). She is also an MBA and a certified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) practitioner with a strong sense of business strategy further developed through working with one of the Big 4’s and similar boutique consulting firms.

Click here to visit Seema's profile on LinkedIn