Tools

Can I Be a Trainer?
By Dhafer Hasan

A few years ago, I asked myself this question over and over again among many others: what did I want to do? where did I want to go? and many other questions that we ‘youth’ keep asking ourselves. With regards to training, I began thinking about ‘what it takes to be a trainer’ and ‘do I have what it takes to be one.’

I was never a public speaker, although my mother told me I used to be one when I was 3. I believe some people are born gifted with the ability and courage to stand up in front of people and talk about what they believe in or want others to believe. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was not one of these people, but this didn’t stop me. Training was therefore the only way I could become a trainer.
 
It was a really fun and challenging thing to do. During the training, you study about amazing things such as human behavior, ways of thinking, ways to convince people, and techniques, tools, and different ways to present your ideas. This training journey not only enhances your abilities as a trainer, it also makes you confident about who you are and what you are capable of. Moreover, it makes you find out your weaknesses and how to deal with them. One of my trainers once told me “sometimes, you try to break down your trainees once you find out that they are trying to show off” at which time I thought “me!!? No way…” From that moment on, I learned something very important: how to use your trainees to enhance the discussion when one of them is trying to ‘share’ his/her information with the group.

Furthermore, you learn during these courses about training skills as we discuss simple things such as how you stand, how you dress, how you move, what facial expressions you should use, etc. It is so hard to keep track of every move you make because body language is how your body reacts to your emotions; changing your body language to match what you want to say is a challenging process. At the beginning, it was a nightmare when your trainer keeps telling you to take your hands out of your pockets every time you talk, that you have used 30 filler words during your 3 minute speech, or even that you didn’t summarize the idea at the end of your presentation. However, everything keeps getting better and better and you find yourself more confident about everything you are doing. The turning point occurs when you naturally start using this new body language, techniques, words, and ideas as if you were born using them and you cannot imagine yourself talking without behaving this way. This is what training is all about: adapting new skills and knowledge to be part of you, part of your thinking, your dreams, and your daily life.

We all agree that adapting new behaviors is a challenge, but it is nothing compared to the ability of changing others’ behaviors. Mastering this ability does not make you someone who can only talk in public; it also makes you a leader.

To make my experience more practical, lets break this into a few tips I believe have significant importance:

Tip 1: Training is not acting: you must believe what you are talking about to make it sound real.
Tip 2: Be natural: don’t overreact with your body language and your movements.
Tip 3: Be well prepared: search, read, study, ask questions, seek help and investigate before you hold a training session.
Tip 4: Practice beforehand: practice your speech to get used to it, alter it to refine it and time yourself to be on time.
Tip 5: 3Es (Educate, Entertain, and Explain): make sure they are well balanced because if you concentrate on entertaining, for example, your trainees will not take you seriously.
Tip 6: Know your trainees: to be well prepared, you have to study your audience.
Tip 7: Start on time and finish on time.
Tip 8: Enrich your ideas with examples; real life examples always stay in mind.
Tip 9: If you talk to them they will forget, if you show them they may remember, but if you let them do it for themselves they will learn.
Tip 10: Be part of the learning process, not the boss that everybody hates.
Tip 11: Know that you can learn from your trainees.
Tip 12: Don’t be afraid to ask questions: you can use the participants’ questions to illustrate your idea even better.
Tip 13: Make sure the training environment is suitable: the hall, the air-conditioning, the lights, the flipchart etcetera.
Tip 14: Listen carefully.
Tip 15: Use Technology: Power point, data show, etcetera.
Tip 16: Evaluate your training.