Trouble in the training room

From the whiner at the back to the manager reluctant to deal with their issues, Judith Germain gives her advice on dealing with difficult people on training courses. A good training course delivers its objectives, is interesting and interactive and allows for the differing learning styles of the attendees. However, the success of the course will require an effective trainer who can impart their knowledge whilst retaining the attention of the learners. To this end, understanding human behaviour is often a requisite to being able to deliver a course that can exceed the expectations put upon it. First things first When you are delivering training it’s important to understand not only what your required outcomes are, but also what the organisational goals are, the prevailing context and what the attendees were told about the course before they arrived. You are more likely to have a higher proportion of difficult people on your course if attendance was mandatory and not seen as necessary by them, and/or an organisational environment where major change is happening (e.g. redundancy). Understanding the expectations of the attendees and whether they are likely to be hostile to your training intervention is therefore vital. If this is a possibility then it’s important to design the content of the course accordingly and deal with their potential hostility upfront and immediately that the course starts. A ‘safe’ way to do this is when you ask the attendees what their objectives are for the training course. Our experience shows that at this stage the attendees often articulate any resentment to being on the course and how they feel about the organisation. This is a fantastic opportunity to discover their objections, listen to their issues and calibrate them to the need for attending the course. This is why knowledge of the organisational context is important. It is imperative that this section on understanding their objections and you addressing them should be kept very short. The last thing that you want to do is spend significant time discussing their objections as it will have a destabilising effect of the morale of the group and your ability to deliver the course well and on time.