I believe most people will agree that a person’s willingness to learn affects how much benefit they will get from any face-to-face course they attend. They may turn up to a course because they were told to do it, they thought it would be good, it will earn them more, help them find a job, or their friend is doing it. Their success, however, depends on their personality and the conclusions they have drawn about themselves and learning.
Even if they are willing and eager to learn, their ability to interact within a group without letting feelings of self-doubt, fear of being stupid when answering a question, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of being embarrassed, may interfere with their openness to learn. Personality and personal experience will keep getting in the way.
Why personality? Personality is a person’s in-built emotional guidance system. It is how they deal with daily life, and comes into play in a big way when the person steps outside their comfort zone. If they’re a positive person, new experiences are less likely to faze them; if they generally react negatively to new things, then any course will be a challenge. Their personality/ego will be sitting at their ear filtering everything they hear and judging it ‘good, bad, or okay. If the person comes from deficit-based thinking very little will get the thumbs up. The ego’s filter is: “How will this affect ME?” The answer or decision about whether to accept the new information will be based on judgements like: “I might have to work harder ...” “No one will listen to me if I suggest this ...”, “That’s not the way we do it at work ...”
If attendees come on a course without any understanding about their personality and how it works or affects them, they are less likely to benefit from new information. Their minds are closed to new ways of doing things.
The world population is generally deficit-based. This is not good news for trainers.
The world population is generally deficit-based. This is not good news for trainers.
Most of us are trained to think of what we haven’t yet got, rather than to be happy with what we already have. (Don’t get me started on advertising which picks up on this tendency of ours!) On the face of it, dissatisfaction with what we have might seem like a great motivation to improve. However, when you’re entrenched in deficit-based thinking it becomes your comfort-zone. You’re not goal orientated. You’re constantly waiting for the axe to fall, so it’s much safer to stay where you are. Often failure is better than success because ‘failure’ feels familiar.
In my experience, the best way to get past the negatives is to turn the course into fun. Stop worrying about ALL THIS STUFF they need to know. Use fun, challenging activities without winners and losers, and turn debriefs into moments of revelation. Give them the STUFF in written, audio or video ‘notes’! If they’ve enjoyed the course and got past their fears, chances are they might even refer to their ‘notes’ after the course. Oh ... and follow up personally with emails or text messages to encourage better take-up.
Best regards
Heather Sylvawood
Director
Edutech KM Ltd
Posts
