How to make illustrative examples on training?

Nenuphar PaintingSome weeks ago, a young trainer I’m mentoring came to me with a question… You might be interested to know that she became BEST Trainer last spring in Riga. And even though she is starting very well, there is a field she would like to develop which is: “How to make great examples for training?”

At first sight, the question is well defined and answering to it sounds simple though when striving to provide an answer, it appeared to me that it was more complex then initially thought. So here is my attempt to answer her question. From a mail, it turned out to be a post as many others may have the same wondering and no one to talk to. As Albert Einstein said: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler” (BrainyQuote).

During training sessions, examples are powerful tools to help participants understand a concept, its subtlety if there is, and can also project themselves applying it. Examples ought to be clear, simple, short, easy to relate to and prepared!

Design

Like many things in training, examples should be prepared beforehand to ensure that they clarify the content instead of confusing audience. Here is a method presented by the Heath Brothers in the book “Made to stick” that I personally also use in this context of examples design…

Ideas that stick in people minds seem to have a certain set of characteristics. It’s what they discovered and share in the book. For an example to stick in your audience mind, here are the characteristics of the SUCCES method:

Simple

Keep the example short, simple and illustrating your point in a unique way. If you want to talk about various aspect of your topic, picking several short examples is better then choosing one generalising because a jack-of-all-trades might also bring some confusion along.

Unexpected

The main idea here is dual… First to catch your audience attention and then to hold it for as long as your example will run.
You can choose a situation audience experienced, one where you were not present. It shows that you cared enough about them to look for records specific to your participants.
You can also present a situation from a different field of activity though with a clear link to the topic and how participants can behave.

Credible

All your examples don’t have to come from participants or trainers’ background. You can also present believable stories you crafted or real ones, better the second.

Concrete

The morale of the example should be duplicable and transposable to audience’s life situation. Something they can start to do now or tomorrow without much initial effort.

Emotional

Triggering the emotional factor will help your example be more alive in participants’ minds. You can use abstracts from famous movies or series which will reminds shared moments.
And last note: Happy endings makes better examples.

Story

There are many ways to design stories… When designing examples for my sessions, I use the following sequence: initial situation -> change factor -> choice made by character(s) -> consequence -> final situation

Prepare

Once your example is designed through SUCCES, you did most of the job though remember that timing is key!

Write it down

I would suggest you to write the examples down. You take your personal note taking habits and if you don’t have, just write the full length of what you want to say. This exercise will help you ensure that what you want to convey will fit its purpose.

Rehearse

When your script is ready, rehearse, rehearse and do it once more because you want your message to be crystal clear.

When on stage, you’ll hit at the first mark more easily which will project confidence and mastery of the topic you are delivering.

Prototype

In the case you want to use creative techniques to illustrate your example, before spending hours into prop design, make a first draft and see if it will work for you. If it doesn’t, figure out why before thinking about dropping the idea.
Once you investigated your proof of concept, you can go for the big thing or make participants craft it. If you go for the later option, make sure that you are able to do what you are asking from them. Nobody likes to be fooled.

Evaluate

Because a good example can save you a lot of time and energy in explaining a concept. It is important to prepare ways you will collect participants’ impressions about the quality of your examples and the methods used to illustrate them.
You can walk around and collect their reaction while presenting your example, you can ask them at the end of the session or during break time. One thing I use to do is to record learning blocks of my training session to be able to improve my own presentation skills and improve next time; like when I use Value Game as activity to find out what motivates people.

To conclude

By designing your examples, as trainers do for their learning blocks, by preparing what one will say or use and by evaluating impacts of examples in order to improve on the long run, I managed to provide elements for you to answer the question.
If I could show you a simple way that you can apply these techniques to make illustrative examples, would you be interested?

More to come about what these props were illustrating will come on another post. 🙂

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