Many of you who subscribe to our blogs are trainers as well as coaches. And some of you don’t train often, or ever. The topic for this month is about training – for coaches, and is written with both groups in mind.
To start, think about some training courses that you have attended over the years. I know that in the last year or two so much training has been online, because of the corona crisis. Think about those too – online as well as classroom based training. Divide them up into three categories: good; average; poor. Then think about the elements of those training sessions, and decide what made them good/average/poor. This gives you a snapshot of what good and less good training is like – at least for you.
Training is a mixed bag
When I did the above exercise I realised that I have attended some really high quality training over the years. Engaging, participative, deep learning experiences, opportunities to share, connect, reflect and engage. Those of you who deliver training regularly – and there are many of you within our coaching community – will know this from having delivered high quality training!
But I’ve also been on some shockers. School inset days that wouldn’t have passed an Ofsted inspection if delivered to students. Slide heavy presentations, with no opportunity for activities. Too simple. Or too complex.
One of the things that has struck me about training is that many people’s expectations of being trained are low! When participants say complimentary things to me about my training, they are often couched with a caveat. Something like “The training was great, and normally training is rubbish” or “I really didn’t expect it to be good, but it was”. Flattery indeed!
Is there a standard qualification or accreditation for trainer?
For most professions, skills or roles, there is a clear qualification pathway. Become a teacher – do teacher training. Become a coach – do your ILM/ICF or other official course. But for training – nothing properly recognisable. Yes, there are industry specific accreditations, qualifications for teaching adults on NVQs and other specialist areas. But not one, standard and universally recognised qualification or accreditation for training skills.
I have often wondered why that is. No definite conclusions as yet! Perhaps because it can be very different in each sector. Perhaps because so many people deliver training as such a small part of their role that attaching a qualification to it makes it feel so onerous.
It is not the only reason, but I do think that the lack of a clear pathway to quality, via a qualification, is one of the problems that allows there to be low quality training. There isn’t a fixed standard of what good quality looks like, so there is a bit of an anything goes flavour of some training.
What has this got to do with us coaches?
Good question! For those of you who already train as well as coaches, you will have seen and experienced the overlap between the two areas. For others, perhaps it isn’t so obvious yet.
My view is that of the many skills that we learn as coaches, plenty of them can be transferred to the training environment. In fact, the best training experiences I have been in have had strong similarities with coaching. I was asked questions, given time to reflect, had a personalised agenda to work to, made my voice count, felt included and listened to. Sound familiar? You can see that these are all coaching skills, that also add value in the training environment.
Because of this, even if you have never delivered training, you are in a great place to start. All of your coaching skills can be bundled up, considered also as training skills and used as a starting point, if you want to get involved as a trainer. There will be other skills to learn, of course, but having good coaching skills under your belt is a great starting point.
We’ve explained more here about the difference between coaching and training.
Why should I be a trainer too?
You don’t have to be! You may be very busy with coaching, and with the rest of your work and other activities, and so there isn’t time or energy to train as well. But if you do have time or energy, there are some big benefits from becoming a trainer too. These include:
Credibility and contribution. If you can carry out training as part of your day job, you will be seen as a valued team member or leader, with an extra set of skills to offer, over and above your existing great skills
Commercial opportunities. If you are a self employed coach, you can offer training as another service, either directly to your clients, or by becoming a subcontracted trainer for one of the many organisations who take on trainers. Many, many coaches go down this route
Ongoing professional development. Learning to be a good trainer not only gives you another string to your bow, but also impacts on your other professional skills, including coaching. The coaching skills that you’ll bring to the training environment will improve, and then when you take them back to coaching, those skills will allow your coaching to become even better
Does this mean I need to do another qualification?
As I mentioned earlier, there are so few qualification options out there, and it is so unclear what pathway to follow, that further qualifications probably isn’t the answer. Perhaps this will change over the years – we do have bodies writing national standards for all areas of learning and development, so it is possible that we may get a clear qualification route at some point. For the moment, if you want to develop high quality training skills, it is much better to work out your own plan. This can be done by:
- Deciding what your training approach and preferred style is
- Investing in self study, brief courses, peer support and reading, to develop your style
- Run some practice training sessions with small groups, to get feedback and to hone your style
What influences my training style?
I am often asked this question, and have developed a programme to teach this to trainers. It is a mixed bag, but everything that has gone into the bag is there for a reason. I have been lucky enough to have been training since my 20s, and have experienced lots of train the trainer courses. So I know what I think works best, and have focussed on these areas:
Advanced facilitation skills. Basic facilitation starts the change from training being instructor led/chalk and talk, to a more inclusive approach. Advanced facilitation takes this to the next level, and helps to create an environment where full participation is the norm, rather than an occasional interlude
Brain friendly learning. This is an umbrella term for a range of approaches that build on facilitation skills, make the learner participation and experience the centre of the training, and understands well individual needs so that training can be adapted. There is a thriving brain friendly learning community, with books, courses, Linkedin groups
Cooperative learning. I came across this approach when working in schools, and seeing it in practice. The focus is to ensure equal participation by all, via simultaneous interaction. It works fantastically well in the classroom, with 30 students and a heavy curriculum to cover. And it works equally well in the adult learning environment, with rich learning content to cover
Growth mindset. You will know from my other writing that mindset approaches are dear to my heart. Having the belief that everyone is a developing learner, and that everyone can develop new skills, is at the core of my beliefs about teaching and about learners. This allows me to have an approach that focuses on experience and opportunity, rather than lecture and correction.
Learning pit and metacognition. A couple of fancy terms that teaching colleagues will recognise. Building on the mindset approach, the learning pit (not the greatest analogy ever!) is a metaphor for putting learners in an environment where the answers take time, energy and graft to come up with. There is learning in the process of working through things, practicing, collaborating and solving. This is powerful and works well. And the metacognition (learning about learning) is to make sure that the opportunity to reflect on what we have learnt is provided, regularly
A fairly long list, but all attainable, and all learnable. There are other influencers to my training, but these are the ones I am most enthusiastic about, and see the benefits for learners.
Last thoughts about training skills for coaches
You have worked hard to become a coach and will continue to work on it. You’ll know that there is so much available to you as coaches to continue your learning: books; webinars; peer support groups….. Keeping on investing in your coaching is wonderful, and there may be no time for looking at training.
And if there is time to consider training as another string to your bow, or you are already a trainer who is keen to improve, then there is another world of learning resources to help you there. All the areas I mentioned above have resources attached to them, which I am happy to share – you just need to email to ask. One of the downloads this month gives details on many of my approaches to training, with specific activities, so you can start practising these, too.
If this has got you thinking about adding training to your coaching work, get in touch and we can talk through what that might look like for you.
