The SME to Trainer Journey
” ‘You’re great at football! Next match, you can drive team bus! …’
… said no manager, ever. Because what could possibly go wrong there?
Subject matter experts are the jewels in any organisation. The smaller employer can find them a huge asset in building their business capability. As the permanent dedicated training unit may now be an out-of-budget luxury, the in-house SME can offer the ideal solution to the need to develop your people.
But simply handing the training task over to them without building their training skillset first is setting them up to fail. Being great at their job doesn’t automatically mean they’ll be great at training others. So many SME trainers fall into their training role with little training and support and it’s a case of sink or swim.
The solution? Train your aspiring and new SME trainers to train.
How to do that? Whether you choose in-person or online training, outsourced, in-house or self-directed learning from the wealth of expertise out there – however you choose to achieve it, here’s your insider’s guide to transforming them into confident effective new trainers.
They and their managers will need to understand:
The whole point of training – to provide the knowledge, skills and mindsets that audiences need, to cause that permanent change in behaviour with real workplace results.
Why and how adults learn – the principles of 70:2:10 and a brain-friendly ‘sticky’ learning approach.
Why organisations train – the drivers, and what gets in the way.
How to develop their professional brand as a partner to the business rather than just an obedient order taker. They’ll need new access and acceptance as colleagues who’ll be holding a mirror up to the business, asking some searching questions it may not be used to hearing.
They’ll need a robust practical framework as a guide to those first steps in training. The ADDIE training cycle is the ideal structure:
Analyse
Beginning with the end in mind, starting with the desired end results and working to achieve those.
Identifying the key stakeholders – what are their values, goals and needs, their concerns and worries, what’s keeping them up at night?
Identifying the audience, the heart of any training intervention – who are they, where are they now, where do they need to be?
Do they need to …
Do new? Compliance, products?
Do different? Priorities, goals?
Do better? Reduce complaints, improve standards?
What new behaviour is wanted?
Design
Here’s where the aim and what the audience will be able to do as a result of this training are identified. The high-level vision, it sets out what to cover and how, to get that client sign-off and the green light to start creating the content to achieve those goals. Creates all around confidence, gets agreement and prevents wasting time and money if the design isn’t quite there yet.
Develop
This is the creative phase and has its own stages. First throwing all those ideas about – what could we do, might we do?
Then when that’s all out, what should we do, will we do? What does this group of people need to hear from us right now to achieve those aims and objectives? Lock down what’s essential, add in what’s useful and have what’s nice in reserve if time.
Then chunking essential content around, seeing what works where, discarding maybe. Doesn’t matter if this bit’s a mess, just get that rough picture laid out and moved and moved about till it flows.
Then the refining, polishing and adding value, with activities and interactions to keep them engaged.
And finally the PowerPoint. Presentations are to be said not read. If there’s one thing I’d like SMS to grasp it’s that training isn’t standing up in front of the script on the slide and reading it out. The PowerPoint is the last thing to be created as an illustration and support to the spoken words.
Here they’ll need support with the fluidity of this stage as they journey towards the finished product.
Implement
They’ll need a brilliant toolkit of delivery skills, including public speaking, facilitation, questions, difficult situations and challenging people. So many key skills they can learn and develop with line manager support.
They must get to grips with nerves. Being great at the role seldom means they’ll be naturally confident and charismatic in front of an audience, and that too is a skill they can learn.
Evaluate
Evaluation can be the poor relation of the training process and too often stops at reactions and happy sheets, if it even gets that far. The trainer needs to be able to assess learning, observe and measure behaviour change and investigate and prove results.
That incisive new questioning approach comes in again, here. Was the training value for money? Did it deliver the results? Did it do what it said on the tin? Which brings us right back to where we started – beginning with the end in mind and a clear sense of what results the business wants.
Through the whole process they’ll need support from line management, who may need to be learning new skills themselves around managing new SME trainers.
The outcomes?
The business will be confident their teams are developing their knowledge, skills and mindsets with the people best placed to achieve that – SMEs who do the job at the highest level.
It’ll also become more confident with being asked to reflect and be open around what may not be going so well, and what’s needed to put that right.
Learners respect their trainers because they know they have boots on the ground and are doing the job expertly themselves.
New trainers feel valued and appreciated, knowing their skills and potential have been recognised and boosted.
Your subject matter experts are already one of your greatest assets. Support and develop them as they learn and apply trainer skills, and you’ve secured a brilliant new asset for your business at no extra payroll cost. Because they’re already with you.”
Philippa Hammond
Learning and development consultant, trainer & facilitator
