How Easy Train­ing Strate­gies Can Help Make Your Pre­sen­ta­tions “Stick!“

What would worry you more?

• Your 14 year old daugh­ter comes home from school say­ing that her class had a sex-education les­son with a pre­sen­ta­tion OR
• Your 14-year-old daugh­ter comes home from school say­ing that she had sex training.

If you’d be more con­cerned about the sec­ond option, it’s because you already know the dif­fer­ence between pre­sen­ta­tion and train­ing. “Pre­sen­ta­tion is about pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion,” says Henry Stew­art of Insti­tute of IT Train­ing in United King­dom. “Train­ing is about build­ing skills through active involve­ment and inter­ac­tion. Train­ing is about doing it.”

Pur­pose of Pre­sen­ta­tions
Typ­i­cal pre­sen­ta­tions involve lis­ten­ing and watch­ing. They demand no active response from lis­ten­ers unless they include a “Q-and-A” ses­sion at the end. Pre­sen­ta­tions are great for intro­duc­ing prod­ucts and “Big Ideas.” They are often not effec­tive if details must be retained, action taken, or behav­iors changed.

Pur­pose of Train­ing
2400 years ago, Con­fu­cius declared:
“What I hear, I for­get.
What I see, I remem­ber.
What I do, I understand.”

The pur­pose of train­ing is to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and skills that par­tic­i­pants will use in the real world. Par­tic­i­pants must be actively involved dur­ing the ses­sion if they’re going to inte­grate and remem­ber the infor­ma­tion. For their behav­ior to change out­side the ses­sion, par­tic­i­pants must have the oppor­tu­nity to “mull the infor­ma­tion over” and process it men­tally before the ses­sion is over.

Pre­sen­ta­tions Can Ben­e­fit from Inject­ing Strate­gies From Train­ing
What if you only have 20 min­utes, you’re expected to “present,” and it’s also expected that the par­tic­i­pants will not only lis­ten, but also learn? It’s time to try a “hybrid.” Use a strat­egy, bor­rowed from the realm of train­ing, that allows par­tic­i­pants to process and retain information.

5 Ways to Ensure Reten­tion Even Under Strict Time Con­straints
Here are five quick strate­gies that ensure reten­tion dur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion, even under stiff time con­straints. For best results, briefly explain to the par­tic­i­pants at the begin­ning of the ses­sion which strat­egy you will use so that they don’t set­tle into a pas­sive “lis­ten­ing” mode.

• Pref­ace the ses­sion by briefly stat­ing a rel­e­vant prob­lem. Ask par­tic­i­pants to be ready to solve the prob­lem by session’s end based on what they’ve learned.
• Dis­trib­ute a list of ques­tions for par­tic­i­pants to answer as you present. (By direct­ing par­tic­i­pants to lis­ten and search for infor­ma­tion cov­ered, you actively engage their attention.)
• Ask a rel­e­vant ques­tion and make it clear you expect the par­tic­i­pants to think about it; then have them share their responses with one other per­son. (Optional: then elicit few of those responses.)
• Inter­rupt your­self peri­od­i­cally and chal­lenge par­tic­i­pants to give exam­ples of the con­cepts pre­sented thus far or to answer “spot-quiz” questions.
• Pro­vide a “quickie” self-test either before, dur­ing or after the session.

It’s pos­si­ble to avoid “Pour and Snore” pre­sen­ta­tions sim­ply by inject­ing a sim­ple train­ing strat­egy here and there. Try it, and watch your par­tic­i­pants come alive!

In this arti­cle, we’ve looked at the dif­fer­ences between pre­sen­ta­tion and train­ing. We explore many of these strate­gies in Trainer Devel­op­ment sessions.

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Read more arti­cles about Train­ing Devel­op­ment and Pre­sen­ta­tion Skills. Learn about Guila Muir’s Trainer Devel­op­ment Work­shops..

Guila Muir is the pre­miere trainer of train­ers, facil­i­ta­tors, and pre­sen­ters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thou­sands of pro­fes­sion­als improve their train­ing, facil­i­ta­tion, and pre­sen­ta­tion skills. Find out how she can help trans­form you from a bor­ing expert to a great pre­sen­ter: www.guilamuir.com

© 2007 Guila Muir. All rights reserved.
You may make copies of this arti­cle and dis­trib­ute in any media so long as you change noth­ing, credit the author, and include this copy­right notice and web address.

Related posts:

1. The “Inten­si­fied You:” Key to Giv­ing a Great Presentation
2. Pre­sen­ta­tion Skills: How to Pre­vent “Drowning”
3. Man­age Your Pre­sen­ta­tion Nerves!
4. 3 Words to Weaken Your Presentation
5. Four Gender-Specific Pre­sen­ta­tion Blunders

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Presentation Skills, Training Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.