Enrichment: What the Trainer Brings

Why Great Trainers Bring More Than the Programme Into the Room

Imagine two trainers. Let us call them Trainer A and Trainer B. Both are asked to deliver exactly the same programme. They have the same learning objectives. The same trainer guide. The same slides. The same activities. The same learning materials.

Let us make the comparison even more interesting. Both are equally competent in Design. Both are equally skilled in Delivery. Both know how to Engage their learners.

Same programme. Same materials. Same level of competence. So, theoretically, the learning experience should be the same, right?

Except it won’t be. Because there is one thing we cannot make the same… The trainer.

And this brings us to the fourth and final dimension of my DDEE framework… Enrichment.

Then Someone Asks a Question

Everything is going according to plan. The trainer has explained the concept. The participants understand it. The activity has gone well. Then a hand goes up. “Juara, I understand what you’re saying. But what if…?”

I love these questions. Because what normally follows after the but is something that isn’t in the trainer guide.

The participant introduces a complication.

• A difficult boss. 
• An organisational constraint. 
• A cultural consideration. 
• A failed previous attempt. 
• An unusual client. 
• A political situation. A
•  team that simply refuses to cooperate.

Suddenly, knowing the content isn’t enough. There may no longer be one neat answer.

The answer becomes: “It depends.” or “Yes, but I would be careful about…” or even “I tried something similar once. Let me tell you what happened.”

This is where the trainer has to move beyond knowing the subject. The trainer has to understand its nuances. And for me, this is where Enrichment becomes visible.

Knowing About It and Having Done It

I have always believed strongly in being a practitioner of the things I teach. Not because practitioners know everything. We don’t. But because there is a difference between knowing about something and knowing something because you have lived through it.

When I answer a difficult question about something I have personally practised, there is a certain confidence that comes with it. Perhaps an even better word is conviction.

I have tried it. Sometimes I got it right. Sometimes I got it spectacularly wrong. I have seen what happens when an idea meets reality. I have had to make decisions when the answer wasn’t obvious. I have experienced the consequences of those decisions. And I have had the opportunity to reflect upon them afterwards.

That experience gives me something beyond knowledge. It gives me judgement.

It gives me the confidence that I have the credibility, authority and track record to offer something useful to the person asking the question.

I am not merely saying: “The book says this.”

I can say: “This is what happened when I tried it.”

There is a world of difference between the two.

The Power of Examples

This is also why I believe so strongly in what I call The Power of Examples. Not all examples are equal. For me, the most powerful example I can share is my own. Why? Because I know it is true. 

But more importantly, I know what happened beyond the version that eventually became the story because I know what

• I was thinking.
• I was feeling.
• I was worried about.
• almost happened.
• decisions were made and why they were made.
• went wrong.
• I realised afterwards.

The second most powerful example is someone else’s real experience that I have permission to share. It is still real. It still has value. But it isn’t mine. I may know the story, but I cannot know it with the same depth.

Then there are examples belonging to others that may be appropriate to share without identifying the individuals involved.

And finally, there are the theoretical examples and published case studies that we read about. These too have value. But they are not the same. 

A case study can tell me what happened. A good case study might even help me understand why it happened. But no report, however comprehensive, can completely transfer the experience of actually being there.

Some Things Never Make It Into the Report

Think about any significant experience in your own life. Now imagine somebody writing a ten-page report about it.

Would those ten pages contain everything you learned? Probably not. There are simply too many things that never make it into the report, for example:

• The hesitation before the decision.
• The conversation that happened outside the meeting room.
• The frustration.
• The excitement.
• The fear that you might have made the wrong call.
• The thing you noticed but didn’t understand until much later.
• The mistake that taught you more than the success.
• And, perhaps most importantly, the meaning you eventually made from the experience.

That is why I don’t believe reading extensively about something can ever completely replace practising it. You can understand an incident intellectually. But you do not have the same emotional connection to it.

And when participants begin asking questions that move beyond knowledge into judgement, emotion, synthesis or connecting the dots, that difference becomes significant. Examples os such questions are:

• “How did you know what to do?”
• “What would you have done differently?”
• “How did people react?”
• “Were you worried it wouldn’t work?”
• “When did you realise you had made a mistake?”
• “Would you still do the same thing today?”

These aren’t questions about the case study anymore. They are questions about experience.

But Experience Alone Is Not Enough

There is, however, an important caveat.

Simply having experience doesn’t automatically make someone a great trainer. We all know people who have been doing something for twenty years but may simply have repeated the same year twenty times.

Experience has to be examined. We need to stop occasionally and ask:

• What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• What did I learn?
• What assumptions did I make?
• What would I do differently?
• What can someone else learn from this?

This is where reflection becomes important.

Experience gives us the raw material. Reflection helps us make meaning from it. Over time, those lessons become internalised. And that internalisation creates conviction.

Experience → Reflection → Internalisation → Conviction

And eventually, that conviction finds its way back into the learning room. That is Enrichment.

You Can Borrow Knowledge. You Cannot Borrow Conviction.

I can read someone else’s book.

I can learn their model.

I can study their case.

I can attend their programme.

I can even become extremely knowledgeable about their work.

All of these things can make me a better trainer.

But there is something I cannot borrow. Their conviction.

Conviction has to be earned through experience. It comes from having stood inside the uncertainty yourself. From succeeding, from failing, from trying again and from reflecting on what happened and gradually developing your own point of view. And this is why two trainers delivering exactly the same programme can never truly be identical. They may share the same content. But they don’t share the same life.

So What Do We Bring Into the Room?

Over the years, I have thought a great deal about what gives a trainer credibility. I eventually organised these into what I call my 6Ps of Credibility:

• Practitioner. 
• Professional Qualification. 
• Pedigree. 
• Programme Design. 
• Public Persona. 
• Personality.

Our professional qualifications matter. Who and where we learned from matters. Our ability to design meaningful programmes matters. The body of work and thinking we put into the world matters. And our personality inevitably shapes the way we connect with people.

All of these enrich what we bring into the learning room.

But I place particular importance on the first P: Practitioner.

Because Practitioner allows me to say: “I have been there.”

Not: “I have read about it.”

Not: “Someone told me about it.”

But: “I have tried it.”, “I have struggled with it.”, “I have made mistakes doing it.”, “And this is what I have learned.”

That is a very different kind of credibility. And a very different kind of contribution to learning.

The Trainer Is Part of the Learning Material

When we design training, we spend a great deal of time thinking about learning materials.

• Slides.
• Workbooks.
• Activities.
• Videos.
• Case studies.
• Games.
• Job aids.

But there is another learning resource in the room that we sometimes forget. The trainer whose’s…

• experiences are learning resources.
• failures are learning resources.
• successes are learning resources.
• stories are learning resources.
• observations are learning resources.
• professional practice is a learning resource.
• questions they have struggled with over the years become learning resources.

The longer I practise, the more I realise that I am not merely delivering the programme.

I am bringing everything I have learned along the way into the programme. That is what enriches it.

Completing DDEE

And so we return to the four dimensions:

• Design is how we intentionally create the learning experience.
• Delivery is how we bring that design to life.
• Engagement is how we facilitate learners to participate in and create their own learning.
• And Enrichment is what we, as trainers, bring from our own experience, expertise, credibility and accumulated wisdom to deepen that learning.

The first three can be developed through methodology, practice and skill.

Enrichment is different. It accumulates because every…

• project contributes to it.
• client contributes to it.
• difficult participant contributes to it.
• success contributes to it.
• mistake contributes to it.
• moment we stop afterwards and ask, “What did I learn from that?” contributes to it.

Which means becoming a better trainer isn’t only about learning how to train better.

It is also about continuing to practise, experience, reflect and grow. Because ultimately, participants don’t only learn from the programme we bring.

They also learn from the person we have become while practising what we teach.