(article) 5 quaities of a Great Trainers

(1) At the most basic level, great trainers are great communicators.

They bring the fundamentals of language and neurolinguistic gymnastics to the classroom and they are able to adapt them to the audience, the moment and the need in such a way that the rules of grammar don't get in the way of clarity and relevance. Like a great speech, training requires the structural muscle of a solid, context-setting introduction that makes every person in the audience feel like this is a one-on-one, followed by sequentially-optimised content, and a killer close that brings the crowd to its feet and sends them charging back to the front lines with the fervour of a Beckham goal attack.

Old school trainers work through an agenda and knock off at five. Cutting-edge trainers get inside the heads of their listeners and create new thinking, always looking for better ways to get 'the message' across.

(2) Great trainers become as invisible as personal stylists and immediately sense the sweet spot of their audience, quickly adopting their language, worldview, belief systems and paradigms, while tailoring the content to work harmoniously with any preconceptions, even when those preconceptions are the very thing the training seeks to dismantle or shift.

Just try telling the folks in the programming department that you are now a customer-driven entity instead of a technology-driven one - this is like telling a room full of conservatives that they must now send a monthly contribution to a national healthcare centre - and you'll see the need for something that goes far beyond the scope of old school.

(3) Great trainers are light on their feet.

They know that in every audience there awaits a cunning saboteur, waiting for just the right moment to fire off a question that unsettles or challenges them. This challenge can take many forms - it may seek to discredit or show up the trainer, or it may be a genuine disregard for, or disagreement or dismissal of, the content itself. Like a seasoned stand-up comic, great trainers are ready for any and all assaults from the cheap seats, and they don't blink as they deflect or return the volley with credible nimbleness, hopefully not at the expense of the upstart questioner but with the ability to put him in his place if that is what is required.

(4) Great trainers are students of their craft.

Training is nothing if not an exercise in human psychology, and the best incorporate a keen understanding of what makes employees tick into their presentations. All training should be delivered with a strategy at its heart, one carefully conceived through a melding of content objectives, audience profile and the application of the latest thinking in the discipline.

Great trainers are special. They bring skill and acumen to the training room that those executives, while possessing credentials and being well intentioned, probably couldn't bring.

Effective trainers have a spirit about them, and enlightened training managers look for it in their countenance.

(5) Passionate trainers thrive within structure and also when it completely breaks down.

Like pilots whose adrenaline goes into overdrive during a good thunderstorm along the route of the flight plan, great trainers thrive on ambiguity; they find a gap and fill it, they see a pothole and look for a way to make the road a better experience.