You as a Trainer

Welcome to the community of MWS trainers. As an MWS Licensed Trainer, you are automatically part of a movement to empower the workforce – and in making the workplace an even better place.

You are now a leader, an advocate for learning in your organization. Here are the 10 Essential Keys to be an effective MWS Licensed Trainer.

Key 1: Be Prepared.

Preparation is vital to the success of your workshop. To prepare, firstly, decide on what you want to achieve, your participants’ expectations and the learning outcome of your workshop.

Then, go through the MWS Trainers Kit thoroughly, read through the Learning Journal, the presentation slides, and Trainers Notes. While you are doing this, think of your own real life experiences that are relevant to the key message. Incorporate your own case studies, metaphors and contextualize the activities.

Watch out for the structure and flow of the program. Remember, the Trainers Notes are guidelines, you need to capture the essence and on how it can facilitate the participants to think, feel or do differently.

Most of all, be prepared mentally and spiritually. Get into state and into gear. Remember to activate your power house, visualize and practice running the program in your mind over and over again. Do take personal responsibility in delivering excellence.

Key 2. Be Creative.

Make your training interesting. MWS provides you the guidelines how you can conduct your training, however it is up to you to bring the content to life. Be creative to use a variety of ways to grab the attention of your participants, put props to great use, tell a great story, and incorporate new learning energizers.

So, step out of the box, and just be creative!

Key 3. Be Graceful

Manage your state and OWN your stage. This is your show.

Just like a duck swimming gracefully– it does not show everyone how hard it is paddling below and it does not splash water all round to create a scene. So, keep it graceful, even when things go wrong – even when the projector doesn’t work, even if your computer hang, or when a participant lash out at you. Don’t tell them how hard it has been for you – instead show them how great a journey you have traveled to arrive.

The greatest attribute of any trainer – is the ability to be in the eye of the storm. Be the calm amidst the chaos. To take charge and lead everyone forward.

Key 4. Focus on your core message.

What is the one thing that you want your participants to remember, change or feel differently? Be very clear of your core message; and deliver it succinctly and repeatedly. For each activity and each topic, make sure you sum it up to support your core message.

You will find that your training becomes more focused, and within the 4 hours time frame, you will achieve what you set out to achieve.

Key 5. Contextualize

With the bulk of the work done for you, all you need to do now is to contextualized it. Contexualizing simply means putting the content in the context of your participants, organization and industry. It is the very essence of making your training relevant , meaningful and effective. It makes them understand you, their work process, and your organization even better.

Key 6. Adapt.

Adapt your training to your participants. With each topic and each activity, relate the key learning to the role they play and how it affects them. As a leader, you must be able to jive with your employees, you need to know what would ignite their interest, what makes them sit up and listen. What really makes them sit up and listen is when what’s being said adds value to their work and life. So adapt yourself and your training to fit your participants.

Key 7. With your Enthusiasm

You need to be sold yourself first, of what you are training. You need to be the model of what you advocate, what you train and you say. You need to be totally excited and enthusiastic about the subject matter. Enthusiasm just like laughter is highly contagious. Your fun, enthusiastic and creative personality will breathe life to your workshop.

Key 8. Experiential

Move people to action! Always incorporate lots of fun activities through out the workshop. Don’t just stand up there – downloading verbal spam. Learning happens best when the learners interact both with the information and with others. They discuss their understanding and communicate that understanding with others during activities. There is a more effective understanding of the content and they are more likely to be able to apply it to different situations.

You must get the participants to experience for themselves, reflect and reiterate what they have learnt.

Key 9. Engaging

Engage your participants to share their challenges and experiences. You can tap on the vast resources of the participants. Learning happens best when people are actively involved in their own learning; when they can draw on their own experiences; when they can connect thoughts with their feelings.

So to wrap it all up, as a trainer, you need to make it relevant and bring it to life!

And most importantly Key 10, to EMPOWER. Remember, people feel empowered when they can do what is needed to be done and can trust that they have the competencies needed to do it. We take pride in making a positive difference in the lives of our workforce and the workplace. Remember, when we are having fun doing the very thing that contributes to the betterment of ourselves and others, no other role can be even more satisfying.

So, we wish you the very best. Go out there, train them to soar so together we can achieve even more.