Hi Ruth
I sympathise with the situation you describe, and agree that if possible it's always best to contact participants in advance to find out their needs/ expectations for the course. However, as we all know, this is not always possible/ feasible. So, on the course, a couple of things which may help are: introduce yourself to each person as they come in, then they will know you are the trainer and the embarassing "don't want/ need to be here" discussion hopefully won't happen. Also if you sense that there is resentment or negativity in the room, it can help to have an opening session of "Which one of the 4 P's are you? Participant, Passenger, Prisoner or Protestor. And then hold an open and honest discussion about how they feel about being there. Sometimes just allowing people to have their say is enough and they will settle down to learn afterwards. I would usually follow up this session with the course contract agreeing acceptable behaviours, again to try to prevent problems, and failing this, have a framework to deal with them should they occur. A variation on the 4 P's model is whether the person is an Explorer, Holiday maker or Prisoner. Can be done in a light hearted yet serious way. The bottom line is though that if the person should not have been there in the first place, then they should, where possible, be given the opportunity to leave, and in any case the problem should be fed back to whoever procured the event/ the person's line manager.
Hope this is helpful.
by Quentin Emery
Freelance Consultant at Emerge UK
Bradford, United Kingdom
Thanks Quentin for some very good advice. What are some of the techniques you have used to deal with this difficult and uncomfortable situation?
No comments:
Post a Comment