Training has come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days when an instructor stood at the overhead projector, and droned on for hours on end. These days it's much more likely that participants take part in activities that involve them moving around a training room which is full of colour and life. The air is fresh and there's a buzz of activity. There is lots of laughter, music is sometimes playing, and people are interacting and collaborating.

However, just because a training course is filled with fun and activity doesn't necessarily guarantee more learning. It's possible to have the sizzle without the substance. In fact, one of the reasons why some people are put off accelerated or brain-friendly learning is that they try to incorporate the razzamatazz without taking care to ensure that the activity supports the learning, rather than distracts from it. Smearing “energizers” and other fun activities on to a fundamentally dull course design just doesn't hack it - this is called “manicuring the corpse”.

At Kaizen, we believe learning events can be enjoyable and full of significant and long lasting learning, if you design them to be in harmony with the way our brains work.

However, designing training events like this requires considerable knowledge and skill. And here's where my challenge to trainers comes in. I'd like to suggest that there are seven deadly sins made by trainers - sins that can easily be overcome by taking a brain-friendly learning approach.

The Seven Deadly Sins for Trainers…

Deadly Sin 1

Trainers place the “content” or the “material” at the centre of what they do, rather than the transfer of learning back to the real job and link to business results. This leads to death-by-powerpoint, and the teaching of “stuff” rather than the enabling of learning. Too often, trainers haven't engaged the whole system (the learner, the learner's boss, the business need) in order to really address the “what's in it for me?” factor.

Deadly Sin 2

Trainers take too long to design learning experiences, often because they are not crystal clear about the real required outcomes. I've come across organizations where the training function will take three months to design a one-day seminar - by which time the business has moved on! This is caused in part by the first point above, and by a lack of understanding of the real business priorities.

Deadly Sin 3

They neglect the central importance of emotional state to learning - and instead of designing this in - they have to worry about “motivating” and “energising” their participants during the course. When people are in a flow state, in an atmosphere of high challenge and low stress, learning things they know will make a real difference - you really don't need to pepper the course with irrelevant energisers. The sizzle comes from the substance - and from the creative way you've designed the learning experience.

Deadly Sin 4

They design a “one size fits all” learning experience. We've known for decades that people learn in different ways, and we have some fabulous tools to models to help accommodate this - learning styles, multiple intelligences, the 4-MAT system and so on. And despite this, some trainers still run training events where everybody goes through exactly the same experience.

Deadly Sin 5

Many trainers are still being “sages on the stage”, instead of “guides on the side”. The brain-friendly rule of thumb is that your learners should spend at least 70% of the learning experience doing something other than just listening to you! In my view, learning isn't about the consumption of information anyway, it's about the creation of meaning, value and ultimately action on the part of the learner. Nothing wrong with a passionately-delivered lecture - but keep it short and then do something to activate the learning.

Deadly Sin 6

Sadly, many trainers I meet have simply lost their passion about the subject - or never had it in the first place. If you don't feel excited about the value of something, how on earth can you expect your learners to be enthusiastic?

Deadly Sin 7

We've discovered more about the human brain and how it learns in the last ten years than we have in all of history. There's still so much to be learned, but for people passionate about human development and learning these are exciting times. The seventh deadly sin I find trainers guilty of is that they haven't made a real study of the human brain and learning. If you took your car to the garage to be serviced, you'd expect the mechanic to be an expert on the way engines work - why should we expect less of trainers who are dealing with the extraordinary human brain? I'm not saying we all have to be qualified neuro-scientists - but some of the latest research findings are challenging fundamental assumptions, and we owe it to our learners to know about these.

Action:

So, what's the antidote to these seven deadly sins? I think it's brain-friendly learning - a philosophy, a movement and a wide variety of learning techniques for making learning (and the design of learning) faster, more fun and more effective. For the past fifteen years, this has been my passion - to bring brain friendly learning to life in the business world.

If you'd like to find out more about the five principles of brain-friendly learning:

• Keep it Real!

• Facilitate Creation not just Consumption

• Honour Uniqueness

• Make it Rich and Multi-Sensory

• State is Everything! (well… almost!)

This week’s FriendlyBrain Tip comes to you from  Kimberley Hare of Kaizen Training. Kaizen Training Limited is a well-established consulting and training firm based in the UK and offering its services to the global business community. Training for Excellence is a leading-edge Train the Trainer company based in the U.S. and providing training programs internationally. For more information, contact us at info@wetrain.biz