True Trainer Tales of Terror

Every trainer with enough mileage has at least one story of the Workshop That Blew Up. Most, however, don't happen live on network television.

Many years ago I took part in an ambitious and ground-breaking week-long northern experiment in management training. Workshops for managers were being delivered across Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut over the former TVNC network.  Presentations and demonstrations were broadcast live from Iqaluit, watched in classrooms by small groups of learners and facilitators (and anyone else who cared to tune in); the materials were then discussed and worked on locally in those small groups, with local role plays, problem solving exercises, and other activities.

My job was to deliver a half hour session on dealing with difficult participants in a meeting - you know, participants who don't talk, or talk too much, or want to deal with a personal agenda in a meeting, or lose their temper...the usual stuff.

Piece of cake.



The original concept was that I'd deliver a lecture. But then we got fancy. Why not actually stage a meeting in the studio, with volunteer participants, and have THEM demonstrate the undesirable meeting behaviours, and SHOW me dealing with the problems, rather than just talking about?

What a great idea. What could possibly go wrong with that?

A couple of weeks before the course, I wrote up a brief description of the bad participant behaviours I wanted to see.  The director of the program would assign a specific role to each of the fake "participants" - one was to be "The Arguer", another "The Silent Watcher", and so on. Each of the "participants" was given a cue sheet - a simple script - showing when they were to exhibit these bad behaviours. I would review their roles with them right before the broadcast.

Well, the inevitable happened: my flight was delayed - no chance to meet the role-playing "participants". I arrived in Iqaluit with just enough time to get to the studio, get miked, and head directly into my fake "meeting".  The lights came up, the cameras blinked red, and there I was, live across the Arctic, confronting a group of ten people. The "meeting" began.

I described the goals and objectives of the session, and launched briskly into a description of "The Interrupter". That, of course, was the cue for the "interrupter" in my audience to start peppering me with irrelevant questions.And then I, the Sage, would smoothly illustrate how to deal with an Interrupter. Except - nobody interrupted me.

Nothing. The group sat, watched attentively, nodded, smiled.

I stumbled to the end of my mini-presentation, desperately  improvising a lecture on how to deal with unwanted interruptions. I had nothing written down, of course - the plan was to SHOW, not TELL.

With my heart in my mouth, I began the next segment, introducing the concept of the "The OTHER Agenda". At this point a disgruntled "hamlet employee" was supposed to start asking embarrassing, pointed questions about her boss's handling of a personnel issue, and I would adroitly redirect the workshop back on track. And again...

Nothing. The group sat, watched attentively, nodded, smiled.

I felt sweat trickling down my back. The red lights on the camera were like dragon's eyes. I looked covertly at the studio clock. We were five minutes into a half hour presentation. Live on TV across the north. And I had no script. 

Somehow I stumbled through the next twenty five minutes. The group continued to sit, watch attentively, nod, and smile, while I babbled, improvised, and racked my brain for stories and examples to illustrate the behaviours I was describing and the appropriate solution.

After the session, I learned what had happened - "my" group of prepared learners (a group of volunteer GNWT administrators) had unexpectedly been pulled into a real meeting back at their office, and the director of the program had quickly borrowed a class of Arctic College students - but had forgotten to brief them on their roles.

What did I learn? Lots. But the two  biggest lessons were:  
ALWAYS get there early enough to review the learning situation and environment, and troubleshoot if necessary.
NEVER assume it will be set up as planned, and always be ready with a contingency plan or backup material.

Most of the time you'll discover a minor need, like a missing flipchart or a badly printed manual. But sometimes you can end up with egg on your face, live, on TV. And once is enough.