Engagement Is Key Devlal Sahadevan, DTM

Devlal Sahadevan, DTM

He wore a tailored suit. He had a great personality, spoke eloquently and never left the lectern. As the training session went past 20 minutes, I found myself searching for my smart phone. I stole a glance at my co-attendees. Two sat with their eyes closed and I wasn’t the only one who was fiddling with the phone. The trainer asked us to look at the PowerPoint presentation. “It contained 2 paragraphs of vital information”, he added. This made me recall my school days when the teaching aid was a black board and pieces of white chalk. When my science teacher explained the human digestive system with a fairly neat diagram drawn on the black board, we were engrossed. It was fascinating! She had this special way of retaining our attention. I decided to become a teacher when I was in 7th grade because I wanted to be like her. 35 years ago a teacher didn’t have the tools that we have at our disposal today. In spite of that, some of those teachers were amazing, because they were engaging. As I listened to the Trainer in front of me reading out the content from another slide, I realized how drastically different was he from my good old Science teacher. The trainer didn’t know one important thing. Engagement is key! Sometimes toastmasters assume that being a good speaker is the same as being a good Trainer. We do have some great skills that we gained through our Toastmasters experience that we can put to good use while delivering training. However, that is only part of the skill set. If you are a trainer, you have to remember these:  You should ask this question before you start; “What is the point of saying this!” If it isn’t relevant to your trainees, chuck it.  Clarity is a big deal. If you don’t make any sense, nobody gets engaged. Avoid jargons. If it is too technical, use simple examples to illustrate.  Break the content into digestible chunks. Less is more. Resist the temptation to share everything you know about the topic.  Challenge them. Prod, tease. Let them disagree, welcome a debate. Share stories. They have no age barrier. Get responses. The quite cooperation you receive in a training room is not real engagement.  Prepare for some confusion. Have examples ready for demonstration, application.  Be enthusiastic, radiate that energy. Crack a joke! Ralph Smedley, the founder of Toastmasters said it right; “We learn best in moments of enjoyment” Let your next training session be enjoyable and enriching at the same time. If the attendees enjoyed the session as much as you did, you are an exceptional trainer.

Devlal is a Certified trainer and a hospitality management professional. He is also the Founder-President of

Humoroids Toastmasters Club