HUMOUR IN TRAINING

Many trainers see humor in their sessions as a ‘nice to have’ component. “How much fun did you have?” does not appear on many feedback forms. Yet, to train people in today’s world without entertaining them as well is so difficult. No matter what the topic is, humor is a ‘must have’ component in every training session. This is, sadly, not the case in every session because of some common fear.

Fear Adding fun detracts from the content. “I’m a trainer, not an
entertainer”
Fact Fun is not part of the content, it’s part of the process.

We all know that a successful training session can depend more on the process than the content. “people learn most in moments of enjoyment,” and any experienced trainer would agree; yet so many trainers have an ‘issue’ with the concept of entertaining. “This is great learning that is interesting in itself. I shouldn’t have to waste time and effort making it more entertaining. People nowadays have become used to having information presented to them in an entertainment format. If you don’t present your information to them in a way that truly engages them it is likely to be a waste of time.

Fear Adding humor means telling jokes
Fact Joke telling is only one of many ways of creating humor.

There are few of us with the memory and delivery skills to be great joke tellers. We all bring humor into our everyday interactions with others – but mostly it is not by telling jokes. Find out what you do in your ‘everyday’ humor (for example, wordplay, story-telling) and use this style and not the joke that made you laugh the most. This way you can be more certain that it will work and won’t make you look foolish.

Fun is not so much something you say or do as an atmosphere you create. When this atmosphere of fun is established, the humor is then generated by others in the room - and this results in a training session that is more engaging, participative and enjoyable. And the fastest way to create this atmosphere is to show them that, while you take your training role very seriously, you don’t take yourself seriously.

What is the meaning of this?

Several weeks after a young man had been hired, he was called into the personnel director's office. "What is the meaning of this?" the director asked. "When you applied for this job, you told us you had five years experience. Now we discovered this is the first job you've ever held."
"Well," the young man replied, "in your advertisement you said you wanted somebody with imagination."

So, next time your planning a training session remember…make it fun or they’ll forget it!