How do you manage challenging learners?

Hope for the best but preparte for the worst. The biggest trouble with disinterested participants is that it could impact the trainers confidence and bring the trainer's energy down. 1. Hence I would recommend that as trainers we understand that we live in a distracted world and often times participants being distracted has nothing to do with you as a trainer. So as a first step let's empathise with the participants. 2. I usually bring in energizers as soon as I notice people being distracted.

I encourage constructive contributions by acknowledging that they are making a point and asking them to give contribution for everyone to learn from. If it is unhelpful disruption I invite them to engage as we all can learn from listening to others views respectfully. Of course we have choice to be present.

What helps me immensely is to step into the shoes of a learner and distance myself from my own self. This also helps me become a “serendip motivator” and surprise the audience. Once the ice is broken, I try to pull threads from real life situations (sometimes by writing stories myself) and apply them dynamically to the business environment. Encouraging learners to provide more examples (without fear of being judged) also adds an element of friendliness and ease. To add to this, a bit of fun always helps create an air of ease around some of the most boring subjects, for example, money and investing.

My first priority as a trainer will be to create a comfortable and friendly learning environment. There will always be good and complicated learners in every group. In order to make the learning process engaging for students, I need to engage them in activities where their skills are put to use. Trainers need to be patient and motivated.

First, we have to understand the learners. Usually, I assess the learner's type, voluntary learners, or chosen learners. Chosen learners commonly have less experience and less motivation, so my main focus is to help them understand the core information with enjoyable training, using more common language, and more games & quizzes related to the material to make the training fun. Voluntary learners usually have more experience easier to cooperate with, the main focus is to help them with specific case and could using more technical terms with them.

I also them ask if there has been any oversight. If there would be anything else? I suggest to jot down their questions along the way to ask at the end in the 5 to 10min open time for questions or reflections.

I think it is important to understand what is defined by challenging learners. As I often come in during time of great change, the challenge is not often related to the training, but to everything around it. Change is for a lot of people a challenge, new habits need to be learned, things no longer are how they were. Being able to clearly communicate the reason for change and manage objections from the beginning will make training a lot easier. Were possible make sure people understand before they arrive the importance of training. The ground rules, objectives and outcomes should be set out and shared before they show up so they are not a suprise. This will improve engagement and accountability.

Sometimes the topics of learnings may allow you to extrapolate the benefits of the program beyond the normal expectations. When we deal with money, we often use this phrase - "Next 45 minutes can change next 45 years of your life" or asking them a simple question - "What is the worth of a minute in money terms to them?" and then tell them confidently that you shall easily surpass this expectation. Setting clear expectations and boundaries certainly helps, yet what helps immensely is challenging the conventional lake-like limited wisdom and showing the learners an ocean of possibilities right from the word go.

In my experience, once clear expectations and boundaries have been established, allowing a space for the learners to ask questions, express what they look forward to learning, and/or share a bit about their background/experience has allowed me to not only understand their expectations (and clarify or redirect if necessary), but also know my "audience". This, in turn, lets everyone feel listened to, but also helps me make adjustments or tailor my delivery to accommodate for everyone present. Similar to sales, this is also a time to identify any pain points (challenges), assure them you will find/provide a solution, and get their buy-in (a commitment to staying engaged and open to learn).

You should always set the objective of training, and evaluate the objective with the learners. That's why in the beginning usually I create Pre-test and additional question, "What is your expectation in this training?". Before the core training, usually I read the answer and align the expectation with the "Training objectives" slide, and don't forget to evaluate the training objectives again in the end of training.

It is respectful to acknowledge all respectful contributions we all have our views and should feel included. It is important to value, appreciate and recognise the views and opinions and knowledge participants share.

I have trained and developed thousands of military and civilian students during the last 3 decades. I always endeavored to recognize basics of learning skills and styles in my challenging learners; weather the training session was indoors or outdoors, before I could effectively engage them and bring them up to be in par with the rest of the group. As such, it was always about changing my teaching or coaching styles to match the unique learning styles ( visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) of my tough learners and addressing their learning skill issues such as Willing/Unwilling and Able/Unable to learn the lesson. Moreover, a majority of tough learners slowly or quickly changed their attitude once they realized what was there in it for them!

I see most of the time the issue could be with the content itself. If our content doesn’t provide for interaction and engagement, and also is genetic in academic in nature, then outside of the enthusiastic, involved everyone else seem reluctant. If that is not the case, are usually ask, the learner who seems disconnected and reluctant to participate. Some deep and introspective question relating the content to their job role or context in this usually read them in to the program.

Not everyone in the company who attends my in-house training session comes voluntarily. I always ask the highest-ranking manager I can to make my sessions mandatory. Yes, that sets me up for grumblers who have other things to do than learn about LinkedIn. but I absorb their reluctance and make my sessions as jovial and conducive to meaningful learning as I can. I tell stories of successes that came from ideas I have taught in sessions over the past 13 years. I also challenge my attendees to open their minds and hearts to the need to tell "why" they do what they do to prospects, vendors, clients, and referrals, to capture their readers' attention and portray their personal experience as the right fit for the opportunity. Win-win for all.

It's also important to know when to stop trying, or you can end up putting so much time and energy into managing the disruption that you the other engaged learners suffer, or you use up too much of your energy reserves for the sake of one individual. You can even call this out to the individual and let them know they are impacting the experience of the others in the programme, which may not improve their engagement but can be an effective way of minimising the wider impact. Know that it is not necessarily a reflection on you or the training content and that it is ok to stop engaging.

I would like to add an intercultural perspective since learners become more culturally diverse and sometimes the difficulty occurs because of different cultural codes.