Ending training on a good note....?
Joy Wilson
Instructional Designer with significant experience of needs analysis, scoping, storyboarding, designing and developing impactful blended learning programmes to develop, skills knowledge and performance improvement.
Anne was struggling with technical training. Yet Anne is no quitter, she is highly motivated because the training is essential to her mastering new requirements in her role in a Government Department. I offered to work with Anne following the group sessions. We both knew what the aims of this particular session were. I hoped the session would end on a good note.
That got me thinking about the old adage "always end training on a good note" what does it actually mean?
We started one step back with something Anne had mastered, before moving into the new routine.
Anne was clearly tired, the winter nights were drawing in making it feel so much later than 4pm. She was having trouble focusing on instructions while entering data and watching for the corresponding result.
She doesn't want to quit but she begins to make mistakes as she pounds the keyboard she is getting frustrated. I guess most of us know what that feels like.
There was simply no value in asking her to get more tired by doing something she already knows how to do well. She doesn’t need me to build motivation, and I didn’t need to set her up to fail at something she’s normally good at simply to satisfy the need to end on a good note. Was this just too difficult a task for Anne on that particular day?
I wonder if the answer lies in whether to stop when things don't go well or continue by switching to something Anne can do well?
I decided to end the session for the day.
Anne didn't want to stop working when I ended the session, but would that have been good for her? Would she have learned anything worthwhile if we had kept at it or is it more likely that she would have made more mistakes in a known process...and then what..... try something easier, or end the session there leaving her with the sense that she had taken a step backwards.
It’s too easy to keep trying to find that “good note” while one thing after another falls apart. I wonder if sometimes the need to end on a good note may be more pertinent to the trainer than the trainee and if it’s going poorly, there’s nothing wrong, and perhaps something right, with giving it a rest and embracing a new beginning.