A Handful of Lessons From My Closest Training Companion

Introduction

Sometimes, you find a training companion in an unexpected place. While I held positions prior that required me to wear a training hat 🎩 from time to time, I have been in official corporate training for over twelve years now. It only recently struck me that I started my training journey the same month that my dog 🐶 Bear was born. With the heaviest of hearts 💔, my family and I said goodbye to Bear for the last time last week. He was not only the best boy dog 🐕, but my rock 🪨 and a loyal friend. We learned a lot from each other over the years we had together. Some easy lessons, some a little harder, and some that have carried over into my professional development. The ones that I have carried into my professional development I wanted to share with all of you in hopes that they may spark ✨ something similar and equally positive in your career.

In most of my posts, I try to provide solid, actionable best practices that can be implemented immediately. In this post, I’ll take a slightly different approach and provide some seeds 🌱 of ideas and leave some space for you to think about how they might best fit into your process, with no further ado.

In this post, we’ll talk about how:

How intentional roadblocks 🚧 can drive empathy for your learner journey.
How reinforcing existing behavior can be a powerful tool.
Repetition, repetition, repetition. 🔁
How furry friends 🐾 can make great training companions.
Never stop learning. 📚

Intentional trainer roadblocks and their impact on empathy

There were a few reasons that led me to choose to train Bear in German 🇩🇪 instead of English when he was a pup 🐶. At the end of the day, the reasons are probably less important than what I learned early on in my training career about the impact that decision had on my empathy ❤️ towards his learning journey. Reflecting back to my student years 🎓, I did take some German in high school and a bit more in college. As you might imagine, none of those lessons included dog commands. That meant I needed to learn dog commands in German while Bear was learning the associated behaviors. This roadblock 🚧 had the surprising impact of putting us both on a somewhat level playing field ⚖️ in our learning process.

I remember vividly, multiple times, when I was struggling to remember the command for the behavior that I wanted him to do. One time that sticks out is while I was training him to not go crazy when I was getting his food 🍖 ready. My goal was to get him to sit and wait until I had placed his food bowl 🥣 down so he wasn’t jumping around, sticking his nose in the food, and overall making a mess while I was serving his meal. In the moment, I could not for the life of me remember the command for sit. He went wild 🤪 with excitement and hunger, and kibbles went everywhere. Luckily, he was only about fifteen pounds then, so it was far from the biggest problem of the day, and for the most part, he cleaned up after that particular mess.

While we both eventually learned our new perspective skills 📚, I realized how much I was struggling, in the heat 🔥 of the moment, to carry out my part and provide proper direction. This had a lasting impact, making me much more empathetic ❤️ toward his learning journey and accepting of the mistakes he made along the way.

In my experience and observations of more trainers than I can count 🔢, we all have this when we are budding new learning professionals. At some point, however, this empathy tends to fade a little, a little bit more, and then a little bit more.

It makes me wonder how being intentional about baking in roadblocks 🚧 might amplify empathy towards the learner in the corporate classroom 🏢 and ultimately improve training experiences. Whether you like the White Stripes 🎸 music or not, Jack White has some interesting perspectives on how creating tension leads to creativity 💡, which I will link below. I would add that creativity 🎨 in the corporate classroom drives a better learning experience, it has a stronger potential to create a unique shared experience, and will ultimately lead to that empathy ❤️ we sometimes need a reminder of.

How reinforcing existing behavior can be a powerful tool

It was never on my roadmap 🗺️ to teach Bear how to bark 🐶🔊 on command, but while training him in the basics like sit, lay down, come, stay, etc., I noticed that he would bark at me in anticipation of a treat 🍖. It became clearest when I moved from one to two commands in a row, sit, then lie down, he would sit, but then bark at me when I told him to lie down. So, I decided to use this to my advantage. I started to tell him to sit, then bark. Eventually, I would just tell him to bark, and once the bark command was established, I went back to the lay down command. With him already knowing the bark command, he understood that lay down was not that, so he knew he had to try something else to get his treat 🍖.

The really cool 😎 thing was that while it took a little longer to get him to lie down, he learned something new and unexpected along the way. Bark may not have been the most useful skill for him to learn, but it came in handy more than once, and adapting to his learning journey 📚 was needed at that moment.

This makes me think about how live instructor-led training 🎤 is such an adaptable method compared to something very directive like eLearning 💻. It also makes me think about how heightened awareness in the moment and really listening 👂 to feedback can help trainers alter their approach in the moment to meet trainees where they are.

Repetition, repetition, repetition

When I was deep in the throes of basic dog training 🐕 with Bear, I was also an onboarding trainer in a call center ☎️. If you have ever worked as an onboarding trainer in a call center, you know, but if not, it’s long ⏳. A lot of training programs span from two to six weeks 📆, you’re typically running back-to-back classes for most of the year, and you have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short amount of time.

With Bear, he obviously didn’t learn to sit, or heel, the first time I trained him on it. Nor did I expect him to, but it was because I was working with him at home 🏡 at night 🌙 and learners during the day ☀️ that it ingrained repetition into me as a key element of driving home important points. Too often, trainers new to the field have an unchallenged assumption that if they read a key takeaway from a slide once, everyone will remember it. Not only that, but there is a belief that learners will remember all the key takeaways from all of the slides that you read off to them just one time. It’s simply not the case. The key is repetition 🔁 and even better, repetition in new and interesting ways like stories 📖, analogies, call-backs, transition statements, and activities 🎯 to name a few. I’m sure you’ve got more ideas 💡, but this very simple lesson early on saved me a lot of struggle with retraining efforts and it may be worth a ponder for you.

How furry friends can make great training companions.

Bear was almost always the most attentive listener 👂. While, of course, he didn’t always behave or do what he was told, he was always just happy to be around 🐕❤️. There were many times that I would practice my training delivery 🎤talking only to him. He would usually lie down and fall asleep 😴 which isn’t what I was hoping to find my learners doing but he never judged, and I always felt comfortable practicing in front of him.

Having a living, breathing audience, albeit sleeping, might be helpful for some. It could be a dog 🐶, a cat 🐱, even a fish 🐠 or a turtle 🐢. Rehearsing sticky spots is a must, and what better way to work out your kinks while spending time with your loved ones? So, if you have a pet, you might consider spending some time practicing all or parts of your training sessions on them.

Never stop learning

With Bear, similar to all training, I started with the basics: sit, lay down, speak, heel, etc.… 🐕‍🦺 But I was always amazed and inspired by all the things he learned, even into his senior years. While I don’t remember exactly how old he was when he learned each new skill, I know he was no longer a puppy when he learned to swim 🏊‍♂️. He initially hated the water 🌊, but after a few months of exposure, it became one of his two favorite activities to play fetch in the pool 🎾.

He also learned to go on bike rides 🚴‍♂️ with me when he was closer to six or seven. This ended up being his other favorite thing to do until he no longer had the energy for it. Even into his golden years 🌟, he learned the difference between his toys 🧸 and the baby’s toys 🍼 and was starting to learn how to play gently with the baby. Though I don’t think we ever quite got there because avoiding her was his preferred strategy!

The question for me then becomes: What am I challenging myself to learn? 🤔 What am I working on to continue leveling up my skills as an L&D professional after over twelve years? Many of us consider ourselves lifelong learners 📖, but we can also be the worst training participants. I’ll be the first to admit that I have fallen victim to spending more time finding faults in how a training was delivered than actually learning the material.

How are you putting yourself in the driver’s seat 🚗 of your own development despite all your other competing priorities?

Conclusion

Learning can take place in some of the most unexpected places if you take a moment to look for it 🔍. I hope that sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned from my closest training companion sparks an idea or two that will have a lasting and positive impact on your approach to training.

Bear, I will always hold you in my heart ❤️, and I thank you for all the things you taught me over the years. Thousands have felt your impact on me, and that impact will continue as I keep walking down the path of learning.

Jack White on Inspiration and Creativity

Here is the link to the Jack White video mentioned above.

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A Handful of Lessons From My Closest Training Companion

Introduction

Intentional trainer roadblocks and their impact on empathy