Thursday, January 10, 2013

Patterns for successful training sessions


I have been doing quite a number of sessions over the last few years. Theses are the techniques / patterns that appear to me to be most successful:
  1. Shock and Awe: Make very clear that you are the boss and no one has to question your knowledge or approach. Become mildly aggressive when first critical words come up. More aggression is hardly necessary, but increase aggression level when desired. 
  2. Smoke Grenade: When asked stuff you have no idea about, do not admit it or even ask if someone else has a clue, but rather talk about a lot of complicated stuff that does not make much sense but makes you look smart. Will very likely cause confusion, but of course the one asked is to blame as you are obviously smart and the other one is just not smart enough to understand. If the guy asking is actually dumb enough to admit that he/she did not understand and asks you to explain again switch to (3).
    1. There is at least one variation of this pattern, where you do not admit that you have to clue, but rather put the question back to your audience, like "Can someone else answer that question?". More mild and probably applicable in isolation of the other patterns as well.
  3. Humiliation: If someone asks stuff and makes comments that might become tricky for you, make fun of her/him in front of the others. For example: "Ok, for Larry I am going to explain it one more time, maybe this time he gets it. Finally!". Works best as follow up for (2). Make sure you have applied (1) so that no one dares to take sides with poor Larry.
  4. Betrayal: Probably one of the more wimpy techniques. This is about not keeping what you promised. This could be not answering a certain question that you postponed by saying "We will come to that later", but you had no clue how to ever answer that question. Or it could be a certain topic that you might feel too shaky to handle. There are two variants of this pattern
    1. "Forgetting" to keep the promise or "loosing" the paper that should remind you of something
    2. At the very end of the session, mentioning that it was just too much stuff and you could not possibly handle the other stuff you had promised
I am pretty sure there are more patterns that I have observed, but yet failed to fully identify. Please help me by leaving comments about what you have experienced or identified and I will extend the list. 

And, yes, before anyone complains: This is indeed meant like ;)

As a footnote and most surprisingly, if I had paid more attention, I could have learned about those patterns in high-school already, because all of them had been applied to me by my teachers at that time :)  

3 comments:

Sebastian said...

1. brave mastery of English language.
2. true, obvious facts, worth to be re-stated over and over again.
3. from a literature point of view, some influences of Scott Adams and Walter Moers might be recognizable.
5. another pattern might be the surprising overwhelming appraisal of trivial insights of a single participant, thereby indignifying the intellectual value of the others.

S.M.

Unknown said...

5. sounds like a good hint. But how does this add to the success of a training session?

Unknown said...

Variation of 2.: If you have no idea how to answer to a question you have been asked, just answer another one.