THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF TRAINING

There is an overarching frame in any training that goes beyond the ways to teach content material, the 4-MAT to structure your material, the different learning styles of participants, etc. that I’ve heard Colin and Michael stress many times – that it’s not about you; it’s about them, through you. And this has many implications. Some of the most fundamental things are about creating safety; not just physically and individually, but psychologically and in their identity as a group. It’s this particular group aspect I’m honing in on in this reflection: so it’s about them, as a group.

We all know from NSTT about group ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’. This process is by nature linear/procedural and begins at the start of a training. We also know about setting frames, and the frames set right at the start of the training will govern how you do what you do, and how the group grows throughout the ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ process. The whole training is framed on the first day, and those frames have to be set for all participants as they are the underlying frames/structures that govern your and their behaviours and expectations.