THEY WILL EAT YOU ALIVE

Trainers are often passionate storytellers and motivators. We stand in front of rooms sharing insights, frameworks, and actionable strategies. But are these brilliant ideas backed with solid proof or research? Are they evidence-based as we say in the skill of giving feedback?

I remember early in my corporate training career, overflowing with enthusiasm, while delivering a demo to an established training company, their Managing Director challenged me with the question, “Where did you get this from?” I got lucky because I did have the source of the statistic I had just shared. He gave a faint approving smile and warned me of putting myself in a situation where I share data without solid evidence. “They will eat you alive,” he said, referring to challenging audiences. It was a humbling, yet profoundly valuable lesson: assumptions are the enemy of authority.