Time Management: Using language of abundance

‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’

‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’

You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.

With this month’s blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. Next up: Using language of abundance!

Using language of abundance

When it comes to time, you want your participants to experience a sense of abundance, rather than scarcity. The wordings you use when communicating timings will determine what they'll experience. Consider these sentences:

• You have 8 minutes for this exercise.

• You're halfway through the time!

• 2 minutes left!

• Time's up, please come back now.

How do these resonate with you? Do they make you feel at ease? Or rushed? Probably the second. Consider these same sentences, slightly altered:

• Allow yourself 8 minutes for this exercise.

• You’re at the halfway point, take your time to explore further.

• Give yourself  another 2 minutes to conclude the exercise.

• Let's explore the harvest of this exercise, I invite you to come back to the circle.

Let these sentences sink in... How do these resonate?
Chances are, these sentences create a natural flow of progression, rather than a feeling of being dominated by time. When you look at these sentences from a technical perspective, take note of the following:

• Where possible, talk about time while not using time-related words (use you’re at the halfway point rather than you have 4 minutes left)

• When you have to use time-related words (like minutes), pair them with a verb that feels abundant rather than scarce (take, allow yourself, use, give yourself)

• Place emphasis on the yield of the exercise, rather than the time element (explore further, explore the harvest)

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Time management: Framing invitations for interaction

‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’

‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’

You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.

With this month’s blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. This time: Framing your invitations for interaction!

Framing your invitations for interaction

Any trainer worth their salt will want to invite participants to contribute to the training. At the same time, lengthy participant contributions are your biggest nemesis when it comes to time management. It is an art form to get your participants to open up and share, so you want to avoid having to interrupt or cut them short while sharing. So what do you do?

Let's start with what NOT to do. Do not give out any invitation for interaction without including your expectation for their contribution. That means the following sentences are off-limits:

• Please introduce yourself...

• How was this exercise?

• What is your experience with saying no?

• What did you think about today's session?

These sentences provide the participants with a sense of direction, yet force them to assume the length of their answer and what to include. The risk you run as a trainer is irrelevant information and too lengthy answers.

Instead, frame your invitations in such a way participants only have to ‘fill in the blanks’!

• Please introduce yourself by stating your name, role, and biggest pitfall in communication

• What is your single biggest take-away from this exercise?

• In 2 or 3 sentences, in which situation do you have the most need to be able to say no?
  In a couple of soundbites, I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's session.

When you start using these types of invitations you'll notice two things:

1. Most participant contributions will match up to what you are looking for.

2. It is easier to interrupt those that are too long or irrelevant because you can refer back to what you said in the invitation.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Time Management: Recovering time

‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’

‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’

You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.

With this month’s blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. Next up: Recovering time!

Recovering time

So when you’ve been thrown a curveball and your timing is out of whack, you can either skip things altogether or recover time by cutting down the time it takes to run your programme. Usually, I try for option number 2 first, if at all possible. In my opinion, there is a right and a wrong way of recovering time. The right way keeps the integrity of the programme and respects participants’ energy. The wrong way creates a sense of rush, overburdens your participants, and hurts your evaluations. Let’s start with what not to do.

Do not — ever — recover time by skipping breaks. This used to be my first go-to solution whenever I was falling behind. I had yet to learn that effective breaks supercharge the value of the actual training time. By skipping breaks, I wore participants AND myself out, created a sense of rush, and struggled to keep the group engaged. Breaks exist for a reason — honor them. Breaks trump training segments, period.

Do not sacrifice your closing in order to buy training time. Remember the peak-end rule (we don’t judge an experience by every moment of it — we mostly remember the highlight, the peak, and how it ended). If you rush through the closing, evaluations will suffer because participants’ experience of the whole training will be tainted by the rush at the end.

Now that you’ve made your breaks and closing sacrosanct, let’s jump into what you can do to regain some lost time.

Make groups smaller. Look for parts of the training where people work in groups of 3 or more and where each person gets a turn. Logically, the fewer people per group, the less time you need. When pressed for time, I usually have them work in duos if the exercise allows. A reflection round of 20 minutes is brought down to 10 minutes when you slim the group from 4 to 2 people. And voila: you’ve earned yourself 10 full minutes.

Slimmed-down reflection. When I design a programme segment, I usually start with an exercise, followed by time for participants to reflect (individually or in groups), and then a plenary debrief guided by me. The reflection helps participants form their own insights, and the plenary ensures the key takeaways are highlighted. I aim to stick to this flow, but it also gives me flexibility to adjust when time is tight. Usually, the participants’ reflection takes longer than the plenary debrief. So, if I need to save a little time, I’ll skip the plenary debrief. If I need to save more, I’ll skip the individual reflection and only run the plenary.

Effective use of cases. Cases are a staple in training — whether you’re running role-plays or reflection exercises — but asking participants for their own cases can eat up more time than you think. The good news? It’s also one of the easiest places to win that time back.

One simple fix is to bring a few canned cases — examples you’ve prepared ahead of time. They’re not quite as relevant as real, participant-driven cases, but they can be a lifesaver when time is tight. I always have a couple ready, even if I don’t plan on using them. Most of the time, I aim for bespoke cases, but when I’m running behind, a prepared case keeps things moving without anyone feeling rushed.

Another approach is to have everyone work on the same case. This way, you only need to gather details once instead of multiple times. The trick here is to choose a case broad enough that everyone can relate to it. And if participants start worrying it’ll feel repetitive, reassure them: it never actually plays out the same way twice. Different personalities, experiences, and styles keep every round engaging. I’ve also noticed that the quality of practice improves this way because people pick up new ideas by watching each other.

A third option is to break the case into pieces and have participants work on different parts. In role-plays, for example, you can have people take turns stepping in (bonus: it keeps everyone sharp and paying attention). This works especially well with step-by-step models, like feedback frameworks, where each person can own one part of the process. For reflection exercises, you can do the same by assigning different questions to different participants instead of having everyone reflect on everything at once.

Eat a little into lunch. This is the only time I sometimes bend my own “don’t mess with breaks” rule. I always design sessions with a one-hour lunch break, and ideally, we stick to it. But when time is tight, I occasionally shorten it to 45 minutes — and only if the participants are okay with it and the lunch is on-site. If they need to travel for lunch, I never do this, because I want them to have at least 45 minutes of true downtime.

Cut entire segments. If none of the above are suitable for slimming down your programme segment, and you cannot think of another way to make it shorter, consider skipping the entire segment altogether. Don’t introduce a topic if you’re sure in advance you cannot do it justice due to time. Instead, beef up the programme segments that you are including, so that you truly make an impact there.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Time Management: Dealing with curveballs

‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’

‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’

You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.

With this month’s blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. Next up: Dealing with curveballs!

Dealing with curveballs

When it comes to managing your time, curveballs are part of the game. Things will pop up that you can’t control — and they’ll happily throw your perfect timeline out the window.

A couple of examples from personal experience:

• A train strike that made everybody 2 hours late

• A double booking for a location that had to be fixed first before we could start, 1 hour late

• Participants in turmoil because the company announced a round of lay-offs just before the training

• Unwilling participants because they had had a very bad experience with their last session

• Participants having difficulty understanding the material

All of these instances require your immediate time and attention and force you to get creative with timings right from the get-go. The following tips will help you to do that gracefully:

1. Remember that you are not obligated to run the programme exactly as it's been designed. The design is just a guideline. It is your job to deliver on the goal of a session and, as they say,  there are many roads that lead to Rome…
   

2. Don't communicate timings in your agenda. When I share the agenda, I share the sequence of the topics that we'll cover, the time for lunch, and the end-time. This way the participants know what to expect but will not be aware if segments take longer or shorter than expected.
   

3. Don't mention it when you skip things. Remember, you are the only one in the room who knows what was supposed to happen. Mentioning you're skipping things will make them feel they're missing out, while they wouldn't even have noticed it had you left it unmentioned.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Time management: Training design

‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’

‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’

You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.

Over the next couple of blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. First up: Training Design!

Training design

If the session has been designed poorly, you can pull strings all you want, and you will still end up with too little time or too much programme. So your first order of business is to critically scan the design of the session to check whether the timings are realistic.

This will prove very challenging if you're just starting out, because you lack the experience to know how long certain things take. If this is you, have the design checked by a more experienced trainer. A practiced eye can spot timing bottlenecks in minutes.

If you do this sanity check yourself, these are a couple of things to be on the lookout for:

• Does the design have some elements that can easily be cut during the day, without compromising the integrity of each segment?

• Have movements been taken into account? (for example, moving to and from break-out rooms, to and from smaller groups, to and from breaks and/or lunch)

• Is there enough time for reflection and interaction? The bigger the group, the longer you need.

• Usually reflection takes longer than the assignment itself — is this also the case in the design?

• Are the timeslots designed generously, leaving room for things to take longer than expected?

Obviously, you are looking for YES-es to all of these questions. 

If you notice the design is too cramped, do yourself a favor and cut segments. Yes, it will be hard, because you will feel everything is interesting and/or necessary. However, I would always urge you to choose quality and depth over quantity and breadth.

You might also fear that if you cut too much, your programme will be over while you still have time left. What if you don't know how to fill the time?! This is a fear I've had many times. The number of times it actually happened like this is... ZERO.

So cut away and trust that it is easier to lengthen a programme than to shorten it.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Virtual sessions: Slides

Restraint, restraint, RESTRAINT

Remember my general rule of thumb with regards to the use of slides? Use the minimum amount of slides necessary to get the job done. Anything beyond the minimum makes participants either lazy or distracted.  In a virtual session you have other means at your disposal to distribute information, like chat, which means the minimum amount of slides necessary to get the job done goes down.  

You can bring the number of slides down even further by investing in a digital paper tablet that allows you to share your screen, like a Remarkable. This creates a more interactive and spontaneous feel, as participants see you build models step by step, just like with a flip-over in a physical room.

To give you an idea: in a simple 3 hour session on feedback I will generally use 1 slide: the slide with the feedback model. Really - just one slide.. Everything else—like the agenda, exercise instructions or evaluation link—I communicate directly or via the chat to keep engagement high.

You might have your doubts because I’m making it somewhat harder for participants to get the right information. It’s not presented to them on a silver platter through slides. And this is exactly the point. In doing so, I make sure that they pay attention. 

In the end, attention is the highest currency in any session. By minimizing slides and making information just a bit harder to grasp, you’re inviting participants to stay alert, lean in, and actively process what you’re saying. And that’s exactly the kind of engagement you want.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Virtual Sessions. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Interaction: Using non-verbal cues

If you’ve ever complained about a group because they were not saying anything (as I have in the past), this bit is for you. Since mastering the skill I’m about to share, I no longer struggle with getting people to speak up. Here’s something I’ve come to know for sure: 

The group is always speaking. 

It might not be with words, but the communication is there- all the time - waiting for you to engage. Non-verbal communication is always present. 

Once you learn to pick up on and use the groups’ non-verbal cues, you will notice it’s many advantages:

• Your participants will feel valued and important.

• Your participants will feel seen by you and therefore feel the need to be present/participate.

• Your participants will feel invited to speak up.

• You’ll uncover tensions that could hinder the training—before they actually do.

Step 1: Noticing non-verbal cues

Your first order of business is to start noticing these cues. Dedicate some mental capacity to keeping an eye on your participants at all times. Here are some key signals to watch for:

Step 2: Responding to non-verbal cues

Once you start noticing these signals, it’s time to use them in your communication. You have two options:

Indirect approach

This is when you pick up on a cue and let it inform your actions/decisions as a trainer. For example:

• The group slouched in their chairs with an unfocused gaze in their eyes.

• You assume they’re tired and you decide to take a break. 

• Someone looks puzzled when you’re giving an instruction. 

• You assume that they don’t get it yet and ask the group: ‘Can someone repeat my instruction to see if I have explained it clearly?’.

• Someone is sitting slightly outside of the training circle. 

• You assume they feel left out and direct your next question to them to involve them.

Using this approach brings you an advantage, a potential problem and a missed opportunity.

• Advantage: Especially if you have some years of experience under your belt, your people-reading skills will probably be above average. Adjusting your style and decisions based on this will allow you fine-tune your approach that much better. 

• Potential problem: You are using assumptions. From time to time your assumptions will be wrong. Whatever action or decision you make as a consequence might not fit the situation. Let’s look at the first example. The group might be slouched and with an unfocused gaze not because they’re tired, but because you have been talking for far too long and they have completely lost interest. A break will not solve the fact that you need to learn to speak less and involve the group more.

• Missed opportunity: Using an indirect approach you are not making the group aware of the fact that you are paying attention to them. You will miss out on the opportunity to make them feel seen and all of the effects that come from that. Using only an indirect approach therefore, as most beginner trainers do, will not boost interaction and engagement. Adding a direct approach to your repertoire will help you solve this problem. 

Direct approach

This is when you pick up on a cue and then:

1. call it out

2. invite a response

3. let the information that comes up inform your actions/decisions. 

Obviously, there are many ways of calling out these cues. Especially if you’re starting out though, there is a formula that can provide you with an easy way to approach this:

‘It looks/feels/seems/sounds like… [insert your assumption]’ 

followed by a pause that invites the person or the group to reply 

The information that comes up based off of this will then inform your actions/decisions. In many cases you would need one or two follow-up questions to get to the right information.

Example 1

You’ve asked a question. No one answers, but someone looks like one participant might have a thought around this.

• You: ‘It looks like an answer is brewing in your head!’ 

• Participant: ‘Well yeah, I was thinking it might be …’

Example 2

Someone makes a sceptical-sounding noise in response to what you’ve just said.

• You: ‘It sounds like you might have your reservations around this?’

• Participant: ‘Well, I think there would be some definite risks in approaching it like this’

• You: ‘How so?’

• Participant: ‘Well, because …’

• You: ‘Well that’s definitely something to consider… Does everyone feel the same?’

Example 3

Group looks tired and absent-minded

• You: ‘It feels like we have a challenge in the energy-department, what’s up?’

• [silence and some uncomfortable glances]

• You: ‘It seems like there might be something going on that I’m unaware of?’

• Participant: ‘Well, we’ve been listening for a while now and since it’s quite hot, I think that’s impacting our energy levels’

• You: ‘Thank you for that, I appreciate it. It seems I might have fallen into that illustrious trainer-pitfall of talking too much, am I right?’

• [some relieved smiles and confirmations]

• You: ‘All right, what do you say to a break right now, and then we’ll move into an exercise after the break?’

Why I love the direct approach

My absolute favorite thing about this direct approach is that you uncover tensions that might hinder the training at an early stage. Example 2 (scepticism) and 3 (tired & absent) would, if unaddressed, probably turn into full blown resistance later on. By identifying this early and addressing it in the moment, you prevent tensions from escalating and resistance from building up.

Final thought

If you start paying attention to non-verbal cues, you’ll never have to wonder why a group isn’t talking again—because they are talking. You just have to learn how to listen.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Interaction. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.

Virtual sessions: Breaks

A case of life or death by screen

Alright, let’s talk requirement #2 for engaging online sessions: Effective breaks. If I were to spend some time digging into research I would probably find some scientific evidence that supports what you and I have already experienced for ourselves: online sessions are more taxing than face to face sessions. Therefore, online engagement is determined just as much by how you take your breaks as by how you conduct the session. 

You want to take your breaks superserious, both for yourself and for participants. This means:

• Take a break of at least 10 minutes every hour. No exceptions! 

• Lunch needs to be at least 45 minutes, but preferably an hour. 

• It is not enough to just announce a break and send participants off. You want to introduce your breaks with a certain gravitas.  An example of what you might say:

• ‘Allright, it’s time for a crucial part in our programme: a break! Since we’re probably all experiencing that doing a virtual session is quite intense for both our eyes and our brains I invite you to get intentional about your break. Recharge effectively. My tip to you: step away from any and all screens. If you spend your break behind a screen I can promise you you’ll have a fried brain at the end of our session. What to do instead? Take a walk, go outside, have a coffee, put on some music and have yourself a little dance, anything that works for you. If it gets you away from a screen and into some movement: that’s what we’re looking for. See you in 10!” 

• During the breaks, as a trainer, always turn off your camera and mute. This demonstrates that you yourself are practicing what you preach, having a proper break.

• As participants are returning from their first break you might enquire about what they did during their break. Celebrate great break ideas. It serves two purposes: it gets participants in talking-mode again and building a culture of proper break-taking.