Corporate trainers’ logical fallacies

Corporate sector has always been keen in developing its employees through regular trainings. With the expansion of corporate sector, need of training professionals has also increased. The ratio of per trainer trainees is more than the available professional trainers in the market. This gap between the need and availability has attracted a lot of unskilled trainers, especially those who cannot relate their academic studies with the business world because of less exposure to the industry. Moreover, they have not developed skill of observing routine events keenly and strong thinking habit so they cannot connect real time issues with the bookish knowledge. As most of the young trainers have not developed the habit of reading great writers and have not exposed themselves to different departments, they are tend to extract wrong results from the content they read to deliver trainings which eventually pass on irrelevant or false  knowledge to the employees. Few are being discussed here;

Leaders vs Managers – Fallacy

Leaders are better than managers. And managers should try to be effective leaders of their subordinates instead of becoming managers.

Leaders vs Managers – Fact

Organizations don’t always need leaders at all levels. They need managers too and if a leader is not a good manager then he cannot lead a certain group of people either. Business leaders are different from the political leaders. Political leaders are expected to fight with the system and business leaders are to fight for the system. Do not over use the term of manager negatively and leader positively. It would rather be a mess if someone exercises traits of a leader where management is required and traits of a manager where leadership is expected.

Emotional Intelligence – Fallacy

Employees should never show their emotions whatever happens to them. They should remain cool and calm in every situation and should not react to people and circumstances. Moreover, emotionally intelligent people hide their emotions and others cannot really figure out as to what makes them happy and what makes them cry.

Emotional Intelligence – Fact

Emotional Intelligence does not suggest you to be fankaar (over-smart) by not showing emotions in any situation. It actually asks you to show all of your innate emotions intelligently to improve relationship and grow in professional life. Even showing nerves is okay as it is quite humane but the frequency of it should decrease with every passing day and control on nerves should improve. It’s perfectly okay if people figure out what makes you happy or cry. EI means being aware of your emotions and as to where they should be exhibited.
People with high IQ are not the worst ones, neither they are opposite of it and so is about the people with high EQ. All of them are important but they have to be managed intelligently.

Anger Management – Fallacy

Employees should never be angry at any one as anger is one word short of danger and it always creates problems for the ones who show it to others. Showing anger is weakness and refrain you from achieving your desired place.

Anger Management – Fact

Anger Management does not mean one should never get angry. Absolutely wrong things and events against values must make you angry and it should be visible to others as well however one must use anger wisely so that it improves the situation and not worsens it. It actually means that you should use anger as energy at a right place, on right time and in a right way to get the issues addressed. It can help you achieve your goals, defuse a tense situation and avoid emotional leakage.

Change Management – Fallacy

Everyone must embrace change as it is always good and those who embrace change in early stages are the great change agents and are best people of the organizations. People who are resistant to change are negative and are not good for the organizations.

Change Management – Fact

Change Management does not expect everyone to be change agent and does not really ridicule those who are resistant to change. Change management is actually creating buy-in amongst late adopters and the resistants. It is about removing their logical concerns that ultimately benefit the organization. Late adopters are usually very good change agents as they understand the reasons of change and learn the techniques of change and then goes to implement it. Above all, there are very few truly resistant to every change. A change agent in one particular change can be resistant to another. That needs to be understood by the training professionals.

Stress Management – Fallacy

Stress is something absolutely bad that hurts your life and career. Moreover, employees should not exhibit it at workplace. And after taking session on stress management, employees should stop getting stressed at different occasions.

Stress Management – Fact

Stress Management is not about not to be stressed. It means, one should understand his state of mind so that he could make attempts to get rid of it positively. But even if he stays stressed, that’s perfectly okay and is quite humane. Stress management takes repeated conscious attempts and is a process, not a one-time activity.

Relationship Management – Fallacy

We should maintain good relationship at any cost with everyone in the organization as it always pays back and bad relationship with anyone hurt our repute.

Relationship Management – Fact

Relationship Management does not always mean to keep every relationship going by all means. It is about maintaining those relationships which are important to keep professional life smooth through effective communication and without compromising on values.

Teachers vs Trainers – Fallacy

Trainers are better than teachers. Trainers should never behave like teachers in their professional lives as teachers are usually not informed about the modern-day needs and they do not know much about effective learning techniques. Trainers transform the life in a session but teacher cannot do it.

Teachers vs Trainers – Fact

Principally, there is no specific difference in these two. Do not confuse local incompetent teachers with the global definition. Trainer needs to do a lot of homework about the content, participants, delivery method, retention and expected and measurable output of the training before conducting a session. So is expected by the teacher. Trainers should not disgrace teachers with their lack of knowledge. Moreover, there is no magic stick in the hands of trainers that they transform people’s lives in one hour session. Transformation of life or career is a long process that needs commitment from both ends, trainer/teacher and trainees.

Activity Based Trainings – Fallacy

Trainings must involve participants in physical activities. Everyone loves fun and learns a lot from activity based training method. Moreover, it any kind of content can be communicated through fun activities.

Activity Based Trainings – Fact

Activity based trainings are not always the best ones. There are people who are uncomfortable with activities and there are types of contents which cannot be delivered through activities. Trainers need to choose the method of delivery wisely. Training can be extremely ineffective otherwise.

Same training material for different relevant topics – Fallacy

If there are similar kinds of trainings like Stress Management and Emotional Intelligence or other combinations then same content can work and you can always combine two to three portions different training programs and make a new one with new name. Moreover, a trainer should be good at all of the soft skills equally.

Same training material for different relevant topics – Fact

If a training professional feels that he can train people on same kind of different topic as he has read a lot of material on it or if it is need of his job to conduct trainings then he is already making unconscious attempts to be ‘Jack of all trades’ and will be ridiculed for the very reason. He must not forget that every topic has different dimensions and have to be explored thoroughly. He should not try to mix content of old trainings to make a new one. If he cannot master IT knowledge, Technology, Systems and Products at a time then he cannot master different soft skill at the same time too. He has to be selective about the topics he wants to train people on.

Walk the Talk – Fallacy

It is okay, if a professional trainer trains participants on few soft skills but doesn’t exhibit it such as Anger Management, Time Management, Change Management, Relationship Building and many others as he is supposed to deliver knowledge and he does not really need to exercise it much. Above all, external trainers can afford to be different from the delivered content and it is more of a responsibility of in-house trainers as they have to face direct heat from their respective colleagues and management.

Walk the Talk – Fact

Indeed, in-house trainers have to be more careful as participants observe them keenly and ask them bluntly if they do not exercise what they preach in trainings. However external trainers have to be extra careful as saying something and not doing it keeps you away from the learnings of those suggestion that you give in your trainings. If you do what you preach, you will face the response from the people in your personal and professional life and you will be in a position to relate participants’ questions with your experiences. It would have exactly opposite learnings if you do not walk the talk. Above all, there is a life after the training day too. And there is a relationship after training room too. If trainees are unable to relate the content to their day-to-day life or unable to approach you for mentor-ship then the program is already failed.

The article was published in Daily Nation on 26th October 2015