MEDIC-ate Your Training Sessions

By: Paul Archer
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:43:26
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Occasionally you stumble across something really clever that you find yourself using time and time again. Early in my career I came across MEDIC, a really simple but ever so clever acronym that just makes every training session you ever deliver bring results.

MEDIC can be used when you’re putting together a session with only a few minutes preparation so it’s great with one to one training or “Sitting with Nellie” type training.

Use the system and your sessions will be well structured and work. MEDIC is an acronym which stands for:

• Motivate
• Explain
• Demonstrate
• Imitate
• Coach

Motivate

Never forget that people who are learning something need to see the benefits of doing so. We live in a WIIFM world – what’s in it for me. I firmly believe that all trainers should also be salespeople at heart and always be willing and able to sell their training to anyone who cares to ask. It’s so dangerous to assume everyone wants to be there on the course or to be at the receiving end of a training session. Many don’t and with today’s choices, people can move on somewhere else if they wish.

We simply have to give some benefits to them of learning what we are going to tech them. That’s why I made a point of giving you some benefits at the beginning of this article.

Let me give you an example of MEDIC in action which I used just the other day with my 11 year old son Lewis. Now Lewis just loves boiled eggs and he really loves mine. Now I can’t cook anything else I’m afraid just boiled eggs but I do cook a vastly superior boiled egg.

I thought it was time to teach my son how to do it. Sort of like passing skills on from father to son! I motivated him with a couple of benefits.

“Lewis, if you learn to boil an egg, this means that you can enjoy a perfect boiled egg whenever you wish. Also, the method I’ll teach you will ensure you have that perfect, soft yolk that you love so much”

Explain

Whatever you’re teaching will probably need some explanation. Sometimes we’re teaching something that’s quite technical, such as the laws relating to selling mortgages, or the process of overcoming objections in selling. So there needs to be some explaining. This is what we call in the business “chalk and talk” usually accompanied by a flipchart. Here’s some tips to help your explanation:

• Explain in a logical sequence
• Ensure you’re clear and concise
• Don’t rush
• Use small easily digestible chunks
• Avoid jargon
• Use questions to test understanding
• Using visual aids to aid understanding
• Use anecdotes, acronyms, stories - anything to make remembering easier.
• Make it interesting

With the explanation, please get them to do it rather than you. Especially if you are training a group of people. This is the cornerstone of accelerated learning – get them to do it. Set up an activity so they read up the explanation and explain to each other, give them a case study so they discover it themselves, run a group discussion so the learned ones educate the non-learned ones, allow a bit of trial and error, run a group brainstorm to see how much they do know.

With my boiled eggs with Lewis I broke down the explanation into 4 key steps and explained each one separately.

Step 1 is to boil the water,
Step 2 is to lower the egg into the water,
Step 3 is to time for 4 minutes exactly
Step 4 (might I say the true secret, so don’t tell anyone) is to remove the pan and pour cold water into the pan displacing the hot water. That way you stop the egg cooking.

Demonstration

Next comes the demonstration. Skills or processes or anything that involves doing something or saying something can be demonstrated. You, as the trainer, could do this. Or you could get someone else in to do it – maybe an expert, since you can’t be an expert at everything. You could use a DVD or a media clip on your laptop. Whoever does it, is not the issue – it’s how it’s done. Here’s some tips:

• Keep the demo visible
• Demo in small stages
• Use real equipment, forms etc.
• Demo at an appropriate speed. Slower at first is best
• Explain as you go
• Allow time for questions

And before you even start, do make sure you’ve practised Because I’d broken down my boiled egg steps into 4 stages, I was able to demonstrate each step to Lewis.

Imitation

Next comes the imitation. In training this is so important and, unfortunately, the bit often missed out when time gets tight – and it always does. When people practise something they start to get things “in the muscle”. It becomes second nature.

When I pull away at a junction in my car, yes I move up the gears; but I don’t recall doing it, I just do it instinctively – it’s in my “muscle memory” Role play is a typical imitation activity, or a case study, pictograms, cartooning, debates, group discussion, crosswords, a quiz, a test, a game.

The list goes on.

Or you could just ask them to perform the skill in front of you to see that they can do it.

Coach

Whilst they’re performing, that’s when coaching comes in. Now coaching is a subject of many more articles. Suffice it to say that the art of coaching is to watch them, pause them and ask how they’re doing so far, what’s going well, what’s not going so well, what could they do differently. Only if necessary do you tell them where they’ve gone wrong.

It’s very emotional learning something new. Inside us we feel threat and intimidation. When we don’t know how to do something we get nervous, so go easy on the feedback. Imagine the delegate was you learning the skill. It’s not easy. Encouragement gets more results than criticism. Occasionally you’ll want to get your learner to loop back to the explain or demonstrate bit again, maybe if they missed something, so be gracious to do this.

So there we have MEDIC – motivate, explain, demonstrate, imitate and coach. Follow the steps whenever you put a training session together and you won’t go far wrong.

As for Lewis and the boiled eggs. We got to the imitation stage and my wife walked in and interrupted the show. Claire said that Lewis is too young to boil water. She probably has a point. I’m now grounded for a week!

Article source: Expert Articles