Early in my career as a corporate trainer, I had a profound experience. On the morning of the first day of a workshop, I was going through the process of eliciting each participant’s expectations for the workshop. The wall was beginning to fill up with flipcharts listing what participants wanted to get from the workshop. When I got to one young participant, he stated “I’m not broken, and I don’t need to be fixed!”
Apparently his manager had enrolled him in the workshop, because he, the manager, viewed the participant as being “broken”. I see this happen far too often, where corporate training is positioned as remedial, and therefore creates a stigma…only “broken” people get sent for training.
So now I assure participants that they “are not broken, don’t need to be fixed, are perfect as they are and can improve a little every day.”
It’s important that we honor people for who they are, what they stand for and who they can become.
How do you position training? If you focus on growing peoples’ strengths, and not fixing their weaknesses, you will send a powerful message that builds trust, and positions learning as a positive, stigma-free experience.
Remember, you’re not broken, you don’t need to be fixed, you’re perfect as you are and you can improve a little every day!