Mark over on the ‘Integration Training’ blog posted an interesting post about ‘Technique Head’ recently.

Mark writes about trainers and consultants who learn the theories and explanations then spout them out, almost as written, regardless of their own understanding of it, or the understanding of the people they are training.

These “theorists” use the theory not as a means to an end but as an end in itself.
I know some consultants and trainers, for whom the talking about and theorising about, is more important than the actual doing.

They are the sort of people who will write endlessly about nutritional values, cooking in various parts of the world, health and safety considerations and then struggle to make beans on toast and get a cup of tea ready all at the same time.

There is the saying “Those that can, do and those that can’t, teach”
To an extent this could be true, bad teachers/trainers are those who know what to do, yet how to do it is lost on them and their students. Good teachers are those who have, done and know instinctively the best way to get their experiences and knowledge across.
It would be a sad world indeed if all teachers were former failures.

So why aren’t these ‘theory’ trainers and consultants just shown the door on the grounds that they are boring and in effect only tell us what we can find out for ourselves as easily as they did?

We live in an age of “perceived expertise” – where anyone can read a few books, set up a website and then call themselves pretty much whatever they want.

Most of the population (this goes for business as well as consumer) is generally so insecure that they will buy any “quick fix” going.

I agree with Mark’s overall thinking that training must work – at more than a superficial level – so the training does not have to be continually repeated, making staff more efficient, speeding  procedures etc. and overall, especially in these cost conscious times, saving money.

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