Confessions of a Corporate Trainer

Embrace the Gritty Reality of Training Ever watched half your class stomp out on you? Fallen asleep facilitating a creativity workshop? Planned a bulletproof lesson plan, then dropped it 10 minutes after you started? Don't worry--it's fine to confess. If you have faced a surprise in the training room, chances are Jonathan Halls has seen it, too. As a result, he doesn't pretend to be a shiny happy trainer anymore; his 25-plus years of training and facilitating in 25 countries have taught him not to stress over a less-than-flawless class--and helped him focus less on himself and more on letting his learners shine. In Confessions of a Corporate Trainer: An Insider Tells All, Jonathan tells relatable and charming stories of what corporate training is really about, drawing from his highly rated train-the-trainer workshops and hundreds of honest conversations with like-minded trainers. He recounts the curveball he was thrown midway through a change management workshop in Zagreb, Croatia--and how it showed him the futility of overplanning. He shares the time a fire alarm disrupted a training program he led in Washington, D.C., and how he embraced the interruption. And he reflects on what conspires to knock trainers off their game (psst: demanding clients, heavy workloads, and frequent travel are only a few of the culprits). Discover the gritty reality of training. Confessions of a Corporate Trainer will entertain you, challenge you, and remind you why you as a trainer are so important in today's workplace.
About the Author: Jonathan is skeptical of fads and buzzwords, often wondering if we've lost the art of critical reflection. But then he gets excited because he keeps bumping into humble trainers who are doing amazing things by applying evidence-based learning practice. Having worked in most facets of learning as a trainer, training manager, learning executive and contractor, he has also earned his bread and butter in non-training jobs. They include being a talk show host, journalist, and communications manager. He has both a bachelors and masters in adult learning and in his spare time, likes cooking, drinking wine, playing the piano, and making furniture. Yes, he really makes furniture. Jonathan is author of Rapid Video Development for Trainers (2012), Memory and Cognition in Learning (2013), Rapid Media Development for Trainers (2016), Video Script Writing (2014), and Learning Science: A Pocket Book for Workplace Trainers and Talent Professionals (2019). He has written numerous articles for professional magazines including TD Magazine, Learning Solutions Magazine, and The HR Observer. Visit trainermojo.com to sign up for his weekly learning helpline.