It was during the 800th Meeting Celebration of Pudong Toastmasters Club (PDTMC) that I first met Jeff Tan. He was then invited to be the keynote speaker for us.
I was just a new member of PDTMC for about three months at that time and barely knew any big potatoes in Toastmasters, no mention of any Jeff. But I can still remember how excited the club officers were.
“Jeff’s training is very expensive on the market,” they exclaimed, “but he will deliver a keynote speech for us, for FREE!”
Ummm, free? Sounds good, isn’t it?
Then on March 5, 2017, Jeff came to the meeting, and shared with us some tips on “How Toastmasters will help you succeed in life with just THREE steps”.
It was not good—it’s superb!
It wowed everybody and sent me thinking: “No wonder his training is expensive!”
But, what I couldn’t imagine then was one day, half a year later, I would be lucky enough to attend Jeff’s training, for two days, and for FREE!
Thanks to the organization of TTT (Train-the-Trainer) team lead by D85 Program Quality Director Helen He, I was one of the “chosen few” to attend the TTT of D85 on Aug. 4-5, 2018, with Jeff Tan as the trainer.
Jeff’s two-day workshop was full of practical instructions, interesting stories and fun activities, but I reorganize my notes in this recap in the time order as to how to prepare and conduct a workshop from the very start, so that I can review the tips from time to time to prepare my future workshops accordingly, and also as a sharing to the readers (if any) so that more people can benefit from Jeff’s training.
According to Jeff, even for the brand new trainers-to-be like us, three simple steps can be followed to conduct a workshop:
- Design workshop
- Create Presentation material
- Deliver workshop
Design Workshop
When assigned with a training workshop, we may feel totally at a loss: too many ideas to convey, too many things to cover, or maybe, no idea at all... How should we begin?
Jeff shared with us a VERY important weapon to help us organize the ideas – his Presentation Pyramid.
The Presentation Pyramid is used to design / create a crystal clear and logical message.
To help us better understand and apply this method, we were divided into groups by Jeff and assigned with the task: each group conducts a workshop to introduce the new Pathways system to ten potential members in order to attract them to join the club. (And then we have spent the following two days with the ten invisible imaginary potential members…)
Jeff then instructed us step by step to design our own workshop.
1. Writing down the Purpose Statement:
* The purpose of my presentation is to influence and inspire (what) the audience / decision-maker (who) so that they (do what / what happens to them).
In the given scenario, the purpose of our workshop is to influence and inspire the ten potential members so that they will join toastmasters club.
With this essential purpose of presentation clearly set, we then move on to collect and organize our ideas around it.
2. Deciding on the three Key Points.
* The three keypoints of my presentation must support my purpose statement.
3. Deciding on the three supporting points.
* The three supporting points of my presentation must support each key point, and the supporting points offer proofs, evidences and examples for each key point.
Create Presentation Material
When the presentation pyramid is built up and all the supporting materials are ready, we need to create presentation material, i.e. transfer our draft design into PPT slides.
We Chinese people love and are good at making PPT Slides, but Jeff emphasized: the trainer is the star, not the PPT. Don’t let your slides steal the spotlights.
Besides, there are 5 rules to observe:
1. Font Size / Type
Size: as large as possible, minimal 30 pt.
Fonts: either Sans Serif or Serif
2. Image Quality / Screen Size
Use large image with high resolution
Put it into FULL screen size
3. Template
Avoid those overused templates
4. Special Effects
DON’T! DON’T! DON’T! DON’T! DON’T!
“If I see any fly-in, I will kick you OUT.” Jeff joked.
5. Info per slide and number of slides
ONE point ONE slide
No limit of the number of slides, and you can use as many as you need, as long as the "ONE point ONE slide" rule is followed.
Each group worked again to transfer the Presentation Pyramid draft into PPT, and then showed the slides to the audience. During our group presentations, more tips are learned:
1. Maximum 6 words * 6 lines per slide;
2. Be careful when use body language and image.
Use the images which represent the emotion rather than a picture showing a specific scene,e.g. a happy face icon is better than a workplace picture when saying that Pathways help you promote in your career.
3. No need to put a “Thank you” slide in the end; instead, put some words and ask for action.
Deliver Workshop
When it comes the time to deliver the workshop, there are more important instructions for this big day from Jeff—Engaging the Audience.
We Toastmasters members are often well educated to be a good public speaker, but far from a trainer. However, a trainer role is quite different from that of a speaker in that a trainer needs to not only speak and talk, but try the best to get the audience engaged so that they learn and remember better, for we human being are a forgetful species.
And below are the HOWs from Jeff:
1. Have a chat (like) with friends.
This helps to get both the audience and yourself calm down and relaxed.
2. Tell lots of TRUE stories.
Why? By telling stories, you can
a) Emphasize your point
b) Build trust.
When people listen to a story, a special chemical substance called oxytocin is generated in the brain and that makes them feel relaxed and good.
But as we are aware of, storytelling is really challenging to us Chinese, for we often feel reluctant and uncomfortable to share with others our stories. To address this problem, Jeff had prepared a special session which I will elaborate later.
3. Show your vulnerability / humility
Why? It shows you are the same like the audience and it draws you closer to each other.
4. Ask & Listen
During the whole workshop, Jeff kept asking us questions and listening to our answers. The answers may be varied, yet Jeff seldom commented on them. “You just keep asking, sometimes with only a “really”, people will focus and think hard.” Jeff explained, “And people remember best what is thought out hard by themselves”.
5. Force audience participation
There are some methods used in Jeff's workshop:
Ask people to make self-introduction, e.g. introduce yourself to a) the one next to you, b) one who you didn’t know before;
Divide the audience into groups and assign group tasks, e.g. Introduce Pathways to 10 potential newmembers. Due to our collective culture, the Chinese people feel more comfortable when act in a group. (For this TTT training, we were learning and will continue to work in our group.)
Ask the individual to practice within the group or on the stage.
Storytelling to Influence
"You have listened to hundreds of stories from me, but you never notice," smiled Jeff.
Again, why do we tell stories?
a) Emphasize your point
b) Build trust (oxytocin)
When telling a story, a S.C.A.R.F. model is recommended to follow:
Status: the relative importance to others, i.e. to make the audience feel good / respected / honored to be here.
Certainty: the ability to predict future
Autonomy: the sense of control over events
Relatedness: the sense of safety with others
Fairness: the perception of fair exchange
(More details can be found from the S.C.A.R.F. model of Dr. David Rock. Also, I think more readings on psychology is quite necessary to a trainer, or to anyone who works with people.)
According to Jeff,
A story to influence is always TRUE, for it is hard for us to remember the lies we told;
A story to influence is between 30’’~90’’ long;
You can find stories from your own life / others’ / compo;
You story can be either challenging or inspirational, success or failure.
(Don't begin your storytelling by saying "I will tell you a story", otherwise you will arouse the avoid-responce in your audience.)
How to do storytelling?
The steps to be taken are:
1. Decide on the points you want to make;
2. Choose a feeling you want the audience to feel;
People forget easily what you said, but will remember the feeling generated by what you said for long.
3. Choose a story form your collection.
My story collection? None. No one yet.
I often feel life is quiet, dull, short of any exitement or anything worth sharing. But from now on, I will keep an sharp eye and ear on the world around me, and take notes down whenever there's anything special coming into my mind. I will be grateful to life, slow down my pace and ponder on the meaning of the things and persons come into my life.
Everyone can build his / her own stroy collection, because every individual is unique, everything happens for a reason, and everything in our life counts.
Jeff the DEMO trainer
During the whole weekend, Jeff not only instructed us on the training techniques through stories and slides, but demonstrated how a PROFESSIONAL trainer should be, for he himself was the trainer, the DEMO trainer for us.
Jeff kept on reminding us to pay attention to his performance: what he did just now, how he did this or why he said that...
Below are some findings:
Preparation
Though I knew the trainer is a professional trainer, before I crossed over the Shanghai city and came to the meeting room, I thought it may be a just-so-so workshop. Just imagine, when a Professional expensive trainer is asked to conduct a workshop for a group of young amateur trainers-(not)-to-be for two days and for FREE, he has every reason to easily walk through the assignment without any guilty feeling.
However, I learned later that Jeff had prepared this workshop for weeks with Helen He and they had met and discussed the plans and details for 3-4 times both online and offline.
It has taken me days to write this recap with only the brief points. Just imagine, how long it had taken Jeff to prepare all the interesting stories from his collection, design the wonderful slides (in total 143 pages) and planned all the activities to make each one of us involved and engaged in the two-day workshop!
Time to arrive at the venue
Our training begun at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, but in Friday afternoon, Jeff came to the meeting venue and checked the room and equipments by himself.
The first morning, I arrived at 9:30 a.m sharp. "Luckily I am not late", said I to myself. Later I learnt that Jeff had arrived at least one hour earlier, and the training room key was with him.
The second morning, I left home half an hour earlier and when I arrived at 9:00 a.m, I saw people were crowded at the door outside of the room, waiting for Jeff. A few minutes later, Jeff arrived. The taxi driver had sent him to an opposite dirction and he had almost travelled half a Shanghai before he noticed the mistake. "Even though we made full preparations, accidents can happen at any time. We need more buffers." Jeff apologies to us and said. What a good lession for us. We can never be over-prepared.
Dresscode
"You are what you wear. Your dress is your status, your dress speaks for you and conveys the feeling you want your audience have."
Watch out for your diet.
"Did you notice that I didn't go out dining with you?"Jeff reminded us, "I ate my sandwiches."
"You know why? So that I don't need to worry about the sweat, and I wont’ be at the risk of loose bowel" said Jeff, "As a trainer, you need to keep yourself tidy and always on top of your condition."
Prepare a special opening
Jeff opened his training by sharing us a video of a wedding with a very special opening where the bestmen and bridesmaids danced into the church one after another, so did the bridegroom and the bride...
That's really an eye-catching opening wedding....and workshop.
Prepare some music for the break
It creates a lively atomosphere and helps the audience to relax during the break, and also get their attention back to the training if you change the music or play some video.
Our GOLDEN Trainer Jeff Tan
Over half a month has passed since the TTT training by Jeff Tan, but what we have learned from him is far more that what is writen in this article, and all he shared with us so generously will definitely benefit us for a long time in the future, in both our Toastmasters journey and work or life.
P.S.
Luckily we had a wonderful team for the TTT Program. We have learned, practiced and enjoyed together during the whole weekend with Jeff.
We will continue to help and support each other in the coming days till November, to finish our homework together: everyone deliver three training videos.
Hopefully all of us will attend the grand TTT Program Graducation Ceremony on Nov. 25, 2018. At that time, no matter whether we meet our "selfish goals" or not, we all make progress and become a better self.
Mission accepted, Aug. 5, 2018.
Mission completed, Nov. 25, 2018.
