If there’s one word that drives me crazy, it’s “trainer.”  When other professional development companies say they have “experienced trainers” or “certified trainers,” all I can think about is dog training, specifically obedience school and clicker training.

Do your “training” sessions make your employees want to plot your untimely death?  (We can fix that.)

Training does not leave room for thoughtfulness, for individuality, for learning styles–but teaching does.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: Training shows employees how to use database software to enter data into the fields of an existing database. Teaching shows people how to design a database to best meet the needs of an organization as it grows, and helps them think more strategically about ways to use and display all of that captured information. Teaching assumes employees are intelligent and creative; training assumes employees all need to develop the same, very well-defined skill set with a narrow range of applications.

At Eager Mondays, we don’t train people; we teach them, and in so doing, help them become better, more thoughtful learners who can rise to whatever challenges confront them.

Need to detox from a bad training experience? Feel free to share your training horror stories in the comments and let us know how teaching would have been a better approach.