Knowing How to Communicate Isn’t the Same as Knowing How to Teach It
I’ve spent nearly three decades working in communications and around 20 of those delivering media training. But knowing a lot about communication doesn’t automatically make somebody a good communication trainer. Even if it gives you a very useful starting point.
If you’ve worked in communications for years, you probably know how to develop a message, understand an audience and spot when somebody is making something far more complicated than it needs to be. If you’re a journalist, you may instinctively recognise the interesting part of a story, know when somebody hasn’t really answered your question and understand what makes an interview useful.
But when you become the trainer, knowing what you would do is only part of the job. You have to work out how to help somebody else do it better.And I think that’s where the craft of training really begins.
The person in front of you changes everything
I’ve trained people who couldn’t wait to get started and wanted to absorb absolutely everything. I’ve also trained people who were there because somebody else had decided they needed to be.
I’ve worked with very senior executives who would rather nobody else was in the room, nervous subject-matter experts who knew their topic inside out but dreaded being questioned about it, people who arrived convinced they were already excellent communicators and others whose lack of confidence was apparent almost as soon as they walked through the door.
Then, of course, there are all the personalities in between...
You can have a beautifully designed workshop, excellent content and years of communication experience behind you, but you still have to work with the person or people who actually turn up.
That means noticing what’s happening in the room and being prepared to respond to it. Someone who is anxious may need something very different from someone who is overconfident. A dominant participant can change the dynamic for everyone else. Someone who says very little may be disengaged, intimidated or simply taking everything in before they contribute.
The trainer needs to work that out rather than simply continuing with slide 27.
Knowing what to leave out matters too
I think one of the easiest traps to fall into when you first start training, particularly when you have a lot of experience, is wanting to share too much of it.
You want people to see that you know your subject. You’ve probably got years of examples, stories, techniques and advice you could share, and there’s a temptation to squeeze as much of that knowledge as possible into the time you have together.
I understand that. I can happily talk about communication all day! But I’m much more interested in what the participant can understand, remember and actually do differently afterwards than how much I managed to tell them.
Sometimes that means explaining something. Sometimes it means demonstrating it or giving them a framework they can use again. Quite often it means asking the right question, letting them have a go and then working with what happens.
And sometimes it means leaving out a perfectly good piece of content because the people in front of you need more time somewhere else.
That becomes easier with experience. You stop feeling that every slide has to earn its moment in the spotlight and become much more comfortable changing the plan when the learning in the room tells you to.
Interview practice is where the two roles really come together
Media training adds another interesting layer because, during interview practice, you’re doing two jobs at once.
You need enough understanding of journalism and interviews to make the exercise realistic. You’re listening to the answer, deciding where to go next and working out whether to challenge, interrupt or follow something the participant has just said.
But you also need to be thinking like a trainer: While I’m asking the questions, I’m listening to whether the participant’s message is actually coming through. I’m noticing whether they get to the point quickly enough, whether I can understand and remember what they’re saying, and what happens to their delivery when the questions become more difficult.
I’m also watching their pace, tone, energy and body language. Are they retreating into jargon? Have they started talking for far too long? Has their confidence dipped? Are they doing something physically that has become so distracting I’ve stopped listening to the answer?
That’s why I don’t think conducting a really tough interview is evidence in itself of good media training. It can certainly test somebody, but the point isn’t to demonstrate how effectively I can play the journalist. It’s to use the exercise to help the person in front of me become a better communicator.
And a huge part of that happens in what you do with everything you’ve just observed.
Giving good feedback takes judgement
I can usually find plenty to say after watching somebody communicate. That doesn’t mean I should say all of it.
If I give somebody a list of 15 things they did wrong, they may leave knowing I’m extremely observant, but they’re unlikely to remember what to do differently next time.
The skill is in working out what matters most. Which change would make the biggest difference? What are they already doing well that I want them to keep? Is something I’ve noticed a one-off or a pattern? And how can I make the feedback specific enough for them to actually do something with it?
How you deliver that feedback matters too.I recently had a participant describe one of my workshops as ‘engaging and interactive. Brutal at times!’ before giving it five out of five across the board.I rather liked that.
I don’t set out to be brutal, but I do believe in saying what needs to be said. If someone’s body language is undermining their authority, their answer is impossible to follow or they’re taking three minutes to make a point they could make in 30 seconds, avoiding it because it feels kinder isn’t going to help them.
Equally, there’s little value in simply telling somebody they waffle. I need to help them understand why it’s happening and give them something practical they can use to change it.
For me, constructive feedback has to have somewhere to go. The participant needs to know what to try next and, ideally, have the opportunity to try it while I’m still there to help.
You’re making decisions all the time
I think this is one of the less obvious parts of being a trainer because, when a workshop is going well, the person delivering it can make it look relatively effortless.In reality, you’re constantly making small decisions.
Do I spend longer on this because it’s clearly useful, even though I’ll need to change something later? Do I bring the quieter person into the conversation or give them a little more time? Is the person challenging me because they’re sceptical, or because they need more evidence before they’ll buy into what I’m saying? Do I push harder in the next interview, or would that undermine the confidence we’ve just started to build?
Even exercises you’ve used many times can behave differently with different people. Something that creates a brilliant discussion with one group can need far more help with another.
I have a structure behind my workshops and frameworks I use repeatedly, but that doesn’t mean I deliver exactly the same day every time. I couldn’t, because the people aren’t the same.
Having that structure actually gives me more freedom to adapt. I know what I’m trying to achieve and where I need to get to, which means I can spend less time worrying about what comes next and more time paying attention to what’s happening in front of me.
Turning your experience into something other people can learn from
None of this diminishes the value of the experience you already have. It’s precisely why I think experienced journalists and communications professionals can make excellent media trainers.
You already understand much of the world your participants are operating in. You have stories, examples, judgement and experience to draw on. You’ve probably spent years watching people communicate brilliantly and badly, and have a fairly well-developed instinct for what works.
The next step is learning how to turn all of that into training. This means thinking about how you structure a workshop, how you create exercises with a purpose, how you work with different personalities and levels of confidence, and how you observe and critique without simply telling people what you would have done instead.
It also means developing your own approach as a trainer rather than inheriting somebody else’s slides, rules and exercises without questioning why they’re there.
That’s one of the things I enjoy most about developing other media trainers. I’m not trying to create six versions of me. I want people to take the expertise and experience they already have and give it enough structure, methodology and trainer thinking to create something they can confidently deliver themselves.
Thinking about becoming a media trainer?
The Media Trainer Method® is designed for experienced journalists and communications professionals who want to turn what they already know into a professional media training offer, or strengthen and extend the training they already deliver.
We look at workshop design and different participant types, messaging, authenticity and storytelling, interview practice, questioning and active listening, observation and constructive feedback. I share the five frameworks I use in my own training, and we explore how AI can support both trainer preparation and participant development.
We also look at the commercial side, including how you position and price your training, identify potential clients and take your offer to market.
You have time to apply what you’ve learned and a 1:1 development session with me, where we can concentrate on your own workshop and offer, followed by 30 days of support as you continue developing it.
Knowing a great deal about communication is an excellent place to start. The interesting part, when you become the trainer, is working out what the person in front of you needs from all that expertise and how you’re going to help them use it.