No Credibility Training

I recently recalled at my old company, training in vacuum truck operations for a small refinery in a small town in Lousiana. This training had been developed and delivered for my company, but we had recently merged with our principal competitor, and this training in Louisiana was my first training of this type for a branch from the company that we had merged with. 

My showing up without the credibility I had fostered within the branches of my previously, unmerged company, and I was forced to deal with a large group of trainees who were unexcited about being a part of a new, larger, company, and were not used to this style of training. Finally, the training was on a Saturday, eight hours outside, and in late June. It was a dangerous mixture for learning. I would bet the same difficulties and challenges you faced were exactly the same as the ones I faced during that training. 

Several things saved me during this training, first, the hostility I faced about having to take the training was very similar to the hostility that I faced when I had rolled out this training six years earlier in the unmerged company. I called on that history and fell back on those tools and techniques of persuasion I had learned to use then. Secondly, there was a new site safety manager who happened to be an enlisted Marine. This Marine enjoyed having processes and procedures and training that helped to outline and deliver them to the team. Secondly, he had the least experience in working with large industrial equipment like liquid vacuum trucks so he was an eager participant. I leveraged his seniority (such as it was as a site safety manager) and his eagerness throughout the training as a foil against the negativity coming from the class. 

It's always interesting how each class is different, with different and various stimuli that must be overcome and incorporated into the training. Thankfully, having had a background in providing that training for many years I was able to bring the class back to the appropriate learning objectives despite the challenges.