Where from here?

Work is interesting to say the least these days.

I find myself in the midst of a corporate fad, and I feel as though I'm the only one who sees it as such.

I am a facilitator, trainer, speaker, whatever term you choose to use. The bare bones of it is, I get up in front of people and use all means available to help them understand something that they either didn't, or had never been exposed to prior to being in the room.

As I work in a highly technical field, I like to focus on the guts of the matter, and I am also enjoying our mixing of "soft skills" (communicating with our customers better, and having an actual relationship with them).

However, I'm seeing a somewhat disturbing new trend.

In a word: EXCITEMENT

Increasingly on conference calls, and during reviews, and feedback loops I'm hearing more and more excitement based feedback.

It's un-nerving. Why? Well let's see:

• Fact based meetings are in direct opposition to excitement based meetings.
• Asking clarifying questions during an excitement based meeting is damaging to the "excitement" level and therefore viewed as nay-saying.
• Keeping an excitement level up during a technical class lasting three weeks is NOT POSSIBLE.
• For the above bullet I encourage you to Google anything related to motivational speaking. All of the info points to the speaking being only a MAX of 15 to 30 min. long. This is due to our short attention spans. Therefor a three week class is NO PLACE for this type of teaching.
• If your participants rely on the speaker or trainer for excitement in a technical field, they may not be the best picks for employment to begin with.
• Asking your senior employees to scream into a phone during a nation wide conference call to show their excitement is to say the least ridiculous. To say the most, down right insulting.
• When an employee has given years of their life to further the knowledge base in their chosen industry, and you decide that they aren't "excited" enough, it amounts to a slap in the face to suggest that they no longer belong, as they aren't excited about the call, class, or moment.

All that being said, Lets look at this from the participants point of view.

Assuming I'm a technical employee, meaning: hands on, fix it, get dirty kind of person.

I'm sent to two classes.

In class one I'm presented material and information in a calm, non-hyped basis. My questions are answered, some humor is thrown around, I'm kept interested by the speaker, and by the material alone. I have buy-in based on the fact that my trainer is serious, but fun. I leave with a calm confidence in my ability to take care of the new thing I have seen and learned about.

In class two I'm presented with the same material and information, but the speaker is high-energy, excitement based. I'm having a hard time believing that the trainer is anything more than a typical used car sales man, he want's to get the info out, but I don't feel like I can interrupt to ask questions, so I'm not at all sure he would know the answers any way. Also, I'm having a hard time following the material as to be honest I just don't like this teachers approach. I'm a hands on person, and this guy is up there with pom-poms singing a cheer for our company and industry. GET REAL!

Now admittedly, I have obviously written this myself, and there fore you could assume I'm just putting you on. However:

I was able to watch the same four hour class taught by two different trainers in the same day. One trainer was a technical type, with no fuss, not much excitement, but much the way "class one" above is described. I watched the participants ask, questions, get involved, write notes in their books, and leave with a sense of buy-in. Mind you this was a SALES based training.... a very difficult training for technical staff to accept.

The same class was then taught by a non-technical highly excitement based trainer. It was night and day. The participants actually argued with the trainer, refused to accept simple principles, would not take notes, and obviously had zero buy-in. In short it was a disaster.

And yet, here we go. Cheering on conference calls, and receiving feedback that although, I'm training to standard, I'm just not emotionally connecting with the class..... there not leaving excited about the new product...

Just plain scary.

The situation is made worse by this fact:

Others who have spoken out in opposition to this type of push have been removed.

Simply put, wear your pom-poms or get out.

I'm having a very tough time with this.

In the past had you asked me "Where would you like to be in five years" (A very standard question on a yearly review) I would have confidently said, training management. Now to be honest I'm having a tough time defining that myself.

Time to think... Hard. What do I want to be doing in five years....

I think I need to call a friend I haven't spoken to in years.

Any way, what do you think? Do you see this trend in your job / industry? Do you have any ideas / comments?