Train the Trainer: Dealing with ‘difficult’ participants – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post we shared what trainers can do when dealing with difficult participants, to prevent the training running off track. Even if you take all these steps you may still find that you have some personalities in the training room who are capable of derailing the training for everyone else. In this post you will read some tips and advice for dealing with the most common ‘difficult’ behaviours. In my training career I’ve met all these types (fortunately not all in the same room!) and I’ve observed that they are often unaware of the impact of their behaviour and do not have bad intentions. Nevertheless, it’s useful to have a set of strategies to manage them in order to minimise their impact on the rest of the group.

The Talker

There are a few variations of this first type. It could be someone who always has an answer and an opinion to share. Or the participant who talks at length and wanders off the subject. In either case, if you don’t deal with this there is a risk that the talker will dominate the session. In my experience other participants will just let this happen (they expect you to deal with it) and start to withdraw and lose interest. Here are some tips for managing ‘the talker’:

• Use summarising as a strategy to interrupt, e.g. ‘Thanks, this sounds like an interesting point, so can I just summarise what you’re saying so we are all clear?”
• Avoid open questions to the group; nominate people by name to answer questions or share thoughts and experiences
• Break eye contact and turn your body slightly away to signal to the participant that it’s time to stop talking now
• Give this person a role which encourages him or her to listen, e.g. taking notes on a flipchart of the main points in a discussion

The Quiet One

This could be someone who is innately shy or perhaps uncomfortable in a group setting. In my experience they often have something very relevant and interesting to say when they do eventually contribute, so you need to have a few strategies to make that happen. Here are some of the things I do:

• Be gentle and encouraging, being aware that you are putting them on the spot, e.g. “I know you have some great experience in this area, we would really like to hear what you think.”
• Make sure that language is not a barrier and moderate it if it is; all my training is in English with multi-national groups and I always find there is at least one participant who does not have equal ability in English to the others
• Dividing the class into small groups really helps any quiet participants to come out of their shells and contribute something
• Use the break time to take the participant to one side and have a private chat to find out why they have joined the training and if there are any specific reasons that you can address to help them participate more

The Challenger

This type wants to disagree or argue with everything you say. It may seem like she or he has something they need to prove to the group and maybe you. While we definitely want participants to critically argue and debate, we want them to do it in a constructive way. If you don’t manage the challenger early on you may find yourself becoming drawn into arguments that take you off what you want to focus on. Here are some tips to manage this type:

• Acknowledge the participant’s right to have a point of view and remind them of why they are here, e.g. “I don’t need you to agree with everything I say. My intent is to share certain models and theories with you all and ask you to decide how they could be useful in your jobs”.
• Throw the argument to the group by asking what others think; often a bit of peer pressure will calm the challenger down
• Ask questions to encourage the challenger to self-reflect on what they are saying, e.g. “That’s an interesting perspective, tell me more” or “Can you tell me why you think that?”
• As with ‘the talker’, give this participant roles which will encourage them to listen to others, e.g. note-taker, observer, summariser.

The Know-It-All

Similar to ‘the challenger’, this type claims to know much more than you do about the topic and gives the impression that he or she should be leading the training! Their constant attention seeking can take up time and energy. Some tips I have used to manage this type:

• You can flatter their ego to an extent but be careful not to give them the floor for too long; once they have it you will find it difficult to take it back off them
• Ask them to tell the group what they know about a topic and then follow up with some probing questions to reveal what they don’t know; this takes a bit of thought but if you can do it well you can succeed in humbling their ego a little
• Get them to ‘teach’ the others in the group and encourage the group to ask difficult questions, which could show up gaps in their knowledge
• Take them aside and directly ask why they are here; as with ‘the quiet one’ you may discover information that can help you manage them

The Clown

This type loves to tell jokes, make light of serious issues and distract other participants. ‘Clowns’ usually have some insecurity which they want to mask, but remember your job is not to psycho-analyse participants; it’s to get them working together productively. While this type can supply some needed humour and lighten the atmosphere at useful times, you need to contain their behaviour in order to maintain the focus of your training session. Here are some tips for doing this:

• Use your body language and eye contact to signal to this person that enough is enough
• You can also leverage the energy this person supplies at good moments, e.g. to energise people after a hard task or returning from a break
• As with some of the other types, take them aside for a private chat just to check that they are taking things seriously deep down
• Get them involved in roles that keep them busy and focused and away from disruptive behaviour

The Complainer

This type seems to have a negative opinion about everyone and everything. You will hear frequent comments like “I can’t do that” or “Person X should be here not me”. The problem with constant negativity is that it can be contagious and quickly spread to the whole group, eventually undermining any productive work. Here are my tips to deal with negative types:

• Counter negative statements by focusing on reasons behind them and options, e.g. “Tell me why you think it can’t be done” or “So if this won’t work, what else could we try?”
• You can be a little bit playful and make light of the negativity, which could lift the atmosphere, e.g. “Now I’m sure Participant X will have something to say about this!”
• Take the person aside for a private chat; sometimes participants don’t realise they are being so negative and raising their awareness of this could help put a stop to it
• Get group agreement on a limit to the number of negative phrases allowed in the training room and an appropriate punishment for infringement (e.g. the infringer buys cake for everyone at the break!)

The Sceptic

“This is fine in theory, but it will never work here”. As with ‘the challenger’ we want participants to use critical thinking in training, after all the whole point is that they use the training to make changes at work. However, like ‘the complainer’ some participants are overly negative and sceptical and this can impact the rest of the group. Try these tips to manage this type:

• Acknowledge that scepticism in a necessary thing but only if it leads to new ideas and ways of thinking (a similar tactic to deal with ‘the challenger’)
• Counter scepticism with positive statements, e.g. “So, you don’t think this would work here. What can we think of that would work?”
• Use case studies from your own experience to demonstrate how other teams and organisations overcame obstacles using some of the methods you are showing during the training

Sometimes a sceptical participant dismisses ideas on a surface level, so you can introduce some methods of inquiry which are designed to get deeper into complex problems, e.g. root cause analysis or the question funnel

Remember that everyone is someone’s ‘difficult person’ and ‘difficult’ behaviour is not a reason to discount someone. It’s part of our job as trainers to manage personalities and in some ways that’s what makes the job interesting. As I said in Part 1, in over 20 years of training I only remember a handful of these types, but I have learned a few tips and tricks to manage them! We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of developing trainers, feel free to contact us.

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