As a trainer, we are often puzzled at less effect on audience without interest when we give a technical training. Fortunately, Dr. Jeff gave us a good solution in the training the trainer, which is to add humor into our training.

About humor.

1.      What is humor in the training? Just a slightly funny statement to emphasize the point we are making.

2.      What humor IS NOT! Joke after joke after joke

3.      When do we add humor? Add humor after we share the boring factual point we are emphasizing.

4.      How long is our humorous statement? As short as possible.

5.      How to know it’s funny? Test is the best way. Tell our friends’ friends to make sure they laugh. Take a video and practice in toastmasters.

There are two simply steps to transform a deadly boring statement into a humorous point.

1.      Write the key points on a piece of paper before creating funny bits.

2.      Stretch + Exaggerate + Twist the truth. Look for things we can measure (like time, money, or a number) or something that involves a feeling or emotion (like happiness, anxiety, or fear) and make the ending completely unexpected, strange, weird, totally crazy!

Let’s see how it does process.

1.      Before we present, identify all important issues we are going to talk about, and create the humorous bits.

2.      Tell the audience these important, factual and boring points in plain vanilla language.

3.      Add the humorous line we are already prepared.

4.      Make the ending completely unexpected.

Do you still think it is difficult to drag your audience engage in the training? Why not try to add humor to your training, which must make it a big difference. Let’s put them into practice!