Shaping Paths: How to Design and Deliver PRACTICAL Training

by Jamie Dixon, Lorraine Reguly (Editor)

Most trainers know a great deal about how to deliver an engaging classroom experience, but what counts the most is behaviour change. If learners don’t use what they learnt back in their workplace, the training was a waste of time. Shaping Paths is a straightforward training design methodology that helps drive the transfer of learning back to the workplace. This can be accomplished by designing effective tools based on lessons from the fields of user experience design and emotional design. Tools are things like checklists, templates, forms, and so on. A lot of tools are complicated and don’t deliver the value learners are looking for, but if we design simple tools and make them better fit into the learners’ worlds, people will use them. We can also use The 5 Elements of Delivery (Priming, Guiding, Practicing, Reflecting, and Committing) to focus our classroom experience around helping learners master those tools. When the training is over, they’ll be ready to go back to work and start using the tools to their advantage. Shaping Paths is a reference aid that will help you throughout the process of designing and delivering practical learning solutions, which will spark ideas in your time of need, help you get things done, and give you more purpose and confidence in the way you approach your work. Ultimately, it will help YOU design and deliver learning solutions that lead to behaviour changes where it counts—back in the workplace.

407 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 9, 2019

About the author

I am a Leadership Coach and Trainer and Author. I’ve helped ambitious leaders in over 160 multinational companies over the last 10 years improve their influence, communication and productivity.

I coach and train in both English and Mandarin. I am also conversational in Japanese. I am an IAC accredited coach, a certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centred Coach, a certified Tiny Habits coach and also certified in Everything DISC.
 
In my spare time I enjoy spending time with my family, reading, meditation, calisthenics, and Yoga.

I’m the Author of 3 Books:
•      The Story Habit - A methodology for building simple and powerful habits for influencing at work through the power of storytelling
•      Overcome and Get it Done! - A book about discipline, productivity and behaviour change that I proudly wrote and published in just 24 hours
•      Shaping Paths, How to Design and Deliver PRACTICAL Training - A practical training design methodology that I use to design all my training solutions
 
Chinese Culture Has Shaped My Thinking
Having spent over 15 years living in China, Chinese culture has had a profound impact on my thinking. Chinese pragmatism, practicality and philosophy have shaped the way I design, coach and facilitate.
 
The famous quote “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice” sums up Chinese pragmatism; prioritise action over ideology. I apply this pragmatism to my design work, by freeing myself from the constraints of academic theory, scientific research and outdated models. Instead, I just focus on what actions people take to get results.
 
The skylines of cities like Shanghai are the result of Chinese practicality; an emphasis on fast results. In my experience of training Chinese people, I have found they lose patience fast if the training is not relevant to the problems or goals they are facing at work. I use my facilitation skills to surface these quickly, and focus the training in that direction.
 
The Yin Yang represents the Daoist principle of following the flow of nature, known as The Way, or Dao (Chinese: 道). I view motivation as a natural force with its own flow, and when facilitating I search for peoples’ motivations and help them find useful things that follow that flow.
 
All of these inspirations have shaped my training design and facilitation philosophy, which I share in my book “Shaping Paths – How to Design and Deliver PRACTICAL Training”.
 
To learn more about me and my work, check out the following links:
 
Website: www.shapingpaths.com
 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjamiedi...
 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaC4...
 
Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/jamiedixon

Reviews

[Alastair M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone involved in training - including Facilitators, Trainers and also Leaders and Managers that onboard and train new staff. The Author is a highly experienced Trainer and Coach who has delivered Train The Trainer workshops for a huge number of global companies, so provides a lot of practical insights and ideas, as opposed to boring theory. Well worth reading.

[Bola Owoade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book

This is one of the best training books I've read. No matter how long you've been training and I've been doing it for a long time, there's something to learn from this book. My conclusion is that Jamie is a very smart trainer and I highly recommend this book. It will definitely help you improve your training. Thank you very much, Jamie!