Don't Move that chair!

Tomorrow I am going to be training a group of people in a nice training room in a nice hotel, in a nice city in a nice country - I'm sounding like Xavier Bertrand again!. 

The theme that we are going to be working on over two days is "Effective Presentation Skills", so we are really going to be taking the lid off of a few topics that are close to my heart; communication in many guises, confidence, sharing, tuning-in and collaborative working. 

Given these elements. Why are dedicated training rooms set up to smash any possible ice-breaking, openness, sharing, communication, team-dynamics and school-type conditioning, whilst avoiding barriers to communication. Chairs and tables set up in a rectangle facing the 'teachers' desk?

I used to think of this as a problem and often got pretty niggled about it, especially when I was given black looks from disgruntled hotel staff after I had piled tables in a corner and left buzz-group configuration where people could communicate at a level where they could maintain eye contact with all other participants. Sometimes even the participants would drag a table into the room to rest their books, bags, pencils, notebooks, pens and other paraphenalia that they wouldn't use for the duration of the two days. It was amusing to see learners build their fortress of files and books or laptops that they could peer over when the coast was clear and hide behind when approached by the enemy. Of course we can all understand this phenomena as we have all done it at some time or other but when your the nervous trainer at the beginning of a seminar that included beating stressful situations, it wasn't easy!

I've seen the light I think and now see this as a challenging opportunity to provoke questions about 'what we are doing here' and what we hope to achieve - I mean this from the narrower scope of a training seminar and not on the wider philosophical plane. 

I must admit that I was conditioned to think that my way was the best way - which was more often than not, untrue in the extremes.

 The hotel staff are more amiable towards me too, can't think why. But sometimes as the training sessions get warmed up learners will be seen to start moving the chairs and furniture to a more learning conducive configuration which definately gets things off to a good footing and continues in a very constructive way.

I suppose what I am getting around to is the need for self-direction, taking responsability and decision making that make up the essential elements of the Lifelong Learner and the power balance that needs to be equally shared between trainer who takes the posture of a facilitator and not the 'expert' and learners who make up the most important aspect as joint decison makers based on sound reasoning from both parties but often stimulated by systematic questioning from the facilitator - similar to the 5 Whys?

More of a "if it works for you - great go for it, experiment, try it, take risks" or "if it doesn't work - try something else, take risks, experiment" than  to impose my will on people by moving things around 'for their benefit'. Or is it for mine?

It may be that the next two days are spent in a smallish training room (often the luck of the draw) with learners working behind oblong desks - who cares as long as the learning experience is rich and beneficial for the learners. I may post a couple of photos to see how things pan out.