I have never regretted spending my working life as a trainer. I recently spoke at a conference of trainers and, over lunch, a group of relative newcomers to training were enthusing about the sudden surge they had experienced in their personal development. Most of them had been moved sideways into L&D without necessarily relishing the prospect and had soon discovered, as I had done years before, that there was something extra-special about helping people to learn, and that the whole process inevitably accelerated your own self-development.

The enthusiasm of these young trainers led me to reflect, not for the first time, on my own good fortune in stumbling upon a career so rich in learning opportunities. I didn’t set out to become a trainer – I drifted into it through a series of unplanned events (the story of my life!) and, after some scary initial forays, realised that this was what I wanted to do. I soon appreciated that every step of the way created opportunities for me to learn; identifying needs, working out best ways to meet them, designing training interventions, delivering the training, experimenting with different methods, valuing the diversity of the participants, risking making a fool of myself, reviewing what had worked and what hadn’t, measuring the impact of the training, learning from the feedback.

What other job offers such an intriguing mixture of challenges?

I have no doubt that there is no more important task than helping people to take responsibility for their learning and development – and the greater the resistance, the more worthwhile the struggle.

But I have other reasons for being grateful for my career as a trainer: the places I have visited. You see, I was fortunate to have been a trainer in the era when residential courses were the norm and these were invariably held in hotels in desirable places (in my case, places such as Amsterdam, Rome, Singapore, Sydney and, even, on three separate occasions, Monte Carlo!).

But best of all have been the country mansions set in places like the Chilterns and the Cotswolds. I have always loved finding out the past histories of these places, gazing at fuzzy photographs of the ‘below stairs’ staff in their aprons, smocks and bonnets and wondering about their lives, marvelling at the architecture of the buildings, visiting the nearby church with its monuments commemorating local squires over the centuries. I have been to mansions with magnificent ceilings, panelling, staircases, frescoes, follies, topiary and, best of all, croquet lawns.

Foolishly, I ignored croquet for a few years until I was dragged on to a lawn one lunchtime by a colleague (Neil Rackham, for those of you with long enough memories to remember interactive skills and behaviour analysis categories), who had played the game at university. He introduced me to croquet in the best way possible: through experiential learning. There were virtually no explanations, other than, ‘here is a mallet, you have the red and yellow balls and go through the hoops in this order.’ We just started to play and I gradually realised there was much more to the game that I had supposed.

My first experience of croquet got me hooked – not on the game people tease me about, which has a reputation for being spiteful, and where you hit your opponent’s balls into the rhododendron bushes (in the real game this would be a foul shot) – but on the game with a subtle blend of strategy and tactics, on the game where you have to anticipate what your opponent is likely to do next, where you have to think a few moves ahead, and where you constantly balance the pros and cons of taking a risk against playing safe.

You may think it flippant of me to write at such length about croquet – particularly if you have never played the game – but I see croquet as a metaphor for life. The situations encountered during a three-hour game of croquet exactly mirror the ups and downs of our existence. Croquet is a predominantly still-ball game; in other words, you have time to think as you approach the ball, time to get nervous about a crucial shot, time to get into a slough of despond as your opponent pulls relentlessly ahead. I have lost some games this past summer that I should have won, so you learn humility too, to pick yourself up after a setback, to learn from your mistakes and have another go. You also learn to remain hopeful when things look grim. Croquet is one of those games where the tables can quickly be turned by hitting in and setting up a four-ball break.

And all this because I’m a trainer. Now perhaps you can see why I am so grateful.

Dr Peter Honey, FRSA, FCIPD, FIMC is a chartered psychologist and founder of Peter Honey Publications. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1628 633946, at peterhoney@peterhoney.com or visit www.peterhoney.com.

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