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When developing training materials or preparing to facilitate, you may come across content that could use a personal touch. We haven’t been replaced by AI just yet! Adding a personal anecdote can liven up your material, help you connect with your learners, and emphasize the benefit training can have. How do we select and craft a good anecdote?
The first question you want to ask yourself is whether your anecdote is appropriate or not. Now, this can differ between workplaces and subjects. When writing materials for more serious or high-stakes training (medical or safety training, for example), you may want to only use an anecdote that directly references the training at hand.
When discussing communication or interpersonal skills, you may have the freedom to use personal experiences outside of work as a reference. While considering whether the anecdote makes sense with the training you’re providing, you should also consider if any elements might create discomfort in your learners. When in doubt, check in with a coworker or a manager to confirm the anecdote feels right.
Another important element to crafting a solid anecdote is how quickly it can be told. Some of us might remember the climactic scene in Legally Blonde where our heroine is able to use an anecdote about a friend getting a perm hair treatment to win her court case. Now, although this is a great example of an anecdote that was ultimately successful, it was also a bit too long.
When you’re working with adult learners, both in person and virtually, you’re always competing with unlimited distractions that threaten to take their attention from you. If a learner doesn’t feel the material being shared is important, or the facilitator is going on an off-the-cuff tangent, you’re in danger of them checking out. Make sure your anecdote is concise, and circles back to the material quickly.
Finally, is your anecdote truly meaningful to the material and to you? Your audience is intelligent and can often tell if an anecdote or an example feels “phoned in” or inauthentic. Recently, I watched an ad from a social media influencer selling a smoking cessation aid. In this ad, she related quitting smoking to ending a toxic relationship. There was immediate pushback from her audience who raised the same issues I’m posing here—questions of authenticity, relevance, and whether it’s an appropriate connection to make.
Overall, you want your anecdote to feel truthful, beneficial, and concise. It should feel personal and connect you with your learners, reminding them that not only have you used the skills you’re teaching, but you know them well enough to use them in your daily life. Ultimately, it’s a way to enhance both the material and your facilitation skills. How do you plan on using personal anecdotes in your next project?
Learn how to trigger your learners’ senses using descriptive language, like anecdotes, in our How Adults Learn workshop. You can also fine tune your delivery skills in our The Virtual Trainer and Instructional Techniques for New Instructors workshops.
