The answer is simple. It depends on what we think a trainer’s task is and what we can expect from a training process. If we accept the image that many people have in their minds—that a trainer delivers some theory, shows a few tools, facilitate some exercises, and then discusses the lessons learned—then the profession is in danger. AI can already almost do this, and it’s only a matter of time before it can do it perfectly.
An example: I asked AI, without a special prompt, to help find a solution for a manager working too much overtime (80 hours a week) who is heading towards burnout. The result is in the attached image. This is just an outline, but I could ask it to elaborate on a few points, assign exercises, and I have an average time management training session ready. 15 years ago, as a novice trainer, it took me a week to put together a one-day session like this. I would like to think that this is only the surface of a trainer’s work, and I’m pleased to see that many trainer professionals and clients agree. The value creation happens or fails to happen at a much deeper level.
- First of all, the trainer creates group safety. They don’t play a funny icebreaker game just to get people to speak up, but they observe and read the participants. They sense body language, are sensitive to vibrations, and monitor their own feelings, using various outward and inward-directed tools until the anxiety decreases and a level of safety develops where work can begin. Change requires safety; without it, it won’t happen.
- The trainer steps into the role of norm-creator. They ensure that every moment of the session happens as they would like. If necessary, they take control, if necessary, they hand over control, but these actions are taken with great awareness and are not accidental.
- The trainer develops their own relationship with the participants and continuously works to connect everyone with everyone else. Connection is an integral part of safety. Without connection, there will be no honesty.
- The trainer observes and analyzes the belief structures behind the participants’ expressions and later builds the theory on this.
- They direct conversations, exercises, and tools towards changing mindsets. Real change happens at the level of mindset. If the exercises do not aim for this, then they are just games that can be entertaining, energizing, and motivating but do not truly support change.
- They sense the energies present in the space and adjust the training dynamics accordingly. They hold the space.
- They consciously choose whether emotional or cognitive dominance is appropriate.
- They handle the group’s form of experience through their own choice of experience forms.
- They manage resistances, typically fueled by the fear of giving up the current mindset, which cannot be resolved at the cognitive level alone (which AI is capable of).
- They show perspectives based on their own experience that are not found in books.
- They map out the group’s perspectives and confront them without judgment.
- The trainer subtly but continuously keeps participants in the perspective that their impact on a given issue is much greater than they imagined at the start of the training, thus supporting change.