Beyond Slides and Games: Redefining the Train the Trainer Program

You’ve probably seen this pattern.

A trainer walks into the room with beautiful slides, clever games, and a bag of energizers. People laugh. They move. They interact. They write on meta-cards and post-its. They post group photos after.

At the end of the day, the evaluation forms say the same thing:

“Very engaging.” “Fun and interactive.” “5 out of 5.”

And then Monday looks almost the same as last week.

That’s what this article is about.

Not to attack slides. Not to kill games. I love learning experience design. I love immersive, interactive learning. I learned a lot from Thiagi’s way of turning anything into a learning activity. I studied how Nancy Duarte builds stories and visuals that move people.

These are all good. They’re powerful. They’re part of my own practice.

But you can be excellent in all of these…and still fall short if there is no shift.

Because slides and games can wow people. Shift Experience Design must change people.

And that’s a very different job.

When “Interactive” Became the Goal

Somewhere along the way, many Train the Trainer programs turned “interactive” into the main KPI.

If people are moving, if they’re talking, if they’re laughing, we assume learning is happening. We tell ourselves, “At least it’s not a boring lecture.”

So we train our trainers to:

• reduce text on slides,
• add stories and humor,
• include small group activities and simulations,
• use polls, cards, quizzes, and all kinds of “engagement tools.”

Again, these are not bad. They’re better than death by PowerPoint.

But if you’ve ever sat in a very “fun and interactive” session and later realized nothing changed in how people work, you know what I mean.

It feels like a fireworks show.

For a few minutes, it’s bright, loud, and exciting. People look up, enjoy, and clap.

And then it’s gone. No warmth. No lasting light.

Shift Experience Design is less like fireworks and more like building a campfire.

You still have warmth. You still have light. People still gather around. But the fire lasts. People share stories. People lean closer. The experience keeps working even after you step away.

That’s the difference.

My Love for Learning Experience Design (And Its Limit)

I want you to know where I’m coming from.

I’ve spent years studying learning experience design. I took inspiration from Thiagi’s games and activities—how he can turn a simple handout into a powerful learning exercise. I took notes on how Nancy Duarte crafts a presentation so that slides don’t just show information; they carry a story.

I experimented with all of these in my own workshops. I turned lectures into simulations. I turned case studies into games. I used visuals that made people think and feel, not just read.

Participants loved it.

They would tell HR, “This is different. This is not the usual training.” They would invite their friends to the next session. They would say, “Sana ganito lahat ng training.”

But I also started asking a tougher question:

“What happens to them one week after?”

Are they leading differently? Are they handling conflict differently? Are they serving customers differently? Are they making better decisions?

Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes the answer was no.

And that “no” bothered me.

It pushed me to see that even the best learning experience design still has a ceiling if it’s not guided by a clear shift.

You can be a master of activities. You can be a master of slides. But if you stay there, your organization will still be left behind.

The Invisible Ceiling of Slides and Games

You can feel this ceiling when you read evaluation forms.

People give perfect scores. They write kind comments. They say they learned a lot.

And yet, when you look at business results, culture, or daily behavior, you see very little evidence of change.

That’s the ceiling.

It’s the point where training stops being a lever for change and becomes entertainment with good intentions.

I don’t think any CEO or HR leader sets out to buy entertainment. You invest in training because you want your people to think, decide, and act differently.

You want more ownership, not more excuses. You want more initiative, not more waiting. You want more courage, not more compliance.

If your trainers are only equipped to design sessions, not shifts, you will keep hitting the same ceiling.

The work looks good. The experience feels good. But the impact is shallow.

And shallow impact is very expensive in the long run.

Learning Experience Design Is Not the Enemy

So let me say this clearly: I am not against learning experience design. I am a fan.

We need better stories. We need visuals that make ideas stick. We need activities that immerse people in real situations.

Shift Experience Design uses all of that.

The difference is where we start and where we end.

Traditional Train the Trainer often starts with:

“What topic do I need to cover, and how do I make it engaging?”

Learning experience design adds:

“How do I make the experience immersive and interactive?”

Shift Experience Design asks something else first:

“What is the shift we need to see in how people see themselves and how they work—and how do we design an experience that makes that shift unavoidable?”

Slides and games become ingredients, not the main dish.

They serve the shift. They don’t define it.

Redefining the Train the Trainer Program

This is where we begin to redefine Train the Trainer.

Many Train the Trainer programs today still focus on technique:

• how to open a session,
• how to manage energy,
• how to debrief activities,
• how to handle “difficult” participants.

Important skills, yes.

But if we stop there, we are training performers, not designers.

We are shaping people who can stand in front of a room but cannot connect learning to strategy. We are producing trainers who can run someone else’s program, but cannot design an experience that moves the needle on your most important problems.

To turn trainers into Shift Experience Designers, we need to add new muscles.

We need to teach them to think like architects, not just interior decorators.

Slides, stories, and games are like furniture. They make the room feel good.

Shift Experience Design is the architecture. It decides how people move, where they gather, what they notice, how the space shapes their behavior.

Furniture is easier to change. Architecture takes more thought.

But once you get the architecture right, every piece of furniture works better.

From Activities to Architecture

So how does this look in practice?

Let’s imagine you have a trainer named Carlo.

Carlo is very good with activities. He knows a hundred games. He can energize any group. He’s watched TED Talks, he studies presentation design, he knows the latest online tools.

Now, instead of just giving Carlo more activities, you bring him into a redefined Train the Trainer program.

On day one, you don’t ask him to present. You ask him to listen.

You talk about the real business problems: poor handovers between teams, low ownership, weak middle management, customer complaints that keep repeating.

Then you ask Carlo: “If you had to design an experience that shifts one of these behaviors, where would you start?”

At first, he might go back to what he knows: a game, a slide, a catchy acronym.

You gently pull him back.

“Don’t start with the game. Start with the shift.”

You help him write it in plain language:

“From avoiding mistakes to taking initiative.” “From talking about values to using them for decisions.” “From being a trainer to being a leader who designs shifts.”

Now, together, you start building the architecture of the session.

You guide him through questions like:

“How will people see their current behavior clearly?” “How will you open a new way of seeing and doing?” “How will they practice it in the room?” “What will help them act on it in the next 72 hours?” “What ritual, tool, or habit will keep this alive after you leave?”

Only after this do you ask, “Now, which slides and which games can help?”

At that moment, all of Carlo’s experience with activities becomes more powerful. He is no longer throwing games at people. He is placing the right experience at the right moment in a designed journey.

That is Shift Experience Design.

How to Turn Trainers into Shift Experience Designers

So, how do you actually shift your trainers?

You don’t need to throw away your existing Train the Trainer program. But you do need to reframe it.

Instead of promising, “We’ll teach your trainers advanced facilitation skills,” you might say:

“We’ll help your trainers think, design, and act like Shift Experience Designers.”

In practice, that means you focus their development on a few key shifts.

First, you help them anchor every session on one clear from–to shift. No more laundry list of objectives that nobody reads. One sentence that describes how people will be different.

Second, you train them to design experiences, not agendas. They learn to plan for moments of mirror, shift, win, and act—so people see themselves, see a new way, try it, and commit to action.

Third, you ask them to always build one simple tool or ritual that participants can take back to work. A checklist. A question. A script. A small huddle practice. Something they will still use when the trainer is gone.

Fourth, you ask them to measure success not by smile sheets alone, but by behavior. What do managers notice? What do customers feel? What stories emerge after the session?

It’s still Train the Trainer. But it is now anchored on design, not just delivery.

One Small Shift You Can Make Today

If you are a CEO or an HR leader, you don’t have to overhaul everything at once.

Start small.

Look at your next internal training. Maybe it’s leadership, customer service, or change management. Before approving the design, ask your trainer one question:

“What is the one shift you want to see in how they work after this session?”

Let them answer. Then ask the follow-up:

“And how will your slides, stories, and activities serve that shift—not the other way around?”

That’s it. That single question will already push them beyond slides and games.

Over time, as you keep asking questions like this, your trainers will feel it. Their identity will start to change. They’ll still enjoy designing activities and beautiful decks, but they’ll no longer stop there.

They will begin to see themselves as what you really need them to be:

Designers of shifts.