Trust is a fundamental, bottom-line issue. Without it, leaders lose teams, salespeople lose sales, and organizations lose reputation, retention of good people, relationships, and revenue. But with trust, individuals and organizations enjoy greater creativity, productivity, freedom, and results. Through David’s industry leading research, The Trust Outlook^®, and firsthand experience working with the world’s highest performing organizations, David reveals how training leaders and organizations can drive business results to become the most trusted in their industry.

Roleplay doesn’t have to be a dirty word. As one of the most powerful learning strategies, it’s an opportunity to rehearse, reflect, and refine critical skills—but it can sometimes feel awkward or forced. AI-assisted skill practice changes that by creating a safe, judgment-free space for trainers and learners to engage in repeatable scenarios and receive instant feedback. Explore how to use AI to design impactful scenarios, refine facilitation techniques, and create participant-centered experiences that drive learning and growth.

Ever noticed how much Bob Pike Group trainers incorporate flip charts? But really, who has time to create those? Anchor charts are more than decorations. They are tools that can improve your training methods and enhance participant learning. Embrace the creative process of chart-making, involve your participants, and witness the transformation as these visual aids breathe life into your trainings. You aren’t creating a masterpiece; you are creating a tool. By the end of the session you will design and customize your own anchor chart.

Does your intent to refresh training resemble a dog chasing a squirrel? Discover how to prioritize redesign, cut through distractions, and implement the most impactful elements of training. Using practical tools, this session equips trainers with actionable strategies to turn a chaotic, overloaded training portfolio into a meaningful, results-driven learning experience. This session will help you utilize a time management matrix to find the time to prioritize a training refresh; redesign training quickly by infusing it with participation that maximizes focus and creates deep engagement; and apply actionable strategies to streamline content for clarity and serious learner impact.

When subject matter experts get asked to train, the first thing they often do is create a slide deck chock full of content. This leads to trainers reading the slides, or worse yet, talking over the slides while the audience attempts to read them. There is a better way! Learn how to share content in a way that has a lasting effect for your learners, identify the best tools and features to create unforgettable slides, and recognize when—and when not—to use slides to cover content.

Music carries with it more than just feelings, it can be a powerful vehicle for information. Research has proven that music affects the body in positive ways: it massages organs, reduces stress and increases learning. This session explores how to harness music in the best way to support learning. It will explain how to use music to evoke emotion, improve timing and lay the platform to build reinforcement. It will also identify how to break pre-occupation by using non-commercial music as well as demonstrate how to simply create your own music using inexpensive software applications.

Buffet style lunch included—feast on Minnesota comfort foods and healthy options together or on your own.

Eagles, Parrots, Doves and Owls, Oh My! Every individual brings unique strengths, preferences, and challenges to a group setting. The DiSC personality framework provides valuable insights into how people communicate and engage in collaborative environments. Through real-world scenarios and group activities, participants will explore the defining traits of each DiSC profile as aligned to a specific bird for easy retention; CORE activities to keep all personality types actively engaged; and best practices for creating a collaborative training environment.

Are you ready to dip your toes into AI for training, but feeling a bit intimidated? This session is an introduction for trainers, a friendly starting point. Whether you tap into AI to design innovative training programs, automate tasks, or personalize the learning experience, it all begins with leveraging prompts. In this session, you will explore how AI is disrupting the training landscape; discover which tools to use and how to use them, and practice a step-by-step process for writing prompts.

Minute to Win It are games and activities participants must complete in under a minute. These fun energizers only require office supplies. For example, Doodle on Your Noodle, Name Dropping, or Sticky Wall. These quick games help sharpen communication, problem-solving, and quick-thinking skills—but best of all, they encourage team bonding. Discover why energizers are necessary in training along with 60 games that aid adult learning in under a minute.

Look, I’m not saying it’s ideal. But sometimes, you simply don’t have time to create stunning slides or elaborate handouts for your virtual trainings. However, that doesn’t mean your webinars can’t be engaging, visually stimulating and sticky. So how do we as trainers still capture our audience’s attention, keep them involved, and give them memorable takeaways…even without slides or handouts? This session will help you analyze critical errors trainers make when presenting without slides or handouts; experience a webinar that keeps you engaged…even without slides or a handout; and takeaway tips to deliver visually interesting, interactive webinars sans slides or handouts.

Elevate your virtual training game with this high-energy session that explores the untapped potential of Microsoft Teams. Discover 10 under-utilized tools that will revolutionize your online classroom experience, from interactive polls and collaborative whiteboards to immersive breakout rooms and gamified learning. Learn how to leverage advanced features to boost engagement and accessibility. Join us for this skill-surging workshop and transform your Microsoft Teams meetings into powerful, engaging learning environments.

Transform stereotypically dull compliance training into a vibrant learning experience. We’ll uncover common pitfalls, discover creative strategies to improve content, and learn techniques to make delivery more dynamic. By embracing unpredictability, trainers will ensure compliance requirements as they identify key pitfalls that make compliance training ineffective and design visually compelling slides and purposeful activities that enhance engagement. Walk out with innovative strategies you can use to deliver your compliance content to stick.

A common question Bob Pike Group trainers get asked is, “How do you bring reluctant or resistant learners on board?” Participants who won’t engage or who regularly challenge a trainer can be a serious distraction to those who are there to learn. In this session, we’ll explore several presentations of resistant learners and uncover the truth about what works – and what doesn’t – to bring these participants around. Hint: emotional safety and power of the group are keys!

This session is packed full of tested tips for online trainers. In face-to-face training, a carefully selected game or activity will support the trainer in attracting and maintaining interest in their session. However, in many cases this involvement and interaction is removed when converted to a virtual learning pathway. As such, death by webinar is rapidly replacing death by PowerPoint! This session aims to help you to make your webinars and other virtual presentations more effective and engaging! It discusses how to deliver results before, during and after a webinar and provides a series of field-tested, yet customisable activities that allow trainers to instantly increase the impact of their live online training.

If we know people prefer to learn differently, then why do so many trainers take the same approach over and over again? It’s normal to train from our comfort zones, but actively engaging our participants requires us to branch out and think creatively about how people love to learn. This session dives into the benefits of using a variety of participant-centered facilitation methods and demonstrates just how beneficial a multi-faceted approach to content delivery can be.

Take your training to the next level by using personality assessments to unlock deeper connections and lasting results. Popular tools like Working Genius, StrengthsFinder, DISC, and Myers-Briggs offer valuable insights into individual strengths and team dynamics, but their true impact comes from how you apply them. In this interactive session, discover how to turn assessment data into powerful, participant-centered learning experiences that drive engagement and performance. Uncover strategies to integrate personality assessments into your training; apply assessment insights to improve collaboration and tailor learning experiences; and explore practical techniques to use these tools to enhance team collaboration and improve training outcomes.

Pack your walking shoes and join other conference goers for an early morning hike through the nature preserve. It’s the trifecta of a great conference experience – move your body, meet new friends, and inhale some fresh air! Your brain and body will thank you.

Executive presence is the "it factor" that separates good trainers and facilitators from truly exceptional ones. It’s not just about looking the part—it’s about how you command attention, inspire confidence, and create meaningful connections with your audience. Through hands-on activities and self-assessments, explore the three pillars of executive presence; how body language, tone, and storytelling can enhance credibility and engagement; techniques for managing nerves and projecting calm authority, even in challenging situations; and strategies to adapt executive presence to different audience needs and workshop objectives.

If you give your learners choices, they’ll feel in control, involved, and be more open to your teaching content. And you can accomplish all that through polling! Explore how polls create landslides of learner engagement and retention. Identify erroneous polling practices every trainer needs to veto. And experience polling strategies that add variety to your training and application.

Sometimes, we get asked to train on an impossible deadline. Even experienced instructional designers can panic when the stakes are high and time is short. But with a few handy shortcuts, you can design meaningful training that will leave your participants high fiving on their way out the door. In this session, experience a quick design technique that emphasizes need-to-know content and participant engagement; identify essential questions to ask when designing on a tight deadline; develop chunks of essential content that include participant-centered methodology; and learn how to create training outcomes in a pinch that will address the needs of your organization.

Say goodbye to puttering and putzing around with PowerPoint. Discover shortcuts to design slides that meet almost any training need. You’ll not only be able to design PowerPoint FAST, you’ll also add a higher degree of polish to your deck when you stick to a repeatable process. Discover how to create perfect slides to open discussions, bring people back from breaks, cut through too much content, and takeaway The Bob Pike Group’s most requested PowerPoint tool!

Revolutionize your training approach by tapping into the brain's natural reward system through strategic gamification. Explore how game elements trigger dopamine release, supercharging engagement in both physical and virtual classrooms. Get hands-on experience crafting engaging activities that leverage the psychology of games, from low-tech to high-tech solutions. Leave equipped with neuroscience-backed techniques to transform your training sessions into dopamine-fueled, skill-surging experiences that learners can't resist.

Are your training sessions driven by content or connection? While content is essential, relationships are the key to unlocking deeper learning. In this session, you’ll explore over 30 proven strategies to build trust, psychological safety, and belonging—creating a culture where learning can truly thrive. Discover how meaningful connections between the instructor, participants, and content can break down barriers and foster an open, engaged learning environment that drives results.

Whether you inherited a slide deck, use a mandatory deck, or simply don’t have time to create a new slide deck, explore creative ways to change the delivery without recreating the deck itself. In this session you will discover 17 ways to change the delivery of content while still using current decks; experience a varied approach to increase engagement without the reliance on slides; and identify ways to present your points with power, not just PowerPoint.

Just as instructor-centered training sucks the energy out of the room, participant-centered training has potential to infuse energy into organizational culture. When we create an engaging experience, we promote connectivity and foster psychological safety for all attendees. See how you can help participants connect on a personal level with teambuilding activities and authentic conversation.

Have you been overcooking the content and under-cooking the experience? Are you looking for the right ingredients to build ongoing learner engagement in your training? In this highly interactive session, you will be provided with at least 12 dynamic techniques that will make you the master chef of the training room! These techniques can be easily integrated into any learning environment and are targeted at helping the presenter to attract and maintain interest and increase participation. Techniques include activities for individuals, small groups as well as the whole group, plus variations for those working in an online environment.

Brain insights can help you enhance your classroom, better prepare yourself and participants, and design programs that exceed your learners’ needs and expectations every time. Apply basic concepts of brain-based learning to stimulate learners and make your content more fun to present. As you integrate contests, colors, and caricatures, or add splashes of magic, music and movie scenes, you’ll up the interest and create powerful connections in the brain that aid engagement and retention.

It can take hours, days, weeks, months of labor to develop a quality training product. But the future of design is bright with new AI tools! In this session, learn how to leverage this emerging technology to streamline your design process. This session will discuss what AI technology exists and how it can help designers speed their process. We’ll look at the tools and techniques of incorporating this important technology into our workflow, as well as some of the limitations of AI.

Embark on a thrilling journey through the latest technologies reshaping the training landscape. This dynamic session will equip you with a powerful arsenal of digital tools to supercharge your virtual classrooms and propel your training skills to new heights. From personalized learning experiences to AI-powered engagement boosters, you'll discover how to harness these technologies to create unforgettable learning experiences. Emerge as a bold, innovative training professional who doesn't just adapt to the digital future—but boldly jumps ahead of the curve.

There is a misconception that we are not serious about learning if we are having fun. On the contrary, we can be very serious about our profession, the art of our instruction, the well-being of our participants and even the importance of our subject matter and still create a sense of fun and wonder in our training. In fact, bringing levity to our delivery can often help to relax our students, reduce their anxiety, and create more memorable learning experiences. This session provides specific examples, templates and techniques that can be used immediately to enhance engagement and retention and highlights research that support the use of fun within a participant-centered framework.

Same old, same old. That’s what many learners think they’ll experience when they attend training. As a result, they don’t get excited to learn, actively participate, or remember the content. But thankfully, there’s a way that you can shatter their expectations, show them how fun learning can be, and make your teaching content unforgettable: create a theme for your training! In this workshop, you will interact with examples of how to use a theme to make your content fun and memorable; assess how themes can generate countless ideas for slides, activities, teaching illustrations, etc.; apply best practices for picking the perfect theme that’ll make your training pop.

Create an inviting atmosphere from the moment they enter your training room. Participants will gather "around the campfire" to explore how trainers can ignite connections with learners before, during, and after the training session. Learn strategies to win-over learners through meaningful relationships as we explore pre-training strategies that foster connection and set a positive tone; facilitate engaging in-class techniques that enhance rapport and promote social learning; and apply post-training practices to maintain relationships and reinforce learning.

Michael cooking his foot in a Foreman grill. Kevin spilling his famous chili. And pretty much every second of the Dinner Party episode. What can these classic Office moments (and many more) teach us about training? In this session, various scenes from The Office will show you how to become a Dundie award-winning trainer, even if you’re not a fan of the show. Together, we’ll see how trainers can learn from mistakes characters make in the Dunder Mifflin conference room and beyond, and apply the show’s secret wisdom that could earn you a promotion to Assistant to the Regional Trainer.

Ever notice how some presenters are as smooth as silk while others are … not? Training is not just about conveying buckets of knowledge. It’s most effective when we link points together and communicate ideas clearly and concisely. Signaling or transitioning with words, phrases, or activities helps our audience understand the flow of the presentation.

One of the key skills for a trainer is the ability to effectively lead group discussions. Discussions help learners to explore content in their own words, reflect upon other people’s viewpoints and strengthen ideas, as well as enabling them to receive a ‘best from the rest’ perspective about the subject matter. However, validating everyone’s comments while keeping the discussion relevant and productive can be challenging. This session provides 10 strategies for leading more effective group discussions and will provide specific advice on how to keep discussions meaningful and timely.

One trait of a great trainer is the ability to be flexible. Start your day off with some self-care in a 45-minute yoga session designed to build strength, confidence, and agility. Suitable for all fitness levels!

Forget involving participants every 10 minutes—these days, even a three-minute video struggles to hold our attention! Given the demands on our brains in the modern age, how can trainers compete and get their learners focused? This session isn’t about confiscating people’s technology, but about facilitating for focus. Discover the cognitive science of attention; experience techniques for re-engaging learners when attention strays; identify strategies for helping learners stay focused and on task; and create your plan to incorporate simple techniques to keep participants fully-engaged in learning.

“And for my final trick, I’ll make all your takeaways…disappear!” Sadly, that’s essentially what trainers are doing to their learners if they don’t provide them with detailed handouts. Handouts are critical to keep learners engaged and invite thoughtful reflection and application. In this session, you will assess dangerous mistakes trainers make when creating handouts, examine examples of handout pages that enriched the learning experience, and discuss components of handouts that boost learner engagement, retention and application.

One of the more frustrating experiences of being a trainer is witnessing the reoccurring tragedy of “forgetting” play out right before your eyes. You spend hours prepping, give your all during the lesson, only to have learners forget what you taught within days. Studies show that learners retain information better when they reengage with the content periodically. Just like a workout, retrieval exercises our “memory muscles” and strengthens learning. Together we’ll compare retrieval practice with other learning strategies and explore training activities to make retrieval effective.

Good training sessions are no longer enough—learners crave experiences that inspire, engage, and endure. But what sets an ICONIC training experience apart? This session unpacks the principles, strategies, and methodologies that turn standard training into unforgettable journeys that drive performance and leave lasting impact. Drawing on real-world examples, proven frameworks, and practical insights, this interactive session will empower you to design and deliver training that resonates long after the session concludes. Whether you’re working with virtual, face-to-face, or hybrid environments, you'll discover ways to ignite enthusiasm, build connection, and foster deep learning.

Most trainers don’t close, they simply run out of time. A well-crafted closing activity not only reinforces key concepts but also inspires participants to apply what they’ve learned, ensuring lasting impact and follow-through. Through interactive demonstrations, group discussions, and practical examples, discover why closing activities are crucial for retention and behavior change; techniques to summarize key takeaways in memorable ways; creative approaches to help participants reflect, commit and plan; plus follow-up strategies for application.

Break free from conventional thinking. Whether you consider yourself creative or not, AI can serve as your innovative thought partner to spark fresh ideas and engineer engaging experiences. Discover practical skillsets and mindsets that will transform your approach to training. Leave empowered to leverage AI as a tool to amplify your impact!

During this closing keynote, you will:

• Discover how to partner with AI to generate fresh ideas
• Apply practical techniques to engineer engaging experiences
• Cultivate key mindsets for maximizing AI collaboration