Trainer vs. Super-Trainer

Everyone knows what a trainer is. But what about a “Super-Trainer”? 

A friend of mine recently experienced this: she had to find a replacement trainer at the very last minute. The only person she found was going to have to deal with a topic outside his usual specialty. The outcome? Participants rated the training as better than the one delivered by an experienced subject-matter expert.

So, here’s the question: How is that possible? And more importantly: What is really transmitted during a training session? 

A Note on Technical Training 

Before we go any further, let’s be clear: this discussion excludes strictly technical training—the kind where the trainer’s deep expertise and years of hands-on experience are absolutely indispensable. You cannot improvise technical mastery. 

What we’re talking about here are the many other domains of corporate and professional development—communication, leadership, collaboration, personal growth—where the trainer’s impact often lies less in their subject-matter expertise, and more in their ability to spark something else. 

What is transmitted? Not Knowledge. Not Skills. Not Behaviour. 

• Knowledge?: Yes, some information is shared, but neuroscience shows that the human brain retains very little from a short information transfer. Most of it fades quickly without reinforcement. 

• Skills?: A two-day training is far too short to build a genuine skill. Competence comes from repetition and sustained practice over time, not from exposure alone. 

• Behaviour?: No training can fundamentally transform someone’s way of being in such a limited time. That kind of change requires deeper, long-term personal development. 

So, if it’s not knowledge, not skills, and not behaviour… what truly gets transmitted? 

The key: motivation 

What I call a Super-Trainer—what research often refers to as a learning catalyst—is not someone who delivers more content, but someone who awakens motivation to learn beyond the session. 

A Super-Trainer knows that the real value of training lies not in the slides, nor even in the immediate content, but in the ability to spark motivation—to keep learning, practicing, reflecting, shifting perspectives, and evolving. 

What the research says 

In a foundational article on transfer of training, Baldwin & Ford (1988) wrote: 

“Motivation to transfer is essential for training transfer. Without motivation,

newly acquired knowledge and skills will not be applied in the workplace.” 

More recently, a 2023 study found that higher-quality motivation profiles (“optimism,” “personal value,” etc.) strongly predicted both the intention to transfer learning and the actual application of learning several weeks later. 

In short: content is secondary; motivation makes the real difference. 

Conclusion 

A Super-Trainer is not the one who “knows it all.” It’s the one who makes people want to keep going. The one who catalyzes an inner energy—turning a two-day session into a launchpad, not just a quickly forgotten parenthesis. That spark, more than any PowerPoint, is what separates good trainers… from Super-Trainers.