If Colleges Don't Teach Thinking - Who Will (us)
According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 200 nonpublic colleges: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
At The Training Doctor, sadly, we are not surprised. It's why we have an entire curriculum dedicated to teaching thinking skills.
Here are a couple of highlights (lowlights?) found in the WSJ analysis :
At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table
Test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years
Some academic experts, education researchers and employers say the Journal's findings are a sign of the failure of America's higher-education system to arm graduates with analytical reasoning and problem-solving skills needed to thrive in a fast-changing, increasingly global job market
You can see the full article here.
And we can help you to overcome this problem – if your incoming employees are suffering from an education that hasn’t actually educated them - by clicking here. At The Training Doctor, we teach thinking skills.
Now You See It... Now You GET It - The Power of Visuals in Learning
First, some important factoids regarding our vision:
Vision is the hardest working process in our bodies
Vision takes up 30% of the brain's processing capabilities
Neuroscientists know more about our vison than any other sensory system in our body
We don't see with our eyes, we see with our brains
As important as vision is for survival (is that a saber toothed tiger I see charging toward me?) it also trumps all our other senses when it comes to learning, interpreting and understanding the world around us. Vision is probably the best single tool we have for learning anything, so says John Medina author of Brain Rules (check it out at www.brainrules.net).
One of the reasons that vision (and thereby the use of visuals) is so powerful is because something that we see is easy to label, identify, categorize and recall later. What's the circular thing with buckets that twirls at the carnival? Oh right. A Ferris Wheel.
Visual input is so important, neuroscience has given it a fancy title: Pictorial Superiority Effect (or PSE). In one experiment, test subjects were shown 2,500 pictures for 10 seconds each. Several days after the exposure to the pictures, the subjects were able to recall 90% of the pictures. The same type of experiment, utilizing words, fell to an abysmal 10% recall three-days after exposure. But the RIGHT words can help learners create visuals.
Words Create Pictures
The very tall man folded his body, in order to fit in to the sports car, then sped away.Did you "see" those words in your mind as you read them? Everyone did. And everyone saw a different picture. Very tall is relative. Sports car is generic. But you have a picture in your head related to what you just read. We don't see with our eyes - we see with our brains. You did not physically see the scenario that was described but you have a picture of it in your mind. Amazing.
Pictures Create Emotion
Additionally, pictures can evoke emotion, which helps with retention and recall. Think about the image of the Ferris Wheel a few paragraphs back. You pictured a Ferris Wheel in order to help you recall it's name, didn't you? Many of you also remembered experiencing a Ferris Wheel in some way - either the glee (or terror) of riding it, looking up at it all colorful and bright, or being at the carnival - with the smells and sounds - where you encountered it. You have a vivid memory of a Ferris Wheel. That memory is defined in a picture.
Important Ways to Incorporate Visuals in Learning
Because using visuals is so crucial to understanding and remembering, it is imperative that we give just as much thought to the visuals we use in training, as to the content we are creating. Here are some ways you can utilize visuals in your training:
Slides / Photos - include pictures - especially photos - especially photos of people - on your slides. Photos are more realistic than graphics or clip art and therefore more engaging to the brain. Photos of people are especially memorable. We like to see people "just like us."
Physical objects - whenever possible, include a real representation of the visual. Sometimes you'll have to stretch to make it work - but the stretch will be worth it because it will sear the message in to the learner's brain. More than 2 decades ago I attended a presentation given by a man. I have no idea who he was. I have no idea what his topic was. I DO remember that we were in a hotel meeting room (visual) and I DO remember that he said "Many years ago a computer would fill a room of this size, and now that same computing power can fit in something as small as this little pink packet." And he held up an artificial sugar packet. The room was large; the little pink packet was hard to see. It's a bit of a stretch from computer processing power to sugar packet... but the image (and the point he was making) has remained for decades. That's powerful.
Mental imagery - sometimes it's just impossible to find a photo or physical object to represent your message. Perhaps you are teaching virtually and there is no way to show the physical object (or the object is too big, or too small, or doesn't actually exist yet). Instead you can help learners to create a visual in their "mind's eye." (Definition: To see something in one's visual memory or imagination. Bet you always wondered what that phrase meant. Now you know. The first known use of the term dates back to Chaucer, in 1390. By the time Shakespeare used it in Hamlet, the phrase had been around for over 200 years! )
In Medina's book, Brain Rules (see link above), he talks about DNA and how long and complex it is. He says fitting a strand of DNA in to the nucleus of our cells is like trying to stuff 30 miles of fishing line in to a blueberry. IMPOSSIBLE! But memorable. I may not remember much about DNA in the future, but I will always remember that it is long and complex.
Here is a challenge for you: Go back through the courses you already have and re-evaluate the visuals you are using. Can you add visuals to slides? Can you associate the content with physical objects? Can you make an analogy or tell a story that causes the learner to create a mental image in his "mind's eye?" If you can - I guarantee - recall and comprehension will increase. You will also see test scores go up. Your learners will become brilliant - thanks to you (and visuals).
Updated May 15, 2017: Nelson Dellis, the USA Memory Champ, was recently a guest on Lewis Howes' podcast, discussing how he can easily remember things. One of his tricks is to make abstract things - such as numbers - in to visuals that are easier to remember. For instance, the number 32 is Charlie Brown and the number 95 is Tom Brady. Associating those images with others helps him to combine numbers more easily - so Homer Simpson fighting a sword battle becomes a 4 digit number . This type of visualization technique earned him the record for the longest string of numbers committed to memory - 201. If you have an hour, listen to the podcast and learn about the power of Mind Palaces as a visualization / memorization technique as well.
Teaching Thinking Through Synthesis
Synthesis
According to Bloom's Taxonomy Synthesis refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. This may involve the production of a unique communication (theme or speech), a plan of operations (research proposal), or a set of abstract relations (scheme for classifying information). Learning outcomes in this area stress creative behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns and structures. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, one definition of synthesis can be:
a combination of thesis and antithesis into a higher stage of truth
What do these definitions mean for us in the training department? How can we teach thinking through synthesis? Here are a few ideas:
In relation to Bloom's definition - ask your learners to read a case study, whitepaper or even an article on a topic and then distill it down to (options:) the most important idea, the most critical sentence, a sentence of their own making, three key words. If you are working with a group of trainees, give each of these assignments to different individuals or small-groups and then compare and contrast their responses. This process requires people to truly think about the content and how to express that content in a way that is easy to remember and agreed upon by all.
In relation to Merriam Webster's definition - have learners read two opposing articles, whitepapers, etc. and then come up with a new, balanced viewpoint or stance. Rarely are ideas completely opposed, so working with the ideas to identify their common ground is very useful in having a well-rounded understanding of a topic.
The Limits of Working Memory and Training Effectiveness
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In this fascinating blog post from Patti Shank on the ATD site, she discusses the reasons we can't have a one-size-fits-all approach to training.
Aside from the typical learning styles excuse, Patti explores an interesting point related to neuroscience: knowledge and experience dictates the way we can present the content and further impacts the way the learner is able to work with it.
The crux of the difference is working memory vs. long term memory. When newbies are learning a topic, everything they "know" is in working memory - and they are paddling madly to keep processing and applying that information to the learning process. But when a more knowledgeable or more experienced employee has long-term memory associated with a topic, we can work with that topic in deeper and more meaningful ways for the learner.
This chart is an excellent comparison of working memory approaches to training vs. long term memory approaches. This chart may cause you to rethink your training designs altogether.
How will YOU reinforce the learning, once the training is over?
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The Training Doctor was once shown the door at a client site when our response to the question: How are you going to reinforce this learning once the training is over? was... "That's not our job, that's your manager's jobs."
It was an eye-opening experience to realize that a company requesting training didn't feel responsible for ensuring the training would work or benefit the organization.So before you design or develop any training program, be sure to ask your potential client (external or internal): How will this new knowledge or skill be reinforced on-the-job once the training is over?I
t is important for a business / business unit to take responsibility for the training's success. There is only so much an external consultant or even an internal trainer can do to ensure that people are allowed to practice and master their new skills on-the-job once they leave the training.An extra service you might provide to your client is to create a list of options / ideas to reinforce the training. For instance:
They might schedule a weekly brown bag lunch check-in at which the newly trained employees could bring up new questions or share tips and tricks that they had learned since the end of the training and the practical application began. As trainers we know that it is not possible to teach everything in a training class and often the learners will discover short-cuts or other methods of working as they've had time to implement their new skills on-the-job; it would be helpful for everyone to know about the short-cuts rather than requiring each individual to figure it out on their own.
The training department might send out a series of emails which would reinforce some of the key points of the training. For instance, following a coaching class, a series of weekly emails might reinforce each step in the coaching process, such as Week 1: Remember to ask the employee how things are going from their perspective; Week 2: Probe and ask additional questions based on the answer(s) you got to the How is it going query. Week 3: Praise the things the employee has been doing right since your last coaching conversation, etc.
Suggest a follow-up check-in two to three weeks after the training (allowing time to practice on-the-job). At this follow up meeting the trainer would be available to answer questions or provide reinforcement of the key concepts.
Many times managers do not realize that their employees do not come back "fixed" after the initial training, and don't realize that they have to allow for time for practice on-the-job, so a simple suggested schedule for managers which identifies the time needed to practice (such as week 1 allow one hour of practice, week two allow 30 minutes of practice, etc. ) might be all that is needed to see success soar. This approach not only reinforces what was learned but gives employees permission to practice on the job, knowing that it is supported by management.
Whether or not you provide the suggested reinforcement techniques, the responsibility for reinforcing the new knowledge and skills lies with the managers. Trainees must be given time and permission to practice their new knowledge and skills until they are more competent than they could have been by simply "being trained."
Entry Level Employment Skills - What Do Employers Want?
Last month SHRM and the consulting firm Mercer issued a joint report titled EntryLevel Job Applicant Skills.
They assessed 15 skills and attributes employers commonly look for including dependability, communication, creativity, and integrity, to name a few. The top "vote getters" (skills or attributes deemed most important) were:
Dependability and Reliability
Integrity
Respect
Teamwork
Interestingly, these are all soft-skills and attributes rather than the hard-skills (communication, problem solving) that many employers are saying candidates are missing at the entry-level. Less than a quarter of the survey respondents said mathematics was a critical entry-level skill.
The #1 tactic suggested for securing entry-level positions was career-related internships. Internships are able to help a potential employer assess the skills bulleted above. Panel interviews are the most widely used interview technique for assessing the desired attributes.
This study / survey has interesting implications for training...
If candidates lack these attributes... can we train for them?
Are these attributes prerequisites to skills training or entirely different from them?
Stop Teaching So Much! Learn to Chunk.
frustrated-with-computer
We recently reviewed a day-long course on coaching which was actually an excellent class, the only thing it suffered from was the typical: Too much content!
The course taught 4 different coaching techniques and their best-use given a particular type of workplace situation or a particular type of worker, and then participants were given some time to choose one of their own workers with whom they thought the technique might work. Finally, they were divided in to trios to practice the technique.
This learn-and-practice process was repeated four times for each of the four techniques. The problem with this course was that the learning outcomes were just not going to be that great. It is impossible to learn four different techniques, and remember when they apply, and the nuances of usage, when you get back on the job when you've been taught them all in one-fell-swoop.The expected learning outcomes for this class just weren't being achieved, despite excellent content and a "reasonable enough" teaching strategy.
While it certainly takes longer to teach in chunks, and allow participants real-world practice and application, it does lead to better learning outcomes.The next time you are designing a course - especially one that requires practice in order to master - ask yourself: Will people really be able to do Skill #1 when they are back on the job if that information and technique has been "over written" by additional knowledge and skills by the end of the day?
Chances are, you can achieve much better learning outcomes by chunking the content and the periods of teaching, and allowing your participants to have time to not only reflect on what they learned, but also put it in to practice, and then reflecting on how effective that practice and its outcomes really were.
Teaching Thinking Through Debate
man at podium
Remember the debate club in high school? It was an excellent tool to help young people think critically about various issues and honing their communication skills to be able to intelligently articulate issues. With debate season upon us in the United States, this is an excellent time to point out the thinking skills that are developed through using debate.
Debate requires someone to construct an argument. That argument can be pro or against, but it must incorporate research, analysis, reasoning, and sometimes synthesis and evaluation in order to establish and substantiate one's position. Debate also requires the debater to master their content, to practice both listening and speaking skills in order to counter the opposing side, and to not only be able to verbalize but also to speak persuasively about their position.
These skills are known on Bloom's Taxonomy (here is a quick and easy definition) as higher order thinking skills. Debate takes one beyond the ability to research and "know" information to the ability to construct something and do something with that information.
An additional benefit of using debate in a learning curriculum is that it helps people to understand how to deal with conflict in a constructive and measured way. Countering an opposing argument does not mean name calling, introducing distracting or off-topic issues, or simply blustering louder than one's opponent.
In a previous blog post, we discussed the importance of using questions to help think. In the context of debate however, questioning skills are more musings: What is my position on this topic? What do others say? How do they substantiate their positions? Am I in agreement or disagreement with others? If I am in disagreement with others, how can I substantiate my own position? These types of questions require the skills of research, analysis, synthesis, reasoning, clarifying ... in other words, thinking skills!
Debate as a thinking skill can be used with any topic and in any industry and is best taught in teams (at least 2 individuals) which helps to expand one's thinking as well. Working with one or more teammates requires collaboration skills in order to create a premise, rationale, and presentation.
All in all, debate is one of the best learning strategies you can employ, in order to boost your employee's thinking skills.
Where Have All The Corporate Universities Gone?
The simultaneous impact of several major forces contributed to the decline of Corporate Universities.
Organizations began to adopt a bottom-line approach focused on cost cutting to improve efficiency during the global economic meltdown of 2008. Investments in learning and development initiatives declined, which impacted leadership commitment towards sustaining CUs.
Second, professional associations, consultants, and leading organizations shifted their attention towards talent management. Organizations became inwardly focused on improving and developing their existing human resources..
Third, the changing demographics exacerbated socio-cultural pressures on traditional universities and questioned their legitimacy and value in society.
Because corporate universities were established to closely approximate traditional universities in terms of developing cutting edge knowledge and innovation, they were affected by these contextual factors, and suffered from decreasing interest. A shrinking global market, privatization of education and a spurt in the private online education providers, and the increasing demands for complex skill sets demanded individualized approaches for developing the full potential of human resources.
What happened to the "L" in L+D?
L
L+D stands for Learning and Development. In years past it was referred to as T+D which stood for Training and Development. We guess at some point there was a shift towards sounding as though we were doing more for our constituents than simply training them.
Unfortunately, the truth is, we are still T+D. Where is the L in L+D?
In the last decade-plus, training budgets have been cut, time allowed for training has been drastically reduced, coaching has been all but wiped out, and "learning strategies" have become self-service, self-directed, eLearning in many organizations (choose from this menu of management classes).
But true learning requires a long tail. It requires interaction with others in order to vet multiple ideas and arrive at the best one, or perhaps a hybrid-NEW-best idea. It requires coaching. It requires experience that informs future experiences and what one "knows to be true." Learning and development is a misnomer and perhaps a sad relic of what we thought this profession would become during the rise of corporate universities (see Where Have All the Corporate Universities Gone? below).
Organizations are consistently announcing that their businesses are suffering from a lack of skilled employees and a lack of bench strength for management, and yet there is little being done to ensure that our role in L+D is actually focused on the L. This truly requires the L+D department to have a seat at the table, to help organizations strategically plan their future through their people, but that vision is, sadly, far from reality in many organizations.
Just In Time Training Has Run Out of Time
Many organizations today are facing a skills shortage. They simply cannot find people with the appropriate skills to run their businesses. As a result, they are forced to hire those that they can and then apply skills-training to make them a worthwhile hire for the organization.
This process can be thought of as a just-in-time skills training program in which the training isn't applied until it is needed (although in 2015 / 2016, skills training is in constant demand).The future-cast for this lack of prepared workers is that in another 10-15 years, the crisis will be a lack of prepared leaders.
In order to prevent businesses (all of society, really!) from bouncing from crisis to crisis like a ball in a pin-ball machine, it's time to address the root cause. It's not that younger generations have suddenly lost entry-level skills - it's a result of never having learned those skills to begin with. You cannot be expected to perform something you never learned to do.
What training professionals can do today to mitigate the current skills deficiency, as well as to thwart the void of leadership in 2025 and beyond, is to rethink the idea of just-in-time training. Rather than applying skills-only-training at the time of need, develop a broader approach to preparing all individuals in the organization by teaching thinking skills.
Is it possible the mortgage meltdown could have been avoided if thoughtful people had contemplated "what could go wrong with giving people 100% financing?" in addition to knowing how to fill out a mortgage application? We think so.
Is it possible that the automobile manufacturers would not have needed a bail out if some thought had been given to the "downside" of leases (massive churning of new cars) rather than simply teaching selling skills? We think so.
It's relatively easy to overlay thinking skills on top of job-specific training. For instance, when teaching how to prepare financial reports, a discussion can be had around the topics of ethics and erroneous reporting (intentional or not), and the ramifications to the organization of inaccurate financial reports (underestimating income, miscalculating forecast, personnel balancing). When teaching business writing, there might be a research project associated with the implications of having a paper-trail or the importance of choosing words that are unambiguous.
It is important to teach not only "how to," but "what if." Asking learners to think deeper and wider about the skills they are learning will help them to contribute more to the organization now and in the future.
Train People BEFORE You Hire Them
idea
Latin America and the Caribbean will need about 1.2 million software developers within the next decade, according to growth projections, and yet "official educational institutions" only graduate 1000 coders a year. What to do?
How about starting a training division to train people you'll need in the future? A start-up in Lima Peru did just that. Called Laboratoria, the company began training coders because it could not find qualified personnel for its growing web design business. Last year 1,200 people applied; the company trained and graduated 150. This year they hope to graduate 300 .The training is 9-5 daily, over 5 months. Training is free and 60% of graduates landed entry level jobs upon graduation. (Although Laboriatoria was created from one company's need, graduates are not obligated to go to work for the parent company; what they ARE obligated to do is give back 10% of their earnings for the first three years following graduation, to help continue to fund the free training for others.)
Similarly, Code Camp was started in Charleston, SC because of the growing "Silicon Harbor" of technology companies in the area. Two such company owners grew frustrated with not being able to find the right talent and decided to "grow their own." Classes are now offered Saturdays and in the evenings so working professionals can get the training they need to change or further their careers. There is even a 4-session Kids Camp for kids aged 10 - 14 years - why not get them in the pipeline early?
The next time your Talent or HR department is lamenting the lack of qualified candidates - consider growing your own!
Teaching Thinking Through Self Assessments and Inventories
Thinking
We all learned Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the fact that the pinnacle is self actualization - but what does that actually mean?
Self actualization: the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities...
Unfortunately most people don't reach the pinnacle of self actualization because they have not been taught a way to achieve it. Using self assessments such as Gregorc, Myers-Briggs or Glenn Parker's Teams and Team Players, can greatly assist individuals in thinking introspectively.
Myers-Briggs helps you realize that not everyone sees the world the same as you or reacts to things in the same way as you do. It helps one to contemplate whether there are alternate forms of response to certain situations. It also helps in understanding that a response which is different from yours is not in any way incorrect.
The Gregorc inventory helps an individual understand their working style preference which can assist in playing to one's strengths as well as helping an individual understand reasons why they might be getting stuck. For instance, an individual who is concrete-sequential may be an excellent worker but may appear as though they cannot manage multiple priorities due to their need for completion of activities in sequence.
Sparking an individual's ability to think introspectively, to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses - as well as others, enables individuals to think in a more broad manner about their actions and those that they work with in order to achieve the best workplace outcomes. Understanding and appreciating that we are not working at odds but rather have complimentary skills is a huge breakthrough in thinking for many individuals.
Is Your Organization Playing a Role in Employee's Poor Performance?
Stressed Out And In Pain
Very often, poor performers are the "victims" of organizational factors which they are forced to cope with in some way. At first glance it appears that employee performance is poor, but in reality, they are doing their best to be successful.
Organizational factors can present themselves in many ways, such as new management or revolving door management which results in frequently changing expectations; an impending layoff or merger which can spur individuals to take their eye off their current responsibilities in order to look toward their future employment; or a completed merger which contributes to folk's not knowing their role anymore.
Other organizational stressors can be found in global organizations which have to "translate" communications, operating procedures, and goals across time zones and functions. Even centralized or decentralized training can impact successful performance on the job.
Example: A charitable organization created its own CRM in-house and transitioned away from the commercial product they had previous used (which provided training and support). After going-live with their home-grown system, the programmers stayed in the call center area for one week to provide training and answer questions. At the end of that one week the programmers - who had all been contractors - were let go. In six month's time no one was using the software correctly, records were incomplete and erroneous, and both donors and managers were irate.
When the organization sought training help, the request came in the form of "they need training. They need to know how to use the software the way it is intended to be used and not the way they are using it now," (through trail and error, work-arounds, and best guesses).
Despite the organizational factors working against them, the workers did a fantastic job of completing their jobs with a limited amount of knowledge, training and skill. This was a company that did not understand the importance of documentation, training or support.
Before fulfilling a training request, step back and consider what organizational factors might be playing a role. Very often the workers are doing the best that they can given the circumstances under which they have to perform.
When Millenials Take Over: An Interview with Maddie Grant
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What compelled you to write this book?
My co-author Jamie Notter and I have been writing and speaking for many years about how social media has been changing how we lead and manage our organizations, not just how we communicate and market to customers - which led to our 2011 book, Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World.
In that book, we spelled out how this was happening - social media pushing organizations to become more decentralized, more authentic, more trustworthy, more collaborative, more generative... And four years later, in 2015, we started to see how the advent of the Millennial generation entering the workforce was going to be a HUGE catalyst for these changes. The oldest Millennials are in their early 30s and are starting to fill management roles - and when that happens, they will not wait around to change organizations in ways that make more sense to them, having grown up in a digital world.
So our new book, When Millennials Take Over, helps companies understand this huge generation--which will be the dominant generation in the workforce for decades to come--and the impact it will have. We specifically explain this disruption in ways that are positive and forward thinking, to combat the current misguided discourse of complaining and negativity around the Millennial generation.
If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?
All generations need to understand each other better and work together to bring our traditional organizations into today's reality, in order to be more successful in the future.
How can business use this book to assist them in the work that they do?
The book is designed for executives at all levels to better understand Millennials and how to attract, retain and learn from them. The four main chapters are divided into four big themes - Digital, Clear, Fluid and Fast, explains why Millennials care about these capacities, and shows examples of how to build these capacities for your company.
Many of the specific examples in the book lead directly to HR processes and structures - recruitment, onboarding, performance management, and of course anything related to culture are things that can hugely impact the success of an organization and we believe HR has a much bigger and more strategic role to play than we are seeing currently. There are huge opportunities here and the book points to many ways to start.
Do you have a personal motto that you live by?
Our motto is "proceed until apprehended", coined by Florence Nightingale. The secret about our book is that it was EASY to find many examples of companies doing amazing things - because there are actually many companies experimenting with different ways of working, which are NOT "how we've always done it." We are asked by hundreds of people at middle or lower levels of organizations how they might get started changing things, and we always say just try experiments and show small successes. Nobody can argue with data that shows that small experiments are working.
The more of us that try new things, the more data we can show that proves that positive change is needed--and working.
Maddie Grant, Founding Partner, WorkXOmgrant@workxo.comwww.workxo.com @maddiegrant
Could they do *it* in the past?
Here are two questions that should be asked during a needs assessments to help ensure that you are not designing and developing training unnecessarily, and also to ensure that the training you ARE creating is appropriate for the "gap" that needs to be augmented.
Question #1: Have the learners been able to do ____ in the past?
Question #2: Have the learners had training on ____ in the past?
Let's look at why each of these questions is important to ask.
Have they been able to do ________ in the past?
Typically, if an individual or group has been able to successfully complete a task in the past, and suddenly are not able to, it is not because they forgot how to do it. It's more likely that conditions within the work environment have changed. Look at factors such as:
Have new metrics been put in to place? (causing people to do their work in a less thorough manner?)
Has a new process been added which conflicts with the standard operating procedure?
Are people incentivized to do the job differently / poorly?
For instance: In a call center environment, CSRs can be incentivized to solve a consumer's problem on the first call or they can be incentivized to complete as many calls per hours as possible. Typically, those are two competing end goals. So, if you have workers who have been able to do a process or task in the past, and suddenly they are not - the last thing you should assume is that the fault lies with the workers.
Have they had training on this topic in the past?
If the answer to this is "yes," then the next question is: Why didn't that training stick? Or... did the company forget they had a training program already in place?
Any new skill will fritter away if it is not used. Often people go through training but then get back on the job and have to catch up on a backlog of work. In order to catch up quickly, they will resort to their "old way" of doing things. This aligns with the bullet points above - are trainees incentivized to "keep up the pace," or to do things in the "new and improved" way? If the latter, they will need time to practice and become proficient.
In other instances the newly trained individual simply isn't given the opportunity to put in to practice what they have learned. Example: One of our clients put learners through a 12-week, job-specific training program but then assigned them to a starter-job for 6 months before they were allowed to do the job they were just trained to do. It was "efficient" for the company to give people the 12-weeks of training right after they were newly hired, rather than take them off the job later on. But the newly trained individuals weren't allowed to actually put their skills in to practice until they had "paid their dues" by being on the job for 6 months or more.
It's tempting to jump right in and solve the problem - but first step back and ask "why does this problem exist?"
*Credit to Bob Mager for the basis of these questions.
Multiple Choice Tests and the Downfall of American Education
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Here is an excerpt from a rather lengthy blog post by Alex Terego. He makes a compelling point about how an educational testing process has had the ripple effect of reducing thinking skills.
In the 1960s schools found a way to grade tests more cheaply by using what we would now consider a rather dumb electronic device. It was an optical character recognition reader. As long as the student used a #2 pencil to fill in ovals the OCR reader could collect and grade the results of a test; a task traditionally performed by the teacher, at much greater cost.
There was just one issue: the OCR could only work if tests were administered in multiple choice formats. This is because an answer to a factual question has a true/false or right/wrong -objective- answer that is universally true. So, the only way to test for retention of factual information was to create tests beginning with "which of the following multiple choices is the true one?". So, the more the curriculum was based on facts the easier it was for the OCR machine to replace the teacher, and take the drudgery of test-taking and grading out of their hands and save money.
If a question or problem needed a student to use facts as just one aspect of developing a subjective opinion, to which there is no universally accepted right or wrong answer, the OCR machine had no value. So, for the past half century, in the name of efficiency and cost-savings we have been preparing students for a personal and employee life where they will be faced with issues that are overwhelmingly about subjective opinions by teaching them how to memorize facts. We opted to teach fact-memorization, and to grade our entire instructional structure based on its results.
You can read his whole post here.
Learn about the trainee's typical day
Before you design any training program, ask the requestor to tell you about the audience's typical day and overall job responsibilities. Ideally, you would like to observe the future-trainees in their day-to-day routine so that you can get the "big picture" of the work that they do and the environment in which they do it. If that is not possible, then ask for a thorough description of the future-trainee's typical work day and job responsibilities.
Very often, with this information, you can spot work-process breakdowns that are contributing to the symptoms which precipitated the request for training. Also, you are able to redirect the training or include elements which would not have been addressed had you not had the big picture of work responsibilities.
For example: A manufacturing organization was seeking to cross-train shop-floor workers in order to offset the downtime associated with machine breakdown. Because the organization had only one maintenance person, when a machine would break down, it could take a few hours for the technician to turn his attention to that machine. The intent of the request for cross-training was to be better able to utilize the machine operators during their idle time, while they were waiting for their primary machine to be repaired.
Gaining a better understanding of their overall job responsibilities, however, highlighted the fact that most machine operators refused to complete preventative maintenance and did not follow the start-up protocol which included oiling and gauge adjustments, etc., and simply switched their equipment on.
A more strict enforcement of start-up procedures, or having the maintenance technician come in an hour earlier each day to start the machines properly, was the primary solution to the machine breakdown dilemma. Without this understanding of the worker's typical day the company may have spent tens of thousands of dollars cross training their workers in order to compensate for the down-time created by the machine breakdowns.
The ultimate solution was to minimize the downtime by following company protocol, NOT providing training.
The Dark Side of Leadership
lightening
Bold, innovative leader or r narcissistic, paranoid personality disorder? You decide.
A series of articles and research papers investigate the "dark personality traits" of leaders. While most of us are looking forward, toward ways to develop our future leaders (topics, training, experiences, etc.), some researchers are investigating the personality traits that bring our "rising stars" to us in the first place.
Leader Development and the Dark Side of Personality (Leadership Development Quarterly); The Dark Side of Trait Leadership (Penn State Psychology Blog); Dark Side Personality and Extreme Leader Behavior (slide show from Kaiser Leadership Solutions presented at the 28th Annual SIOP Conference) The "father" of the Dark Side (the Hogan Development Survey (HDS))
Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find the top 3 personality predictors for leadership derailment, by industry (in general terms, of course).
Teaching Thinking Through Job Shadowing
job shadowing
Job shadowing is often thought of as a way to gain exposure to a field or profession. Think you might want to be a police officer? Sign up for the ride-along program. Perhaps owning a flower shop is more your idea of career fulfillment? Then become an apprentice to a nursery or flower shop to understand more about the field.
These processes are spot-on for the individual who is curious and wants to learn more; but in the workplace we often slot people in to a role and leave them there. We hire accountants and leave them as accountants. We hire machinists and leave them as machinists. But what if that accountant would be better suited to being an auditor? And what if the machinist really would excel in quality control? When and how will they expand their horizons to learn about the possibilities within your organization?
Too often people leave organizations in order to expand their knowledge and skills.By instituting job shadowing as a regular developmental process you can maintain the curiosity of your employees and help them to identify their own career path. People accept responsibility for their own development when they are excited and engaged about the possibilities that are open to them.
Additionally, job shadowing helps individuals to understand how the business as a whole works. We have worked with too many organizations in which only the "people at the top" understand how each division or unit works and supports the others. Having a greater understanding of different roles within the business, and how those roles support the business, helps individuals develop critical thinking and decision making skills. For instance, a salesperson would not promise a delivery by a certain date if s/he were well-aware that manufacturing, testing, and shipping alone require at least three weeks lead time.
Job shadowing should be an on-going, planned event. It should not be reserved for "hi-pos" or instituted on a person-by-person basis. As a whole, every business will grow and benefit when every worker understands how the business works and who is impacted by various processes. And, from a developmental standpoint, as individuals see the breadth and depth of careers within your organization they will often take control of their own development and career path and mitigate the turnover issue that so many organizations battle on a daily basis.