Are You Making Assumptions

Are You Making Assumptions

 

John McLanahan
Contributing Writer
Success Academy

There once was a 6-year-old boy who had never spoken a single word since the day he was born.  Over the years, his family grew accustomed to his silence and assumed that he simply was not able to speak.  Then, one night at the dinner table, after taking a bite of mashed potatoes, he put down his fork and loudly declared, “These potatoes are too lumpy!”  When his astonished mother asked him why he had never spoken – or spoken up – before, he matter-of-factly replied, “Up until now, everything has been satisfactory.

During training, we sometimes make assumptions based on our perceptions instead of digging deeper into issues, even when we see warning signs.  As an example, we sometimes take short-cuts.  We may spend a small amount of time preparing for the training and then dive right into presenting the material to the team.  This is where we often make a detour and skip over some key steps in the training process such as observing the employees perform the new information, perhaps in the form of role-playing sessions.  By doing this, we also lose the opportunity to provide them feedback on their performance and reinforce the behaviors we want to see repeated.

Instead, we proceed to asking our employees if they understand the training just shown to them.  At this time we either get the “deer in the headlights” stare, to which we tell our employees not to worry because they’ll catch on sooner or later (our assumption), or the employee nods their head in agreement because they do not want to admit they could not follow the training at the lightning fast pace we were delivering it.  We generally assume they must have understood the training, not only because of how skilled we are at training, but also because they did nod their head in agreement, didn’t they?

When training employees, we need to constantly remind ourselves NOT to assume that the employees feel properly prepared for success just because they nodded their head.  We need to follow a structured training process, and ask questions to check for retention of the information.

At our organization’s training sessions, we follow a structured training process to ensure we deliver the required information in a manner that is easy for the participant to learn and retain.  We take steps to engage the participants and allow ample time to practice the material.  We also serve as a resource both during the class and afterwards because training and development is an on-going process.  Training is crucial to the success of every business.

It is not the employee’s job to train themselves, it is our job as the employer to provide training to them.  Taking the time to do this right, makes the employee’s feel like they have the tools and training to contribute to the team much faster and sets them up for long-term success, which, we can assume, will set our businesses up for long-term SUCCESS!

 

Thank you for making training a priority,

Jeff McLanahan, PHR
Vice President of Training, Success Academy
Clockwork Home Services/Direct Energy