Training – Best Practices / Best Model
So much happens in an interview, so much information exchanged, it’s easy to miss something important. Is the training aspect of the company where you’re interviewing important to you? If so it may help to identify head of time the key concepts you’re re listening for.
Some training systems are involved and complicated. Others are really quite good, even though they may not be explained very well by your interviewer. I came across an excellent best-practice several years ago. I listen for it in the interviews, and if I don’t hear it I do my best to introduce it as how I will train new team members or with new procedures.
- Tell them what’s important
- Tell them why it’s important
- Show them how
- Do it with them
- Let them do it — with evaluation. (Evaluation is critical)
- When they’re ready, deploy them.
This works when you’re showing a farmhand how an implement works and getting him lined out for the day. It works when you’re explaining how to complete a compliance form for the FDA. It works when you’re teaching your daughter how to make brownies, or your teenager how to do their own laundry. It works when you’re showing the new employee how things work here – or when you’re the new employee trying to learn the ropes. It works when you’re explaining the most-recent addition in your Kaizen, Continual Process Improvement, or Professional Improvement plan. Effective training yields sustainable results and this plan does that well. The evaluation makes sustainability possible.
Read through those six stages again to see how your training aligns with this condensed version. Do these six steps match what you’re hoping to find in /bring to your new workplace?
- Tell them what’s important
- Tell them why it’s important
- Show them how
- Do it with them
- Let them do it — with evaluation. (Evaluation is critical)
- When they’re ready, deploy them.
You might be surprised at the source of this best practice. He has the best of credentials and has yet to fail — at anything. He acheived lasting, earth-changing results with a dozen seemingly unqualified men using the training matrix above. His name? Jesus. We’re celebrating His birthday this month. You can find more on his methodology and the six-step pattern above in Bill Hull’s Jesus Christ, Disciple Maker (©1988).
His training model is the best I’ve ever seen and I copy it every chance I get. Hopefully your new employer will too.
Something to think about …
