Do you remember a time when you worked for someone else and they tried to explain something that was simple to them but totally perplexing to you? I have on frequent occasions over the course of my life and it seems to be the curse of those that ‘know’ (and sometimes at a highly proficient or expert level), but can’t teach to save themselves!

Just recently I was learning a new process from someone and I was getting more frustrated the more I did it. They were watching over my shoulder while I was attempting to complete the tasks and pointing-out all my mistakes as soon as I made them. All I was getting was "you don’t do it like that" and "why did you do that for?" really useful stuff for a learner.

I realized that doing what I felt like doing (picking up something heavy and throwing it as far as I could), was probably not the best way of venting my frustration. So, I focused on remaining calm so that my stress levels wouldn’t rise too high and cloud my brain so that nothing at all would get in.

I reflected upon my ’learning experience’ later that night and came up with ten reasons why many people who are experts, professionals or just know something that others want to know, can very often be hopeless at communicating that information to others.

So here they are:

1. They don’t have empathy for the learner or try to understand how the learner might view their communication

2. They forget the process involved in learning the information, skill or knowledge that they now possess

3. They enjoy the power of knowing something that someone else wants to know

4. They enjoy telling learners that they are wrong or watching them fail when they inevitably make mistakes

5. They are impatient

6. They are not aware of nor allow for the vast amount of subconscious knowledge that they may possess

7.  They have not structured the necessary learning in a series of building blocks for the learner

8. They do not encourage, inspire or motivate the learner

9. They do not utilize rich communication tools that feed the learner information on multiple levels

10. They are assholes!

That’s probably a reasonable list to start with but please let me know if you can think of some others?

Thanks for reading and have a great week - Jason

 

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Why is it so hard to learn systems and processes from a manual? A large part of the answer is due to the difficulty of "visualizing" or "picturing in the mind’s eye" a particular process!

Wade Roush wrote about IBM’s "Many Eyes visualization tool" and that "With the wrong visualization tools, data can be deathly boring—just think of all the dry, meaningless Power Point presentations and Excel spreadsheets you’ve endured in darkened lecture halls and conference rooms. But with the right tools and context, data can come alive, as Yale information designer Edward Tufte has famously argued"

Visualization is a powerful tool often used in professional sport and in the personal and business success field’s among many others. Tennis and golf professionals use visualization to picture in rich detail their intended shot or play. Successful business professionals often visualize a negotiation or meeting, carefully visualizing the successful outcomes that they want from the interaction.

That which can be visualized clearly can be created far quicker than without a visual "picture". Without "visual" imagination, replication and communication of new systems, new combinations and ways of doing things would be slowed-down immensely.

But just "visualization" in and of itself will not create a systematized business capable of successful replication. Learners will create wildly varying and frequently inaccurate pictures and visualizations in their mind in the absence of rich visual information. What is required is a clear, visual picture of a defined, systematic structure that can then be re-created in the "mind" of the worker/learner. The richer and more "real" the information presented to a worker/learner, the more easily and successfully the worker/learner can picture the exact system or process and actually do it! 

When learners or workers feel confidence when learning a particular system or process, mastery becomes almost guaranteed. Video presentation of information invokes the "law of attraction" powerfully in that a detailed and structured picture is presented which the mind can readily absorb and re-create. The mind then confidently expects mastery of the new process.

Jason

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