New Things

Here are some following thoughts that occurred to me after the previous post.

When establishing any form of a “new thing”, it may be helpful to recognize what might be going on at a deeper level. Change is most frequently addressed through communication or process changes. We “tell” others we are not doing Red-Blue-Green any longer but will doing a new and better thing moving to Blue-Yellow-Green-Red. Often new directions are given with the expectation of “telling” and then “doing” is to follow. We have all seen “change” where we created a plan, communicated the change plan, and then expect new things to begin happening only to discover inaction, confusion, paralysis, or the outright appearance resistance. A commonly used developmental learning model is “Tell-Show-Do”. This model is simple and somewhat self-explanatory but can often be missed as an effective tool in organizations. “TSD” is very effective because it accommodates learning styles, different levels of understanding and provided strong feedback and reinforcement loops.

Simply outlined, here are the three core stages of TSD:

“Tell”

Knowledge: Provide a clear explanation of a concept, process, or skill. This is the knowledge component with a focus at providing the needed information and key context.

“Show”

Demonstration: Exercise the process or skill with examples, often visually, related to what is expected and how something should work or operate. This should make use of supporting artifacts, tools, props, or models to support the learner in acquiring deep familiarity and understanding.  

“Do”

Practice: Active repetitions by the learner with developmental feedback along the way to strengthen understand, confidence, and competency. This impact will be progressive over time and practice cycles.

A couple observations over years of talent development and coaching that highlight risks that can develop gaps in the developmental success of organizations.  The first observation is that much instruction and training in organization can heavily miss the mark on the “show” stage. Sometimes this is because it can be easy to mistake “tell” activities as “show” activities. Sometimes investments are too light in providing deeper “show” lift due to lack of trainers and coaches or allowable time for meaningful repetitions. This can happen when orientation, training, onboarding, and professional development rely too heavily on self-serve or DIY developmental resources and models.

The second observation is a frequently forgotten fourth stage to accomplishing the developmental performance cycle organizations are looking for and needing. This stage is sometimes called “apply” or “perform”. The reality is that tell-show-do mostly gets your through pre-game but live execution of newly acquired competency is something the transitions from practice to warm-up to game time. This means it becomes an active and steady part of how you do what you do in role work execution. It’s important to not skip over “show” and important to realize that getting to a final action, desired outcome, and performance is progressive. Jumping over the “developmental middle” or rushing to outcomes without the practice time will make flipping form an old pattern to a new one very high risk in terms of success.

Going way beyond broadcasting information and taking action with an expectation of moving from point A to point B in one step, doing new things means becoming a practitioner of something new. This requires a mature and complete approach for developing any competency. Two short stories to really beat this up before we wrap this up.

Story 1 – What A Grind

After college I had a job working for a custom cabinet and countertop maker. He was a true craftsman with over 40 years of hard-earned experience. On day one of my new summer job I was told to pick up a belt sander and take down some high spots on a large one-piece countertop made from a special composite. I was way less than a novice on day one, but I did recall some beginner guidance from my eighth-grade shop teacher.  With some experimentation, being accomplished with a belt sander takes practice, practice, practice. You must get a feel for it, develop some nuanced sense of control and cooperation with a motor grinding belted sandpaper at thousands of surface feet per minute. I paused and looked at my new master craftsman employer and suggested, “I don’t think you want me to do that.” He insisted and the result was as expected. He responded with over half a dozen harshly marked penciled circles all over the countertop and very poignantly telling my where I pretty much scarred the surface. I’m not sure but I suspect I had just increased the project time in a few short moments. The only thought in my head, which I did not say out loud was, “I tried to warn you.” But when you are the new guy on the job on day one, you are never as right as the boss. This experience is representative of what we get if we skip the “show” followed by appropriate practice to arrive at “do”.

Story 2 – Practice Saves Lives

I once watched a documentary on the Navy’s Blue Angels. I have also seen them in real life, and they are very impressive. The Blue Angels are an extreme example of the tell-show-do-perform approach. Every season begins with a mix of veteran pilots and new pilots. Keep in mind that even the new pilots have thousands of hours of experienced flight time before being invited for an opportunity to join the Blue Angles. Regardless of the decades of experience flying the F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jet, every performance season for the Blue Angels begins in the classroom. Weeks of instruction, questions, and conversation directed at creating familiarity, visualization, communication, trust, and confidence before setting foot on the flight apron. Even once they are in the air, the practices start in a slow, controlled, and widened stance. Only as the repetitions increase and confidence and competence increase do they tighten up formations from feet to inches of separation. If they went from “tell” to “do”, the consequences would be catastrophic.

If you are facing a “change rut” or stuck in some limbo trying to escape the gravitation pull of point A and not achieving escape velocity to propel you  to point B, consider this simple model and worse case “dial a friend”. Or in today’s reality, drop me an email.