Tag Archives: practice

Yoda Says

Leave a reply

“I think I could give it a try,” Naomi nodded. “I think I could get my team together, go over the seven wastes, and ask them to come up with an idea.”

“Yoda says there is no try,” I smiled. “Think about what you just said.”

“I guess I was making continuous improvement a choice,” she smiled back.

“You guess?”

“I was making continuous improvement a choice. Competence is not a choice, it’s a habit,” Naomi’s smile reluctantly faced the truth.

“So, it’s not just making competence necessary for your team. It’s making competence necessary for yourself.”

Building the Habit

Leave a reply

“Okay, so we pinned showing up to work, to starting on time to meeting deadlines,” I concluded. “Now what. What is the next habit?”

“I get the practice of meeting deadlines, but I am still stumped on what to work on next,” Naomi looked puzzled.

“You’re stuck because you are trying too hard,” I suggested. “Put the next habit on your team. Have your team decide what the next habit of competence will be.”

“If I am stuck, they are going to be stuck,” she complained.

“You are stuck because you haven’t set up some guardrails to guide their thinking. Let’s take a simple framework like MUDA,” I prompted.

“I know MUDA, that’s the seven wastes,” Naomi sparked.

“And, what are the seven wastes?” I asked.

“Moving stuff around too many times,” she started. “Making too much stuff, overproduction. Making things too complicated, overproduction. Holding too much inventory, raw goods or consumables. Unnecessary movement, work flow and work flow sequence. Waiting for stuff, white space in the workflow, creating unnecessary idle time. Identifying and eliminating defects.”

“Very good,” my turn to smile. “Do you think your team could identify one of the seven wastes and work to improve their competence? Competence is not a choice, it’s a practice, it’s a habit.”

Practice

Leave a reply

“But, we sent him to training,” Marjorie was disappointed.

“Just exactly what did you expect him to learn from the training?” I asked.

“His role in the company requires a very specific skill set. Without this technical knowledge, our engineers will bulldoze him over.”

“Is it possible,” I wanted to know, “that your disappointment has little to do with technical knowledge and more to do with the application of that knowledge? What you are expecting may only be learned by doing. Like riding a bicycle. Most training works only on the technical knowledge part, not the application part. And, the application must be practiced, over and over, before you see progress.”

Five Questions

Leave a reply

Stephanie got quiet. “I coach. That’s what I do. But, how do I do what I do?”

“That’s a recursive question,” I said.

“I mean, I think I coach. But, it’s intuitive. I don’t know if I know how to coach. Maybe it’s something I do, but is there a method?”

“Just ask these five questions.”

  • What did we expect?
  • What did we do well?
  • What went wrong?
  • What can we do to prevent that next time?
  • When will we meet again?

Perfect Practice

Leave a reply

“The training only got you so far,” I nodded. “But, your comfort level with the skills, competence only came with practice?”

Melanie confirmed, “Lots of practice.”

“What kind of practice?” I wanted to know.

“What do you mean?” Melanie looked puzzled. “I just did what I was supposed to do, over and over, at first in fits and starts, but eventually things got easier.”

“I mean, how often did you practice, what was your duration of practice? What was your depth of practice? What was your accuracy of practice? And, how did you know you were getting better?”

“In the beginning, it was slow, frustrating. I was uncomfortable. Things didn’t turn out as expected. Each way I turned, I thought someone was going to scream at me for doing it wrong.”

“Did anyone scream at you?” I asked.

“Not really,” she replied. “I know I got some sideways glances, and likely people were talking about me behind my back.”

“If no one was screaming at you, and perhaps people were talking about you behind your back, how did you know you were getting better, improving?”

“At some point,” Melanie thought out loud, “I just got more comfortable. Maybe people were still talking about me behind my back, but, it didn’t seem that way. It was just a feeling.”

“I started this conversation by asking you the difference between training and coaching,” I reminded her. “Training was organized, disciplined, it was an event, but it only got you to a minimum level of technical knowledge. Moving toward competence required practice.”

Melanie nodded. “It’s funny. Whenever we see someone struggle in their job, our first move is to send them back to training. And, often that training doesn’t have much impact. What you seem to be saying, is that when someone struggles, they may not need more training, they might just need more practice?”

Practice, Practice

Leave a reply

“And, after all was said and done, a lot more was said than done.” Travis chuckled. “I heard that in a seminar once. But maybe it’s true. After the training, some of the people worked the new way, but some didn’t. Over time, the whole process was abandoned. ”

“You know your program really didn’t have a chance. It was missing something critical,” I said.

“I know, you are going to say positive reinforcement, but we all talked it up and everyone got a certificate when the training was over,” Travis defended.

“That’s all very nice, but I am not talking about being nice. I am talking about being effective. In the training you demonstrated a new process. This new process required a new skill, a new behavior.

“Travis, I can show you how to throw a ball, but if you want to get good at it what do you have to do?”

Travis looked puzzled, “Practice?” he said.

I nodded. “Very special practice.”

Practiced, Grooved Behavior

Leave a reply

“But, I thought my team was competent. They have worked under this kind of pressure, solved these kinds of problems before,” Marion reported.

“So, what do you think is the problem?” I asked.

“I know we spent a lot of time working from home over the past couple of months. And, now we are back in the office most of the time. Things are different. People stick to their cubicles, practice social distance. It’s like Men-in-Black erased the memories of how well they used to work together.”

“What’s missing now, that was there before?”

“They seem out of practice. It’s not like they are screwing everything up, but they used to be tight. Now, every hiccup creates a little team stumble.”

“Marion, you say they are out of practice. What have they been practicing?”

She chuckled. “They have practiced being apart, practiced being disconnected, working alone, not talking to each other.”

“We are always in practice,” I said. “Just sometimes we practice stuff that’s counter-productive to where we want to go. We get good at what we practice. If we practice being lazy, we get good at being lazy. If we practice enough, it becomes a habit. Don’t practice things you don’t want to get good at.”

Performance Improvement Depends on This

Leave a reply

“Have you ever watched a parent teach their child to walk?” I asked.

“Yeah. I have a niece that is learning to walk. Her parents go goo-gah regularly, but still it’s a wobbly process.”

“Does a parent ever say – No, that’s not the way to do it, let me show you. Don’t fall down like that?”

“Well, no. They just get all excited, clap their hands and gurgle baby talk.”

“Somewhere along the way, we lose our natural instincts in the training process. Behavior that is reinforced gets repeated. The two elements that were missing from your training last year were practice and immediate positive reinforcement.

“Initial attempts at a new skill or new behavior are usually terrible, but that’s not the point. Your job as a manager is to get excited and encourage. Put people in a place where they can try again and get better.

“Look, Travis. When do parents give up encouraging their child to walk?”

Travis was still mentally drawing lines in the analogy. “They never stop, I guess. Only when the kid learns to walk.”

Special Practice

Leave a reply

“You did some training last year, tell me about it.”

“Well, first, we invested a decent budget. This was a new process we were working on. We spent a lot of time looking at different programs. We put together a decent PowerPoint, even hired an outside trainer.” Travis stopped.

“And?” I said.

“And, after all was said and done, a lot more was said than done.” Travis chuckled. “I heard that in a seminar once. But maybe it’s true. After the training, some of the people worked the new way, but some didn’t. Over time, the whole process was abandoned. ”

“You know your program really didn’t have a chance. It was missing something critical,” I said.

“I know, you are going to say positive reinforcement, but we all talked it up and everyone got a certificate when the training was over,” Travis defended.

“That’s all very nice, but I am not talking about being nice. I am talking about being effective. In the training you demonstrated a new process. This new process required a new skill, a new behavior.

“Travis, I can show you how to throw a ball, but if you want to get good at it what do you have to do?”

Travis looked puzzled, “Practice?” he said.

I nodded. “Very special practice.”

The Practice of Delegation

Leave a reply

“I’m a little disappointed,” explained Ruben. “Disappointed in myself.”

“How so,” I asked.

“Since I was promoted to manager, everyone said I should delegate more stuff. So, I tried.”

“What have you tried?” I prompted.

“Well, I bought three books on delegating. I finished one and I am reading the second.”

“So, what’s changed, for you?”

“Nothing really. I mean, they are really good books, but I still do everything myself.”

“Ruben, delegation is a skill, a skill that can be learned. Every skill has two parts. The first part is technical knowledge. That’s the stuff you have been reading about in those books.”

“What’s the other part?” Ruben asked.

“The other part is practice. You actually have to get out there and practice. I really don’t care how much you know. I am interested in what you can do.”