Twitter
Facebook
Email
RSSTraining Your Employees to Get The Correct Results – A Historical Lesson
08 Feb 2011 1 Comment
in Coaching, Courage, Harriet Tubman Tags: Courage, courageous leader, Harriet Tubman, inspiration, notable women in history, timeless lessons, women in history
Could you imagine asking a new employee to write a computer program even though he has never even seen a computer? Would you think that verbally abusing the employee will motivate the employee to write the expected program?
That’s essentially what happened to Harriet Tubman over one hundred eighty years ago as a young child. Of course, she wasn’t asked to write a computer program, but Harriet was ordered by a woman to sweep and dust her house. Unfortunately for Harriet, it was the first time she had been in a home that wasn’t a slave cabin. She knew how to sweep but dusting? She had not a clue.
The mistress of the house offered Harriet no training, just an assignment – clean her house! Harriet dusted and dusted, yet each time the dust returned as if she hadn’t begun to dust.
“The dust … again, and chairs and tables were soon covered with a white coating … when her Mistress came in to see how the work progressed.”
Disappointed with the results of Harriet’s efforts, the Mistress first used savage words and later a whip on Harriet five times. Fortunately, the Mistress’ sister happened to be in the house at the time and wisely intervened.
“Why do you whip the child, Susan for not doing what she has never been taught to do?”
The sister then proceeded to successfully instruct Harriet on the proper methods for dusting a house, using a few secrets that the inexperienced child had not figured out.
As a leader, you can only expect employees to demonstrate the skills that they have been given the opportunity to develop. Sometimes, as Harriet did, an employee will bear their lack of knowledge in silence, to avoid giving voice to the fact that she does not know how to complete an assigned task. And so, like a child on a merry-go-round, the employee will repeat the same ineffective methods, going nowhere despite great effort.
The key is to assess the employee’s skill and likelihood of figuring out how to complete a task prior to the assignment, to give the employee the chance to succeed early.
By the way, can you guess what the secret step was that the Mistress’ sister used to rid the house of dust? She instructed Harriet to open the windows and let the dust settle after the first attempt, only to be followed up with one additional dusting.
Here are some questions to ponder about training employees:
- What was the greater downfall of the mistress of the house – the lack of training or the physical abuse?
- Can harshly punishing an employee ever be effective?
- Do you have any employees who are not producing the correct results?
- What are the training opportunities that the employee can become involved in?
- How will you measure the results?
Source: Harriet, the Moses of Her People, S. H. Bradford, 1886, G. R. Lockwood & Son, New York, NY, p. 18-19
Feb 09, 2011 @ 15:10:18
Never before has training and mentoring been more crucial to employee engagement and success. When supervising new attorneys and law clerks, I always spent the extra time to explain the project, how her/his component of the project was integral to the project’s successful completion. I gave the individual enough opportunity to tackle the project indpendently, but also encouraged him/her to reach out if they were struggling with an aspect of the project. I was very frequently pleased with the results.