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Teach, coach, and ride

The faster employees apply what they learn, and receive additional feedback, the faster they learn the skill and benefit from it.

February 9, 2015 by Doug Fleener — President and Managing Partner, Dynamic Experiences Group, LLC

Think back to when you learned how to ride a bicycle. Chances are a parent or another adult first gave you some instructions on how to ride, and then ran beside you, holding onto the bike as you learned to get your balance. 
 
Then they let go and you rode off ... until you fell over. After more practice, and probably more falls, with the help of the adult you eventually learned to ride on two wheels.
 
Here's how you might have learned if you had been taught to ride a bike at work. It would start with someone delivering a PowerPoint on how to ride a bicycle, and then you'd be told to start riding. 
 
Or maybe you would have been given feedback on why you're falling over, but somebody may or may not have been there to help until you learned how to actually stay up on two wheels. Just think how long it would take to learn to ride if this is the way you're taught!
 
How do you teach and coach your employees? Do you continue to work with an employee to accelerate his/her learning and development, or do you give her the information or feedback and then leave her to apply it?
 
The faster employees apply what they learn, and receive additional feedback, the faster they learn the skill and benefit from it. After giving an employee feedback the best thing you can do is to ask them to apply it immediately. Immediately (as in with the next customer or two), while you observe. This is the equivalent of running next to the bicycle while you're teaching someone to ride.
 
So let me ask, how do you teach and coach? Are you working with and helping your employees to apply what they learn, or are you sending them off to (metaphorically) fall over? Invest that extra time in the moment and you'll see — and experience — the difference in your employee.

(Photo by Arlington County.)

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