MOTIVATION!
July 13, 2016
An e-Mail I received from a reader of Monday’s post, “TRAINING & EDUCATION CAN HEAL“ brought my own thinking back to earth:
“Having to deal with plant technicians now in my job – most of the blue collar stereotype, started in late 70s environment and worked here since – I see the extent we go to provide instruction on how to do certain operations. The level of detail is so much that I think any of my kids could go in and follow along what to do, what button to push, etc. – and yet we struggle to get them to do the job correctly (or even care about it!) Current HS graduates are inundated with the messages of global markets and needing to compete…I wonder if the pre-computer era environments of the 50’s – 70’s had that focus – that if you weren’t advancing in your education formally, that you need to on the job. Or if that changed as people grew comfortable from WWII onward… Hard to separate technological growth (I’m tech savvy and just got the Uber app, don’t use Twitter/snapchat/Instagram…yet still provide tech support at home) from innate attitudes. Hard to shake the feeling that I could provide videos, e-learnings, etc to a large population group and think it’d make a difference. It’d be interesting to know if managers have always felt that way – new hires are so much more capable! – or if that’s becoming a new, tech-based phenomena.”
Without using the actual word in his e-Mail, he’s really referring to “motivation” — and, he’s 100% correct.
Those of us who write about “better solutions” for training and education too often forget the word that must start any learning process — MOTIVATION!
The rest of it doesn’t matter if our workforce isn’t interested in learning new skills and concepts.
So, a big thank you to the reader who helped me re-focus. He nailed it!
I’ll close with one significant fact we do know about motivation. In study after study, we know that the majority of us learn better from what we see and hear than we do from what we read — and, most of us prefer to do it that way.
I’ll have more on this subject on Monday – – –
— Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning
www.itclearning.com/blog/ (Mondays & Wednesdays)