BOY, ARE WE SLOW TO LEARN
By Gene Levine - www.genelevine.com
The time has already passed when companies can rely on a stream of experienced people being available to work. Furthermore, due to the cost of doing business today, The time also has passed when we can depend on people to develop themselves. Rather, in today's economy and in view of today's business complexity, people must be trained by experts right on-the-job to develop new skills, upgrade existing ones, and keep ahead of the numerous changes that are part of our advancing society.
It is only recently that I've seen more and more companies and organizations begin to understand and accept the fact that their problems are in front of them. They are also beginning to realize that this is where corrective measures have to be applied. The idea is no longer how to repair the past, but to prevent the same or similar troubles from recurring in the future. This calls for today's management to anticipate and to plan.
Flying by the "seat of your pants" is not working too well anymore. Look around and see once great companies that are no longer in business, one time high flyers whose engines failed. I blame their demise on the limitations of their people. Extending my references to flying, it's possible that had these companies trained their people the way commercial airline pilots are trained they could have averted their business disasters with the skill that a commercial pilot averts an aviation disaster.
Pilots-to-be spend hours on the ground, in school, learning the theories of flight and flying. While in school they also learn about weather, navigation and the policies and procedures governing pilots and piloting. This way, they know a great deal about the jobs they're going to do long before they even get into a plane. After they pass their ground tests and get into a plane, an instructor sits with them and trains them in every conceivable maneuver. They are even taught ways to avoid every potential disaster. Then they practice at flying, sometimes acting as the pilot in control. Only when the instructors feel that the student is ready, do they recommend a final flight test. Only after this strict test is passed may the one-time student fly passengers.
That's quite a bit different from the way most people in managerial positions got to where they are today. Take for example how the typically supervisor is selected and (maybe) trained. We often select someone to become a supervisor because they're a good worker, or a good technician. Someone says, "Let's give Mary Jane the job, she's cooperative and a super worker!" So Mary Jane is brought into the office and asked, "Mary Jane, would you like to become a supervisor?" Mary Jane warily replies, "What will I have to do?" The boss tells her, "Nothing more than you're doing now, and it will pay more. All you'll have to do is get the other workers to work like you work." "How do I do that?" Mary Jane asks. The boss answers, "Don't worry about it, you're smart, you'll figure out how." Mary Jane then shakes the boss's hand and departs the office to begin her new supervisory role. (To examine the specifics of today's supervision you might want to refer to our Supervisory Development and Training Manual that can be found at genelevine.com/MnualSup.htm).
Will she be trained? What for? To her boss, training is for airline pilots, not supervisors. I've jokingly said many times that my definition of a supervisor (using the above scenario as a typical example), is a person who was too stupid to say no when the job was offered! To those supervisors, I dedicate this prayer:
"Dear Lord, help me become the kind of supervisor my management would have me be. Give me that mysterious something which will enable me at all times to satisfactorily explain policies, rules, regulations and procedures to my workers even when they have never been explained to me.
"Help me train the uninterested and dim-witted without ever losing my patience and temper . . . so I may lead the obstinate, no-good worker into the path of righteousness by my own example . . . instead of busting him or her in the nose.
"Teach me to smile if it kills me. Make me a better leader by helping me develop larger and greater qualities of understanding, tolerance, sympathy, wisdom, mind-reading and common sense.
"And when, Dear Lord, Thou hast helped me to achieve the high pinnacle my management has prescribed for me, and when I shall have become the paragon of all supervisory virtues in this mortal world . . . Dear Lord . . . move over!"
As if the lack of training our key people receive isn't bad enough, most companies provide no formal training for entry level positions either. Direct, indirect labor and others are trained through osmosis – watching others do their jobs and learning from them even if they're doing their jobs wrong. Think about it. Today, the size of the business is not important; it's the size of the thinking of the people who comprise the business that means everything. Companies go out of business because the employees are not capable of keeping the company viable and competitive. Capability comes from training, business failure from the lack of it!
Still, many manufacturers believe they can't fail. They feel insulated. Their lines are hot, and can seemingly do nothing wrong. They feel they're beyond failure. That's one of the most severe problems with entrepreneurial management. They just don't know, or want to know, what history tells them is so. In my opinion, if they leave the future to guesswork and chance, time will make them a statistic, too.
My reasoning centers on the fact that years ago we were not faced with training problems because labor was plentiful and jobs were scarce. People who did not possess the initiative and motivation to make it on their own were thrown out and replaced with new people. Economic reprisal was in vogue at that time. Those attitudes reflected an era of abundant labor supply, low labor costs, and visible work ethic from the people already employed.
Today, the situation of supply and demand in respect to available labor, work ethic, and costs has pretty much reversed itself. Astute management now uses alternate means to insure the success of new employees. The most noted means of accomplishing this today is by . . .
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