Teaching Other People or Teaching Myself?
Furnishing my perspective and contributing my thoughts can be gratifying, but receiving advice and knowledge from my contacts can be satisfying or humbling.
I’ll delve into these ideas a little more in the following sections:
- My Story
- Question and Answer Sessions
- Training Sessions
- Continuous Improvement
- Lesson for Dumber Self
- Next Step for You
With over a decade worth of insights and history within a company, I have shared recommendations with and taught many stakeholders and partners about various subjects.
My Story
Since I joined the corporation, it has grown over 5x the employees. At the beginning, my department had a staff of about 10. Since then, it has grown to about 7-8x. Though I moved around within the organization, I have been the “go-to-person” for historical records, background for the current and legacy processes/systems, project participation, referrals, improvement recommendations, etc. Additionally, interested parties have asked about my professional journey and for suggestions on how to navigate their career path.
As you can see, there are many avenues for me to share my know-how and experiences, while getting input as well.
The process of offering tips or explaining a matter to an individual could start by a simple question posed by a person or through a scheduled educational meeting that I present at. Below are some examples:
Question and Answer Sessions
Q&A discussions can take place during impromptu calls or at random times when someone is doing their work. These situations tend to be informal where information is shared without preparation.
System Issue / Career
I asked a co-worker who was championing a new application for suggestions to resolve an odd issue that I was having with it. She referred me to a second-line support team with representatives from different functions and we determined that it was not a system issue, but instead, the particular functionality was disabled, as designed, after an upstream action was completed.
After our initial contact that day, my co-worker invited me to a call for that afternoon. It turned out that she was curious about me, my career track, whether I liked the previous or new group that I was in better, etc. This type of informal mentor/mentee conversation has always been enjoyable for me because not only was I able to share what I already knew, there was a chance that it might benefit the inquirer along their job-related journey.
Work Processes
Imagine sitting at your desk and you hear a team member ask for assistance on what they were struggling on. That has happened many times over the years. It’s quite exciting to be able to put on my problem-solving hat, hopefully help a colleague out of a bind, and potentially see them pick up a useful skill or program functionality. In these situations, below were some outcomes that I encountered:
- I had the answer and shared it.
- Individually, we didn’t have the key, but after brainstorming, we found a solution.
- After our discussion, we realized that we needed to ask a veteran, so I referred them to another contact.
By telling someone something new will enable them to continue with their endeavor or be more efficient at it. Even if I didn’t have the specific fix, the odds were already on our side that the way out would come through partnership or intervention. Whatever we learned was eventually taught to someone else in the future.
Training Sessions
Instructional classes usually require more preparation and documentation. The goal is to introduce information that the learner(s) must know to complete the job that they’re building up for and reference material for later use.
Project Tasks
I have led projects where we required team members to execute certain commitments, e.g., user testing for a new system. Before they tested, we had to train them on how the new system functioned as compared to the previous one. Also, it was imperative that they knew the testing steps and background to aid in their decision-making during their assignment. Communicating the right amount of content required understanding how they best grasped information, sometimes by trial-and-error, so that they would ideally be self-sufficient when carrying out their activities.
Transitions
Before I moved on to new roles, I had to enable a successor to take over my old job responsibilities. The approach for changeovers was similar to training individuals to perform obligations in a project. However, because duties were going to be transferred to them with the intention that they would fulfill them without any reliance on me, the training materials included the procedures and background, as well as additional backups and resources that they might need.
As previously mentioned, the time frame in which we give guidance or instruction may be planned or unplanned. With both scenarios, I can still think about the factors that I am capable of controlling ahead of time as noted below:
Continuous Improvement
- One way to minimize the ad-hoc questions from coming to me is to pro-actively share and document what I attain without delay, so it’s available for retrieval when it’s desired.
- As for preparing for training forums, research the audience’s learning styles, include different levels of information (summaries and details), and incorporate different methods to maximize the retention of information (pre-read material, demonstration, discussion, practice time).
By advising and educating others, I could consider myself an expert in the relevant topics, but truly it’s the opposite when I get questions that stump me in the process.
Lesson for Dumber Self
- The more you share and guide others, the more you learn that there’s even more to learn
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Enlighten a teammate with some new pointers?
- Find out more about the Learning Retention Pyramid?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)