Blog Post: We have seen the gap, and it is us!

"The stuff I'm telling you is stuff you already know," he said after reciting a quote by Samuel Johnson about how we don't need to be instructed so much as reminded.

He then shared his model about the five dysfunctions of a team, which is reminischent of the "for want of a nail..." maxim.

• If there is no trust in the team, then there will exist a fear of conflict.
• Without conflict in the team, and a healthy resolution to said conflict, there will be no commitment to decision.
• Without the commitment to a leader's decision, the team will avoid accountability.
• If the team members don't want to hold one another (let alone themselves) accountable, there will be an inattention to results.

Now, Mr. Lencioni's right.  We know what we need to do.  We need to begin a dialog with other members of our team that lets them know that they can talk to us without hurthing our feelings.  Chances are, they'll reciprocate. 

"The gap between knowing and doing is greater than the gap between knowing and not knowing." Ken Blanchard.

That quote came from Bob Pike, who, in another session, shared that he had researched the key topics of ASTD 1978 ICE (30 years ago!)  They were curiously similar to the problems we face today:

• developing training that engages learners
• doing more training in less time
• proving training's benefits to managers

Bob mused about this as he gave us a challenge:  to prove that we would use one of this creative training techniques in a future class, he assigned us to email him, within 48 hours of the seminar, what we technique we would be utilizing.  In return, we would get an e-book from him.  He indicated that, out of 400 attendees to his seminars, he would be surprised to get more than 25% return on that challenge.  Even though there were computers with which we could send that email just down the hall from the conference room, Bob anticipated that 75% of the attendees would not complete that assignment.

We knew what we needed to do.  We needed to walk down the hall to the Cyber Center, hop on a  computer station complete with internet access, and bang out a one-paragraph email that bascially reiterated an action plan that we had already written down in our handouts.

And yes, this gap applies to training classes that you may teach.  How often have you facilitated a class, heard from the attendees that this class was the best class ever, and found them still performing poorly on the floor?  In one of my classes, where I've been able to prove that the techniques I used significantly reduced talk time, I've been able to find only a handfull of performers coming back to me and telling me how great my process works.  The rest?  Well...

They knew what they needed to do.  And yet evidence of that doing was not visible on the floor.

And I, of course, knew what I needed to do.  I needed to make training a process, not an event.  Something with a beginning and an end that involves the performer on the job, not just in the classroom (the middle).  For example, initiate a dialog between the performer and the supervisor (especially if the supervisor is signing the performer up for the job!) so the performer will know why he's going to the class.  I need to provide job aids that the performer can quickly reference after the class (cause we all know the manual goes discreetly in the drawer with the other things he doesn't read unless he has to) so that the performer and his supervisor can refer to it after class.

Yeah, we know what we need to do.  But that gap between knowing and doing...

Excuse me, I've got an email to send.