Managing to a Successful Shot

I learned a while ago that knowing how to do something isn't the same as knowing how to teach someone to do that thing.  How many times have you seen an athlete struggle to explain a skill to someone else?  Shooting a basketball seems like a simple act until you try to explain it to someone.

I'm often reminded of this truth when I work with others to get things done.  Despite the fact that I'm working with talented people, it's not enough to say "do this" and expect to get the result I want.  I can say, "show me the value proposition for this product" and have a clear picture of what kind of information I should receive.  But the person receiving this request may not have such a clear picture, or perhaps has an equally clear--but distinctly different--picture.  So the "value proposition" comes back to me, and it's not what I had in mind.  Doh!

Here's one example from a recent sales training call.  I had asked one of my managers to pull together training materials for our sales team on a new product.  It needed to answer questions such as:

• what is it?
• what are the components that make up the product?
• how do the components fit together?
• how do I configure it?
• how do I order it?

I had pulled together  a presentation that attempted to show in simple pictures how the system came together, but the manager had other ideas, preferring to put together a Word document that described the system one part at a time.  As we were on the call the sales team started asking for a picture, saying they didn't have a good idea of how the whole system came together and where the decisions were needed that determined specific configurations of the product.  

Fortunately, this was just the first sales training call, so we were able to supply the presentation later and address the sales team's needs.  And the component-by-component view was still useful.  It was just easier to digest once people had a picture of how the entire product came together.

This situation reinforced the old saying, "you can't expect what you don't inspect".  If you're asking for a particular outcome, be sure the person understands what constitutes achievement of that outcome.  And use the opportunity to "inspect" the results to create a learning situation.  Had we reviewed the sales training materials before our call, the manager and I could have identified the need for a big-picture document to go with the detailed one and saved ourselves some extra work.

So anytime I get revved up and start tossing out directives for work to be done, I try to step back and remember that it took me a while to learn how to shoot a basketball.

Comments

[Meems]

I would also tell you that once you figure out how to teach one person to shoot a basketball, you will still have to modify the instruction to teach the next person how to shoot a basketball. That is the beauty and the frustration of teaching diverse people with a range of talents to add to the instruction and to the confusion... It is easier the second time, but it never is fully standardized.