Flipping Training Upside Down: Why Teams Should Train Teams

Anthony Perl: [: 00:00:00

You'll learn why traditional methods result in trainers learning more than trainees. Discover the 70% rule and how knowledge degrades with each generation and explore how to flip the model so teams, train teams, discover practical strategies for implementing peer-based approaches that increase retention and embed expertise within operational teams.

ere going to discuss in this [: 00:01:00

Traditional training, arguably trains the wrong people.

John Tonkin: Yep. So traditional training, let's just look at this. 'cause it's a bigger thing there too, isn't it? When you think about, now I have, my background is training. I've got a master's degree in adult education and. Eight years, corporate training, maybe more and so on, and all the rest of it there.

And so I'm probably guilty of this at some level myself, but when we train people in a corporate setting at least, and mostly in all traditional training methods, what have we got? We got the trainer out the front and we got the students, the participants, uh, sitting down in front and they're waiting penny and pen on pad ready to go and.

who learns the most in that [: 00:02:00

Someone asked a question today and I saw this thing just from a different perspective. Really, really very important that we understand it that way. So they've just got that big bit of insight into what happens when they're training. I dunno whether necessarily the guys at the other side of it got the expertise.

So what we often do is to train people. We're not necessarily training the wrong people as such. Maybe that was a bad quote, but we feel as if we're training people. But it shouldn't be me, the trainer, learning more about it necessarily. I want you the people sitting in the seats or on the other side of the table if you like, whatever it is.

ront of me, and I'm training [: 00:03:00

And the people who I'm supposed to be training are picking up roughly 70% of it, you know, and it's sort of that sort of thing. I mean, the standard paradigm is that we transfer roughly 70% of the knowledge. In other words, I can tell you a hundred bits of information, not counting them, but among a hundred units of knowledge if you like, you are likely to remember or to learn 70 of those.

Then you go and train somebody else and you are training 70% of those ones. So they're getting 70% of that 70%. They're only getting 49% of what you had. So you are the person who's learning it all. You are getting all that extra information. I want to turn it round so we have an answer to that. What we want to do is to flip it upside down.

it's not gonna be so simple. [: 00:04:00

Give you training so that you're not gonna fall on your face and be embarrassed and so on. But I want you to train your colleagues. Why do I want that? I want that because if you do it, it's gotta be much more effective. You are speaking the same language. These are the guys you had lunch with yesterday and now you are training them and you are also, it's also being introduced by, Hey guys, we'll be doing this all the time, so we're gonna rotate training exercises amongst the team.

hile my bum's trying to fall [: 00:05:00

Now what we've got is I'm, I wanna pay attention 'cause I want to make sure I can do this when it's my turn at the front and so on. So. If we think about it now, so we've got one of the team up the front there training the other guys. They may not do it a hundred percent, but remember they're going to have that investment in doing it.

They're going to be training in a way that the guys there think, yeah, Jim, you're right there, but what about this? And they're gonna talk more freely to him because he's their colleague. There's gonna be more real learning there because they're not gonna be afraid to ask questions. They're going to offer suggestions and so on.

And at the end of that, now when Jim, who was the trainer, goes back and is working with the guys next day, who are they asking for more information about that? They're not asking that guy back in the office. They're asking Jim, Hey Jim, when you were talking about this, what did you mean there? Or something like, is this someone I doing it the right way?

building up the expertise in [: 00:06:00

But we want it to be such that the team learns by them teaching it rather than by being taught. And it's a bit like everything. You know, you, what's that saying? I'll get it wrong, you know, but show me and. I may remember it, you know, and so on. Let me do it and I'll learn a lot more effectively and so on.

re, you know, it's difficult [: 00:07:00

How much of what actually, what's actually been picked up. Because the guys there might fill in the little happy sheet at the end, or they might do an assessment of some sort, but it's hard to know what they actually learn or what they're reflecting to you to, for the assessment purpose. So we really don't want to have it tied in like that.

It's easy for the trainer to make assumptions about what the learner actually knows. We want just the opposite. We don't want assumptions, we wanna know they can do it. They're doing it in the work situation, which means it's always gonna be better to have the train the team, train the team. I don't know.

What does that sound like to you? Does it sound like hunk and bunkum or,

Anthony Perl: no, it makes absolute sense and I think I was just sitting there thinking, remembering the old days when you used to play these game with the kids, sort of, uh, you know, whispering down the line of people and everyone would, you know, you'd get to the end of it and see.

message was the same as the [: 00:08:00

But it's what people are actually hearing as well. That is important because as much as you can sit there with a training manual and you can write things on a, you know, on a board or type them up on a screen or whatever it is that you are doing. Yep. What people actually hear can be totally different.

Very different.

John Tonkin: Yeah. I've done many experiments and things around that. Of course, you know, it's traditionally interesting to look at how people learn and

le bit more about Brain In A [: 00:09:00

I.

started my first business in: 2000

But I thought, I've gotta be able to do this. Or small business, small to medium business, and that's what we focus on. So we work with the business owner, with the team to capture what the business does and then to minimize the risk by going through and looking at all the risks that we have to manage, make sure we capture those and manage them effectively.

And also to achieve the benefit. That's just effectively what it is.

Anthony Perl: It's, it's one of those things, isn't it? We, the reason we're talking about this is because essentially when it comes back to systems in your business, you are having to train people all the time. Really? Yeah. I mean, particularly if you're bringing new people in, I should say.

n as you make little changes [: 00:10:00

And that way you also get to make a firsthand, you know, interjection if you need to say yes, but no, let's do it this way

John Tonkin: instead. Yep. And you get more honest challenges. Just thinking of what you're saying there, you get a more honest challenge when you've got the whole team, uh, in the team, in the training process.

o it every chance I get with [: 00:11:00

But of course we don't do the actual training a lot there, so we just talk about it and they explain it, and the ones who report doing it say they get very good responses. But it's basic. It's easy to do. You know, we nominate someone from the team, we explain that they're gonna be training their teammates.

They start getting big, what are you talking about? I can't do that. I'm not a trainer. But you do that always and so on. This is where we offer them all the support. You know, look, hey, if you want to go through and do a dry run, we'll do that beforehand. Here's all the information you need. You can talk to me anytime you've got a week or two weeks to get ready for it.

But in the end, everyone will be doing that and we won't let you fail. Don't worry. We'll be there to support you all the way through. And then we give them support when they're actually doing the training and then all their mates see, yeah, geez, I didn't think Jim could do this. And of course Jim couldn't do it before.

is a really effective way of [: 00:12:00

So we wanna see that. So

Anthony Perl: yeah, there's nothing better than getting your hands dirty than to being able to understand. What the process actually is, and also to start valuing your colleagues. Yeah, I think that's an important part as well. And what their expertise is. Because that's the point, isn't it? When you're training about this kind of thing, you're seeing a bit more hands-on on what people are actually

John Tonkin: doing at their level.

Exactly. And when you think about it from the company perspective, you know, where do I want my expertise? I think I might've said this before, but where do I want my expertise? I want it in the guys who are doing the work. Um, you know, what's the value of a really clever supervisor when the person who's supposed to be doing it isn't quite clear on it and so on.

stems. This gets it to them, [: 00:13:00

You know exactly what it's all about. I. So that's the way I love to see it. You build confidence as well as competence in your team. And isn't that what everyone wants?

Anthony Perl: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, how much do you see that it reveals of where there are areas to improve and how much that it reveals that, you know, whether it's a, some of it might be areas to improve in communication.

'cause Oh, I didn't know that until I looked into it. I didn't know that's what they did, versus actually from an outsider point of view, looking at that, I don't understand why you do that and starting to question some things. Potentially look at, well, have you thought about this way or equally the person coming back, well, it's because you don't quite understand A, B, C, and that's why we need to do it.

tandard Australian response, [: 00:14:00

A one inch gutter so that I can staple it together and make a book. Beg your pardon? I thought you just wanted me to photocopy something. No, I asked you if you knew how to use the photocopy machine, you know, and so on, and you said yes. So, you know, generally speaking, we've got people having an idea. What you mean when you say it.

at it and say, okay, I think [: 00:15:00

They know what they need to more focus on, so it makes it straightforward then.

Anthony Perl: I was gonna say, when you're saying all of that, maybe you're responsible for the other famous Aussie expression of saying, yeah, nah, it's a bit like that, isn't it? Do you know how to use photocopy at Yeah,

John Tonkin: yeah. Nah, nah,

Anthony Perl: nah. Not really.

But it's, it's, it's so true what you say though, that you know, a lot of the time we are afraid to really say no. I think that's part of the problem as well, isn't it? We expose our own

John Tonkin: lack of understanding. We must be the thickie 'cause no one else said they didn't understand. It must be just me. You know?

There must be something happening.

Anthony Perl: And there's degrees of understanding, as you say, do I know how to use the photocopier? Well, yes. If I know how to, to simply put a piece of, you know, a bit of piece of paper down, press the button and out pops a copy of that. I know how to do that. Do I know how to fix it if something goes wrong?

e things that you just said? [: 00:16:00

John Tonkin: Yeah. In a work thing, I probably wouldn't wanna do that, but I'd probably be saying, I need to have a copy of this or have 10 copies of this, so I need to have it book ready, one inch gutter, double-sided, two to a page or something. Are you able to do that? That would've been the honest question. Of course, but we don't always wanna do that.

Sometimes we just wanna test something so it works out differently. But in the end, and it,

Anthony Perl: and it's so important, isn't it, in a business sense, that when you're understanding how you're interacting with colleagues, with machinery, with clients, there's a. There's the principle of understanding it and then there's the real understanding of it.

Yeah. And that's [: 00:17:00

John Tonkin: Yeah. It's a bit like learning to drive. You know, you learn to drive from your big brother, your, your father, the driving instructor, whoever does it, and you think, oh goodness, you've got your license now.

It took two times, but you've got it. Then you get past that and you think, good, now I know how to drive. And then you go out one night and it's a cold, wet, windy night and it's blowing, and the road's a bit slippery and you're a little bit uncomfortable to say the least. That's when you actually start to learn to drive.

The beginning bit was just sort of the basics, the fundamentals. Now what you're doing is to learn in different situations, making it real, and that's what we want there with expertise. That's where expertise starts to emerge. Is sort of fundamental, basic competence, you know? Yes. You know where the break is, where the accelerator is, and you know where the hand break is and or whatever it is, and so on.

You can do this, [: 00:18:00

Anthony Perl: before you go, don't forget to hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you are tuned to. Thank you for listening to the Systems From The Box podcast featuring John Tonkin from Brain In A Box.

to your company on the next [: 00:19:00