Learning is a Process, not an Event

Recently I was invited by Patrick to assist him with a group of middle management trainees on a two day training course. The course was described as “An introduction to POLC – Planning, Organising, Leading and Controlling”. The organisation was a large multi-national.

The course went reasonably well but I had some misgivings about the ‘before’ and ‘after’ interactions. How much had the middle managers supervisors been involved in the ‘before’? Not at all. How much were they to be involved in the ‘after’? Undetermined.

I used to be a policeman. My first management and leadership training was on a promotion course from Section Officer to Inspector. It was 1972. I had passed the examinations. Now I and 40 odd others were taken back to the police training school where we were to be both assessed and trained. I was stationed at Chipinga in the Eastern Highlands of what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. My boss, Ian L had no input in the before to my upcoming learning experience.

On the two week programme on one of our learning interventions we were given input on Maslow’s Hierarchy of (motivational) Needs. I remember it well, not for what happened during the course but for what happened after.

For the first time in my young life I understood something about the psychology of motivation. The two weeks came and went and I returned to Chipinga. We had a young Patrol Officer, Peter E, who was not doing well in his work. Peter was different from the rest of his colleagues. For a start, he was better educated. He was quiet and tended to keep to himself. This and his social behaviour set him apart. His colleagues all enjoyed a beer or two after work. They all smoked cigarettes as so many of us did in those days. Peter didn’t drink alcohol and didn’t smoke. These attributes contributed to his ‘loner’ status amongst the other Patrol Officers.

But my real concern, and Ian L’s, was his poor performance on his work output. His investigations were always behind target, his patrol reports had to be re-done to meet the basic requirements. Ian and I had previously agreed that he was just lazy so we just metaphorically kicked him in the arse and told him to get on with it, or else….more kicks in the arse.

Shortly after my return from my promotion course I approached Ian in his office. I told him about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Ian had not been introduced to Maslow at any time in his career). I thought that Peter had potential and we should try and manage him better. I suggested to Ian that Peter may be having difficulties meeting his ‘social needs’ on Maslow’s hierarchy and maybe we should talk with him and find a better way to motivate him.

Ian’s response was simple: “When I was a trooper I got kicked in the arse (when I didn’t do my job) and that’s the way we do things round here.”

And so it was that my learning was set aside and we kicked Peter in the arse, frequently. Things with Peter got worse, not better. He was transferred elsewhere and later I learned that he had been discharged from the force. When I learned this I thought it us who had let him down.

After I retired and in my second life as a management trainer with the Zimbabwe Institute of Management I remembered this experience when presenting motivational theory to aspiring supervisors and managers.

Back to the present: Our multi-national middle managers learning the principles of POLC were in exactly the same place as I had been on my promotion course in 1972. They were about to return to work with a certificate of attendance telling the world that?they were now ‘trained’ but that it was likely they would find barriers to implementing what they had learned in the workplace. And even if there were no barriers, there would be no help and encouragement, little opportunity to gain experience and confidence.

Nothing much has changed it seems.

Today the word ‘training’ has been replaced by the word ‘Learning’. Learning is a process. It is championed by many as a lifelong process with a beginning maybe, but no end as long as we are alive. To be a successful learner, whether it is learning to learn, to manage, learning to fly an aeroplane or to perform surgery it requires practice that leads to experience. It requires making mistakes, hopefully minor ones in the case of the surgeon, and learning from them. It requires achieving successes and learning from them. And it requires someone to encourage and help. (This is is why we don’t ask learner pilots to learn the theory and then put them in an aeroplane without an instructor for their first few flights, why trainee surgeons don’t go into the operating theatre without an experienced surgeon.)

All the sports teams and individuals whether just at school or playing on the professional circuits have coaches who are frequently also mentors. The professional golfer’s bag carrier of yesteryear has been replaced by an experienced mentor. In cricket we have head coaches, bowling coaches, batting coaches and fielding coaches.

But in business we rarely hear of these people.

Invariably the more senior you are in a business organisation, the more you need an alter ego, a confident with whom you can share your thoughts and concerns. Managers at various levels need to learn coaching and mentoring skills. That is, if you really want your people to develop to their full potential. But if you want to just kick them in the arse for non-performance, like Ian, you are free to do so.