Why is redundancy important in a learning intervention?

Remember that story? – A cat taught everything she knew to a lion, her relative. The lion learnt everything with a lot of interest and hard work. In the end, the lion asked the cat, “Have you taught me everything you knew?” The cat replied, “Yes, everything.” On hearing this, the lion ran towards the cat to feed on her. The cat quickly climbed a tree to save her life. The lion complained, “You didn’t teach me this. Why?”

The cat replied, “For this moment.”

Well, it doesn't matter if you have heard this story or not. The point is that it’s a fictional story and it best remains that way. However, more often than you would expect, we behave like the cat and the lion in the story. Trainers trying to keep some tricks or tips from learners and learners trying to be over smart.

For some part of my first job almost two decades back, I played the role of a Software Application trainer, where we used to train people for a period of 3 months on a coding software. And I always pursued one mantra – 

Teach in a way that there comes a point where your learners don’t need you.

Teach to make yourself progressively redundant.

Yes, that’s right. That’s how I approached training. Make my learners so capable in the subject that they don’t need me. The principle being – Tell them all you know.

And I believe that’s the way it should be.

If the people I teach know less than I know, my job is not done. 

Many would argue the concept of self-learning. Why not let people find some things out by themselves? Why not let them fail so they can discover their resilience. 

There is a very beautiful quote by Mark Van Doren, “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” I won’t argue with the concept that says let people learn on their own. But that doesn’t mean we must underplay our role as a trainer.

Sometime back, I was teaching my daughter cycling. Once I taught her the rules and methods of cycling, and I realised she had come to a point where she was ready to fail and learn, I let her go. 

Trust me it was hard. But I just knew she was ready to ride by herself. It was time she learnt while she rode the bicycle and maybe there would come a point where she would teach me new tricks at cycling. And I was/am ready for it.

But making learners struggle for what you could teach them is cruel, and is an extremely anti-training concept.

That’s the code – You have to make your learner ‘ready enough’ to fail and learn on their own. That says it all. As trainers, we have a purpose, a duty towards every learner – empower them with knowledge, so they are ready for their journey of gaining competency in the subject.

But what does it mean for a trainer? Let’s find out –

An ideal trainer knows the subject inside out.

You can only tell the maximum of what you know. If your knowledge is limited, so will your teaching be. And that is just unfair to your learners. That just means you are ensuring they fail quickly and fall hard. So, learn as much as you can before you enter that training arena, whether a podium or a virtual training room.

An ideal trainer is its best learner.

You got to keep learning. At the time I learnt cycling, we had that Hero cycle that came with simple rules. Had never heard of 21 gears in a cycle up until recently. I have got to know the rules to be able to teach Meher. Well, if that’s what it takes to give her the best training possible, I am game. That’s why I say, keep learning to keep sharing wisdom.

An ideal trainer focuses on impact, not just deliverables.

In more than 18 years of my career, I have had the chance to observe many trainers. The interesting thing is that many trainers are in a rush to finish a batch. There are only a few who focus on how their learner is able to perform. The objective is not to deliver a training, the objective is to ensure that the learner learns and is able to do the job on their own. The objective is to make them confident for the role in the company. That they are excited to start working on the job, not scared.

What’s the point of teaching swimming, if the learner is still scared of water! 

If a trainer is not able to perform their duty successfully, learners keep punching below their weight. In that case, it’s not just an individual who fails, the team fails, the whole system fails. 

That covers major aspects about trainers. But it’s not just upto them to make a learning intervention successful. There comes the role of the second party in a learning journey – the learners.

Learners need to be aware of what they know and what they don’t when it comes to their role in the organization. They need to be aware of the relevance of training in the role. They also need to be aware of the fact that there is going to be a learning curve. How they walk on this learning curve has a huge impact on their longevity in the organization. Making them aware of all of these aspects is their Manager’s job. 

Now, important question - what does it mean to be an ideal learner? Let’s find out –

Aspire freedom.

I mean it. As a learner, one must approach learning with an intent that they mustn’t need the trainer at some point. They must aspire to freedom. That means they need to learn and practise and practise and learn and practise. Until they are confident enough to fail and learn on their own.

Stay foolish.

I mean this more than anything in this article. It’s so funny seeing people trying to get over smart with the trainer, asking questions only to prove the trainer wrong and smirking their way throughout the training. It’s not benefitting anyone. Training is not to prove yourself smart, it’s to learn from smart people around you. So, stay foolish. Listen and learn.

Trust the trainer.

I remember a funny incident. Very filmy one. This guy entered the training room with his head looking towards the floor as if in some deep thoughts. No one imagined him to be the trainer. But that was him. Contrary to what people assumed, he was one of the most interesting trainers, teaching in the most innovative ways with role plays and group activities. The thing with learning is – ‘Keep your perceptions and stereotypes outside the room.’ Trust the trainer. Period. Ask questions with an intent that they would know answers.

In the end, I would like to capture one more point briefly– traits to look for in a trainer.

We all know the most knowledgeable people need not be the best teachers/trainers. There are many parameters to evaluate on. But one of the most important traits, also my favorite, is Patience. How does the trainer react to questions, to situations, to not having all answers, to troublemakers in the room?

Back in Snapdeal, we had prepared an exhaustive evaluation sheet to evaluate if the trainer had the thought process of enabling others. We used to categorize aspiring / potential trainers in three buckets –

1. Ready to train – they could be put in training class now
2. On the fence – they were trainable potential trainers. 
3. Not ready – they didn’t reflect the right aptitude as a trainer

Apart from this, we used to collect trainer feedback sheets. Additionally, I used to conduct one on one feedback sessions with randomly selected trainees, just to make sure a fair assessment. This helped us map out a good roadmap to achieve highest levels of learning journey efficiency.

Learning and Development in current times – My recommendation

We all are going through a really difficult time, and it’s ok to lay low and let your employees lay low right now. A good leader would be able to reprioritize and deprioritize work and learning at this point.

• Do what is needed to keep the ship afloat. Don’t mandate learning. Not right now.
• Stay relevant in your subject area

A learner and a trainer are both as important to each other as a keypad to a laptop. OK, I agree that wasn’t a great analogy. But you get the sense of what I am trying to say here. 

Keep learning and keep sharing to the best of your ability.