32: The Best Way to Do On-the-Job Training

Prepare

• Estimate how much time you will need in advance – then double it. If you fail to block enough time, either you will sell the person short by rushing, or you will impact other business operations by taking more time than planned. Be realistic with how long things will take.
• Coach the rest of the team and remind them that access to you when you are conducing on-the-job training will be more limited.
• Be sure to consider the organizational outcome you want to have come out of the new skill or behavior you are working on. It’s not enough just to get the other party good at actions – they need to understand how these actions fit into the big picture.

Demonstrate

• You’ll want to fully demonstrate what it is that you want the other party to do.
• Suggest that the other person watch and observer – and perhaps take notes on what it is they see you doing in the skill or behavior.
• Resist the temptation to explain and train as you go – that will come later. For now, it’s important that they see what the “end result” clearly looks like.

Explain

• Ask the other party what they saw. This is beneficial for them since it reviews the process, and beneficial for you because you have a clearer understanding of what they saw and what they missed.
• Now, walk through the behavior or skill step-by-step.
• Once you’ve had a chance to full explain, have dialogue with the other person on where they can first apply this learning.

Coach

• Apply the new skill in a place where they will have the best opportunity to experience success. If possible, avoid situations where their result will be more uncertain.
• Set expectations with whoever else is involved with the interaction of how you will be involved and what kind of feedback they might observe between the two of you.
• When coaching, make a clear decision to engage in the moment, direct the person as to what they might be differently, and then praise them for the change.

Feedback

• Afterwards, review the situation in detail.
• Ask the individual for their assessment of what worked and what didn’t work. Again, this will give you insight as a leader on what they perceive to have worked and what they might have missed.
• Praise them for accomplishments!
• If something didn’t work, discuss it now so that they don’t make the same errors in the future.

Determine which step to go back to, if needed for more development.

Leaders get in trouble when they don’t think through these five steps – and then end up missing big pieces!

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.