Brain Science: Improve Your Safety Performance by Mastering the Trainee Operating System
“I guess I just forgot.”
How many times have you heard this excuse while conducting incident investigations? Probably too often. And I’ll bet it drives you mad.
You spend hours putting together presentations. People attentively listen. You answer their questions. They nod when you ask them if they understand. And then they go out and do the opposite of what you taught. If they’re lucky, it’s a near miss. If not, well...
While it’s natural to blame trainees for these errors, we, as professional trainers, need to take responsibility for them.
“If the learner hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.”
I personally subscribe to this slogan and ask you to do the same. Forgetting is a symptom of ineffective training. And by ineffective I mean not taking advantage of and leveraging how the brain naturally processes and retains information.
If you use a piece of equipment incorrectly, say a power washer or table saw, and it gets damaged or ruins what you’re working on, you have only yourself to blame. It’s not the equipment’s fault. Likewise, when you use a computer or any software-driven device you must understand its operating system. Without that knowledge, you’re dead in the water.
In training, the brain is the equipment we have to work with. It’s the trainee’s operating system. Do you know how use it properly? Do you know its limitations and strengths? Most likely not. So, how can you possibly create and deliver learning experiences that result in clear understanding and strong retention? You can’t.
Don’t Blame Yourself
It’s not your fault. You were either taught poor methods or just absorbed them from constant exposure. Now is your chance to break away from them!
In our Maverick Train-the-Safety-Trainer Program, we teach you to strive for mistake-free performance, so you push yourself to use all the great teaching techniques that brain science tells us align with the brain’s operating system.
One technique is called Sure Fire Instruction and is a fantastic way to demonstrate skills and tasks. I say “fantastic” because it results in clear understanding and very high retention. The key to this method is multiple demonstrations, where the content complexity increases each time. For example:
First Demo- Perform the steps without explanation
Second Demo - Perform the steps again and highlight the key points
Third Demo - Perform the steps again, highlight the key points again and explain the reasons why.
Using this method, the trainee isn’t swamped with too much information all at once and doesn’t get overwhelmed. Also, the Sure Fire Instruction bundles information, namely the step with its key points and reasons why, which creates stickier memories that improve retention and recall.
Yes, Sure Fire Instruction takes more time to perform, in fact, three times longer. But, you can’t circumvent how the brain works, so fire hosing trainees with safety content doesn’t work! They forget what was taught and you wind up having to teach them again. We can show you how to teach your trainees effectively and just do it ONCE!
