Small, rapid steps by the learner when learning new habits and skills.

July 27, 2024
Recent follow up coaching with both the Australian Federal Police and Cabonne Shire Council has revealed the importance of taking small steps from the learners perspective.

Although both skill development exercises had very different objectives, both focused on coaches developing new skills and patterns with their learners.

In one instance a coach was focusing on their learner teaching a new skill to another person. The step from the coach’s perspective ‘seemed’ like a nice bite size chunk. Upon ‘doing’ it was learned that the skill being instructed was in fact a massive leap for the person who was learning this new skill. The outcome was breaking skill development into much smaller pieces.

In practicing the Toyota Kata routines (in order to develop scientific thinking), when developing and setting target conditions we use the word strive. In a nutshell, if the condition being aimed for from the learner’s perspective is too easy, the learner loses interest. If on the other hand, they feel it’s too big or unachievable then the learner loses interest. It’s a very fine balance, and critically this needs to be from the learner’s perspective, not the coach.

In another instance a coach had a follow up session with a group. During the follow up the coach realised that the current condition was not clearly understood by the learners thus the real obstacle (the thing stopping them meeting the target condition) had not been identified from the learner’s perspective.

Some great comments and quotes come to mind in regard to this topic.

In conventional improvement, really, in people’s minds, the Grey Zone (between where we are now and where we need to be) is what grinds many improvement initiatives to a halt or causes ‘planning paralysis’. Planning paralysis is getting stuck in the plan and/or wasting time trying to guess and resolve things you can’t possibly foresee because of the uncertainty.

Focus us on what we MUST do, thus taking us away from what we can, could or might do.

Mark Rosenthal, a well-known lean advisor, said in a webinar in early 2022 …

“We need enough understanding of the Current Condition so you can narrow your focus rather than pulling a target out of the air.”

He immediately followed with this profound observation …

“The Challenge gives direction, the Current Condition narrows our focus, the Target Condition gives us permission not to try to fix it all at once.” When coaching my tip is coach from the learner’s perspective – from where they are right now, and focus on small, rapid steps.