31 May Remove the barriers to successful skill acquisition in your business
When it comes to planning and making time in your business for you or your team to learn a new skill or to enhance an existing one, there are always barriers and pitfalls that threaten to derail the learning process.
You and your team are already busy – there is always something to do, always a deadline to meet, an email to send, a customer to call…
Your job is to eliminate the barriers that prevent the 20 hours of skill acquisition from happening.
Remember – you want this skill to be learned – you need it to be learned to ensure the future of your business, to give you a competitive advantage and to ensure your business does not get left behind.
So, what are these barriers and how do you overcome them?
Too much pre-practice effort and energy – misplaced tools, resetting a room, organising the right team members to be in the room – all these things take time and energy and can stop learning before it has even started. Make sure the room and everything in it is ready and ensure that your team have non-negotiable time in their diary.
If your team, for example, are learning a new piece of software, make sure they all have computers with the appropriate software pre-loaded and the teacher is there ahead of time with the right resources.
Patchy resource availability – faulty equipment or a shortage of resources and equipment can derail your efforts – ensure that you and your team have exactly what is needed to be able to start learning promptly at the start of the session.
Environmental distractions – in a busy working environment, this is perhaps your greatest threat – interruptions (‘have you just got a minute?’), phone calls, emails, other members of the team who are not involved in the learning – these can all dilute the focus. Choose a location that is away from the direct working environment, perhaps a meeting room on another floor, offsite or even at the learning provider’s office.
Emotional blocks – fear, doubt, reluctance, uncertainty – all natural emotions when it comes to learning something new, but all emotions that can hold back the skill acquisition process. Take the time to talk to your team, acknowledge their feelings, reassure them, make them feel safe. Be positive about the new skill and how learning this will benefit them and the business.