A while back I emailed about my son doing a pretty good job following instructions with the information he was given.
He put the toilet paper in the closet.
Here’s a picture of his recent failure to follow instructions, where the instructions were pretty clear.
I asked him to pick up his stuff from the kitchen three different times. He didn’t do it any of the three times. Every time he just migrated back to the television.
I took his stuff and put it where he wouldn’t get it back until I was ready.
This time it was NOT my poor instructions causing the problem.
I really love what Giuseppe said here about how he handles teaching people to do something new. If I would have done this with my son, the problem would have been solved the first time.
“Years ago, I developed a method with my interns (had over 40 interns work for me in my career) that has served me well.
When having them do something new, I have them follow a 1-2-4-8 pattern.
After training, I have them do the work for one hour and then review the work. Then, I have them work for two more hours and do a review of the work. Then, 4 hours and a review, then 8 hours of work and a review.
The thing I learned along the way of my career is that details would always be missing from the training and it wouldn’t be until they do the work that they see what’s missing. Each time we sit down to review the work, I find that I give fewer and fewer corrections, so I can have them go longer between each review. When we start a new project, we first schedule the review sessions so that we don’t allow too much time go by between work sessions.”
1-2-4-8.
Review.
Give it a try the next time you teach something to your OFS.
John