Karate Kid: Vol III

7: The number of completion

Garrett, Assistant Manager for one of the west's fastest growing tire retail and service organizations told Session 9B of Leadership Development Lab:

"Mondays are a gamble. Some so busy, that when I reach the end of the day there is still loads to be done. This past Monday was a nice steady pace.

"I felt like I could squeeze in some training with my 'pearl' Brad. I went out into the shop, strolled up to Brad with a smile on my face, and asked if he would be my guinea pig. I told him I felt I hadn't trained him correctly before. With a slight look of confusion on his face he agreed, and we made our way back to the front counter.

"I shuffled through the stack of invoices tucked away under my computer's keyboard, to find 3 invoices that were alike. Once I had the invoices ready, I explained that we were going to use the 3-Step training process I had learned at Turbo's Leadership class. So, first I would process the invoice as I talked him through what I was doing. Then he would process the next invoice as I talked him through it. Last, he would process the third invoice as he talked me through it.

"Starting in on the first invoice, I walked Brad through the screens to get to where we process invoices. As I was getting ready to start entering information, the phone rang, and I had to pause the training. Meanwhile, instead of waiting on me, Brad returns to the shop to work on another project. Once finished with the call, I retrieve Brad and we start over on the training process, once again we were interrupted by the phone. Same thing as before, I finish the call and then dragged Brad back up front with me. For a third time, the training was once again halted by the phone.

"Now, we hadn't just made three attempts at this training, oh no, we gave it a determined seventh attempt before we threw in the towel. I told Brad if he was willing to stay a few minutes after when we had less distractions, I would love to finish training him.

"He agreed, and as soon as we closed, we made it through the three-step training process with ease. Energized and excited, I asked Brad how he felt about this training structure. He said it was more effective than my previous attempts and asked if I could continue teaching him this way.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is if I set aside my determination to do things my way and use a structured technique with a proven track record, I will have more consistent, positive results.

"The action I call you to take is don't be afraid or too proud to try new strategies and techniques to grow your employees, friends and family.

"The benefit you will gain is a positive, predictable result and accelerate the growth of those around you."