Frank and Lilian Gilbreth had some great "tabletop" experiments related to timestudy. One of them in particular I use to help people understand what happens when we impose change on other people.

Group your participants into pairs and distribute the following materials.

Materials required:

Lots of index cards - 10 per round per pair
Pens or pencils - 2 per pair
Stopwatches - 1 per pair
Scrap paper for charting - 1 sheet per pair

Provide the following instructions to the group:

One of you in the pair is the worker, the other is the supervisor. Here is a description of the workers job:

The "job" is to write the following phrase on an index card: "PRODUCTION ENGINEERING". When one card is complete, flip the card over, phrase down so that you cannot read it. Repeat this 9 more times so that you have completed ten cards with your writing face down in a stack. Do not focus on speed, focus on quality and consistency, go at a steady pace. This is not a race between pairs of participants.

Supervisors: your job is to chart the time it takes to complete each index card. Use your stop watch and good communication with the worker to be as accurate as possible. Please plot this on a line chart. (You may have to illustrate this on a flip chart or white board)

Each pair should have a graph of ten samples. The first couple of sample will be higher in time, then gradually declining until the times level off. Most of the times will be about the same between groups. Have the group discuss why this is the case. Get them to say this is normal and everyone got into a rhythm or pattern of behavior.

Now. For the "change".

Tell the group that someone has found a way for the workers to do half of the work! Really play this up, you will love the moans and groans and puzzled looks after you tell them what the change is!

Tell the workers that their workload has been cut in half. The only thing they must do now is write every other letter - now it is POUTO EGNEIG. Don't tell them how to spell it and make sure that the supervisors are instructed to make sure nobody cheats by looking at their index cards, people must write the phrase and then flip the card over, letters down just like before (trust me, people will cheat)

The result is eye opening, but through a simple example, managers realize that change is NOT easy. Especially when a change looks good on paper, it always as easy at it sounds. Get people to discuss HOW they felt after going through this exercise. Get them to discuss ways to make this job easier. Remind them of this exercise when change is being imposed from the boardroom and into the workplace and it isn't going according to plan.

If you want the article with all of the tabletop experiments - please contact me through my website at
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quote:

What, specifically, is the gap you're trying to address?

Just a thought - I'm beginning to wonder if always demanding that there first be a performance gap is not perpetuating our reactionary approach to training - rather than a proactive one. Is there any harm in introducing concepts and even skills before there is a gap in the first place? In anticipation of a performance gap?

It's part of ensuring that the training "solution" is actually a solution in the first place.

The fact that training is requested is the reactionary part -- if one is proactive, one has already consistently looked for the performance opportunities and performance gaps and addressed the risks before they become problems... and one can usually avoid the "throw training at it" issue.

...but then again, there is no requirement that anybody take into account the advice of many published authors on the subject...

Can I ask a question? I mean I know what a gap is...but is the word so overused now that we don't know what it means?

Because I know that most of the time, people don't really think about what this really means, and react instead - so, anytime somebody asks me to tackle something, or if they propose something as a solution...

I have to ask: what is the problem? Assuming we get to the root cause, we can ask another question: will your proposed solution solve the root cause? Often a training gap is identified as the absence or lack of training. This is not a problem in and of itself. The problem is that something isn't done in time, or within budget, or too many resources were used, or the right information wasn't provided.

So we can ask another question this way...if the training will actually address the root cause (not the symptom) how will we know?

And this is one of the most frustrating things about training, no?

Anyway, I can't stand the word gap, because it is so ambiguous. PROBLEM, now that is a word we can all rally around!

TWI Blog

quote:

Originally posted by LoveLearning:
It's part of ensuring that the training "solution" is actually a solution in the first place.

The fact that training is requested is the reactionary part -- if one is proactive, one has already consistently looked for the performance opportunities and performance gaps and addressed the risks before they become problems... and one can usually avoid the "throw training at it" issue.

...but then again, there is no requirement that anybody take into account the advice of many published authors on the subject...

You just made my point for me. Thank you!

As for the other comment - that of a requirement to take into acount the advice of many published authors on the subject - you are a wee bit naive!! Just because something is in print does not mean it is true; it does not mean it is valid necessarily, and on and on. Most authors' words are never questioned by anyone, not even the publisher - believe it or not. If you've published anything, you know that is true. Unfortunately, in the training field, since it has so many newbies trying to learn the field overnight, there is a tendency to believe whatever the flavor of the day or the decade may be.

Surely you realize that it is incumbent on us as professionals to question everything - we are all fallible huumans and are therefore prone to error - all the time. No one in this field has all the answers. And there have been a ton of theories bandied about over the years - many of them evaporating into thin air as soon as a new one comes along. I don't believe any other profession is so prone to that than WPL.