How to teach more effectively

Automotive Design & Production, March, 2004 by Ted Pollock

Among the many roles that a manager assumes with his job is that of teacher. He must show new employees how things are done in his office or plant and demonstrate new ways to older employees. He continually motivates, oversees and judges performance. He passes along company and departmental policy, answers questions and helps solve problems. Possibly, he is among the busiest teachers in the land.

Since teaching is so large a part of your job, it follows that the more proficient you are at it, the more effective a manager you will be.

Your main responsibility, remember, is to get things done through people. Adding to their skills, knowledge and self-confidence--in short, teaching them--is one major way of accomplishing that.

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Fortunately, it is easier to be a good teacher than a bad one, for teaching is a logical process, with a distinct beginning, middle and end. Many of its techniques are based on common sense. And it is efficient.

Give the Big Picture

Since it is easier for a person to learn something when he understands it than when it is meaningless to him, you can dramatically increase that understanding by offering your student a bird's-eye view of the material you will be covering before you actually begin your lesson.

If you are instructing a group of people, you might pass out a one-page outline of what you will be covering. If you are speaking to an individual, you might encapsulate in an informal way what you are about to tell him. (For example, "I'm going to show you what to do if the aluminum strip ever jams the machine.") The important thing is to help your audience see and understand, with one sweeping view, where you--and they--are going.

When you can, therefore, sketch the big picture for your people before filling in the details. Then--

Break it Down into Digestible Parts

Once you have outlined your material for your student, dissect it for him. Lead him by the hand, so to speak, through the various parts that constitute the whole. This approach offers two advantages:

1. It gives him a chance to absorb gradually what you are teaching and such learning sticks far better than knowledge that is crammed.

2. It enables you to pinpoint those areas that are unclear and giving him trouble.

One vital point: your job is to break your material down to make it more easily comprehended. This means that your units must be entities in themselves; each part by itself must make sense to the student.

If, for example, you are trying to explain a new ordering process to an employee, you might divide the subject into (a) how the old ordering process worked; (b) shortcomings of the old process; (c) how the new ordering process will work; and (d) why the new process is an improvement over the old.

Maintain a Logical Sequence

Since learning is based largely on memory, your success as a teacher depends on your ability to present your material in the most memorable fashion possible.

A logical arrangement helps you do that. By establishing connections and relationships between points, it adds meaning to them. And what makes sense is most easily remembered.

Here are three ways to impose logic on your material and make it unforgettable.

1. Start at the beginning. Many managers discourage their people from learning by plunging too deeply and too suddenly into their material. They omit a vital first step or basic idea either because it is so basic (to them!) or because they've neglected to identify it in the first place. If you really want to get your knowledge across, ask yourself, "What's the actual beginning of my lesson?" before you open your mouth. Then start with that.

2. Move from the simple to the complex. By starting with what's easy, then moving on to the more difficult, you not only make your lesson simpler to grasp; you give your student all-important confidence in his ability to master the subject.

3. Explain why. "You must always depress the pedal before extracting the mold because it opens this clamp. If you don't step on the pedal, the mold will shatter when you remove it." "Make sure your memo has been signed off by both Jones and McGuire before you send it out. If they both don't okay it and there is some sort of problem with it after it circulates, there could be significant legal repercussions." "Take two salt pills during the heat cycle. They'll prevent heat exhaustion due to excess perspiration." Give reasons why what you are saying is so, show the connection between facts or ideas, and your student will remember what you have told him--because he understands it.

Accentuate the Positive

The human brain is a delicate--and tricky--mechanism. It doesn't always listen the way we'd like it to. And it is far from infallible. Tell it not to do something and, in the process of transmitting the prohibition to the rest of your body, it may activate the very muscles that ought to be relaxed.

Anyone who uses a computer keyboard is familiar with this kind of mental short circuit. Type a word incorrectly and, as you are deleting it, you will think, "I mustn't repeat that error." No sooner do your fingers begin to move again than--lo and behold!--you repeat the error in Five cases out of ten.