“I see it at FedEx Custom Critcial and in many businesses. The top executives have studied the industry and business in general for many years. They become experts and adopt expert language to communicate with their peers. Phrases like "value proposition," "six sigma," and "shareholder value" get tossed about and are readily understood at their level. They then speak to their frontline employees and contractors using the same language, assuming that their listeners hear what they hear when the phrases are used. Communication fails because not everyone knows what the top executives know.â€
First off there are no experts or expert languages used, like I have said a lot lately if there could be, they would be billionaires. I think the big business speak is two forms, the execs I have worked with, presented to and otherwise know don’t consider themselves as experts in their field but of their company and the competition. The other form is everyone else who wants to be in that lofty position. I don’t know when you talked to Fred Smith last time, but I think he would be like others I know who pretty much let the AKI use the words you speak of.
Many of the most successful people in business are like the most successful people in science (Einstein); they can talk to all levels of people and convey a message at the level of the audience.
Big words, confusing statement – Oh just so others understand the words you used, like ‘Six Sigma’ and such are trend languages. When ‘shareholder value’ and such is used, it is financial languages. The former has to do with quality control, process improvement and other things that help the company to be efficient but to be effective it must filter down to the contractors (in our case). For those who know ‘bout TQM, TPI, BPI and the other thousands of methodologies can grasp the concepts and practices. In the case of FedEx, there seems to be too many holes to fill in order to say they follow it.
“There is no question that experienced drivers have had more learning opportunities on the road than newbies, and there is no question that experienced drivers can be better off because of it.â€
What?
Huh?
No Phil it is not that way at all – you got it backwards.
The newbie has the advantage over the experienced driver because the experienced driver more times than not can not learn from their mistakes they make or situations they are in because they have become complacent. Most of the time, the experienced driver is the one who is more likely to miss things because of their habits and does not change as often as a newbie could in order to shape their habits. I point to a discussion about in the past here on EO was locking your truck’s box and I find that newbies who get into the habit of locking the box all the time can adjust to it easier than an experienced driver.
“The challenge for those who wish to share their knowledge with less experienced people is to (1) remember what it is like to not know what you know and (2) remember that the arrogance of youth (or inexperience) will likely pass as additional knowledge is acquired.â€
In my past worked training people to prepare for the worst, the experienced people were the worst to train; their arrogance was getting in the way. They did not want to open themselves up to learning different things, they did not want to hear that what they were doing was wrong and some fought things to the point that they could no longer be useful for the company at all and were removed.
One thing that you seem to cover correctly is the training of youth but this business is not filled with 18, 21 or even 26 year old people, it is filled with middle aged people.
When you go through the Train the Trainer classes, some places that offer the better classes touch on the psychology of motivation in change, which for older people (experienced drivers) is hard to accept at times. In many cases, retraining programs have had this very same problem where the person being retrained does not understand how to think differently and/or absorb the information.
“Do not take it personally when your advice or status in life is rejected by someone that does not know any better.â€
This is the best advice I have seen in a long time.
But with all that said;
We never stop learning - but sometimes it takes a while for people to realize that they are no where near experts in any field of endeavor even with a million miles on the road or a few years expediting.
On topic? Off topic? who cares! it is all about learning.
