Are you teaching your people to land before you expect them to jump?

Imagine this…

… you’ve volunteered to do a parachute jump. It’s for charity, so it’s all in a good cause.

You turn up on the day, terrified but rationalising that many people do this, it will be fine.

You get a short briefing, watch a safety video and a quick demonstration of how to land, then one of the instructors throws you your chute and says, off you go, get on the plane!

What are you thinking?

Besides the colourful language in your head (or maybe you’re even saying things out loud!) I imagine you’re probably thinking, “is that it? Where’s my training? What if my chute doesn’t open? How do I land when…? Where’s my practice jump? I wanted to have a go at jumping from a reasonable height to test my technique!”;

Undoubtedly you will have loads more questions, and probably a whole host of other thoughts too!

Let’s face it, we only know, and I mean really know, that our people can do what we’ve trained them for when they choose to do the right thing in that moment of truth.

Take the customer service agent that sticks to the rules when the customer just wants that bit of empathy and flexibility.

Take the team member who knows a colleague is stretching the boundaries of acceptability, and they know in their heart of hearts they should say something but choose not to, for fear of repercussion.

Take the new starter who has been trained but still lacks the confidence to take the step and do what is required, only to pause and do nothing for fear of failure.

Brené Brown, author of Dare to Lead, asks how can you expect your people to jump if you don’t teach them how to land first?

On reading this, I realised that this is precisely where ‘What Would You Do?’ fits into someone’s development journey; it creates a safe space where peers can learn to jump and land in a safe space. First, they get to test their theories and assumptions, surface issues and unhelpful thoughts with their colleagues. Then, through sharing experiences, they work together to create a shared pool of meaning and understanding, which prepares them for the ‘jump’ when…