MentorFactor

70-20-10 Training

One of the questions that came out of my presentation on Flow-based Leadership to the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication was about training. I was asked about the 70-20-10 framework of training, which many corporations have adopted. The framework breaks down training 10% Formal Training/Education, 20% Social Training (with a coach or mentor), and 70% Experiential/Experience. Corporate America has used this as an excuse to NOT train people, assuming that people can learn on their own. Hence, spending millions on systems, but not paying for the training. People then jerry-rig the systems to get their jobs done. As a result, data is compromised and reports are skewed, which, ultimately, impacts decision making.

The fire service uses this model, too. However, the 70% is actually experiential training. Captain Todd Freeman, Cobb County FD, was sitting in on my presentation. I asked him what he and his crew had been doing all day. He reported that they were were in training doing something he had been doing on the job for 27 years--learning how to vent. They were on top of a building with chain saws cutting holes in the roof--over and over. They destroyed dozens of pieces of plywood over the course of the day. They were getting better and better at this task, so that when the time came to actually vent a roof in a fire, they would be able to execute safely, effectively, and efficiently.

Experiential training should be deliberate, targeted, and planned. It involves focus and guidance by an expert instructor. In the Corporate world, we would probably refer to it as a lab, where we get instruction and a specific set of monitored and measured tasks to perform. What happens now is that the bean counters assume this type of training is part of the 10%. Providing a system or tool with no training and telling people to go figure it out is NOT the same thing as experiential training.

Strategic Planning for Your Life

On January 1, I sat down, as I do every six months (on the first day of the year and on my birthday, July 1) and worked through my process I call "Strategic Planning for Your Life." I have been teaching this process to my coaching clients and mentees for 27 years. Many have told me that I need to build an app to support the process. I have resisted for a variety of reasons, but it occurred to me, as I worked through the process again, that, indeed, the process does lend itself to app-dom. 

This past week I met with a friend of mine who does app development about the possibilities. He asked me if I was familiar with "Designing Your Life" by a couple of Stanford professors. I wasn't. So, yesterday, since I was iced-in in Atlanta, I watched a few of their videos. Their process is almost identical to mine! And, I have been giving this away for all these years! Dang! I went to bed early last night feeling defeated.

I'm still wondering if I should build an app. To those of you who have been through my workshops: Do you think an app would be useful? Do I dare try to compete with a couple of Stanford professors, who have only been doing this for seven years? 

I hope that all your dreams and schemes come true in 2017!

Much Love.

The Compassion of Firefighters

The extraordinary compassion of firefighters was demonstrated and came into my conscious through divine intervention yesterday.

As I was walking back from UPENN on Chestnut St. in Philadelphia, one block over--on Market St.--a 4-story building undergoing demolition collapsed, pulling down with it the two adjacent buildings, injuring 13 people and crushing a young woman to death. Throughout the day 125 firefighters combed through the rubble searching for potential victims. I could see the many fire apparatus and ambulances from the building I was working in on Market St. I really wanted to go back and watch the firefighters work, but I didn't want to add to the chaos, so I chose to watch social media feeds instead.

Later, last evening, I was in Di Bruno's on Chestnut getting my dinner, when a man, who was paying for his food, told the checkout clerk that he knew the young woman who was killed in the collapse. He said that he was amazed at how the firefighters stayed in constant contact with the woman's family. He was so grateful to them for their compassion and professionalism.

When these stories float into my consciousness this way, I take it as the Universe gently telling me that I am on the right path in pushing the fire service story out into the world. What a wonderful world it would be if we all lived our lives with the same sense of service and compassion.

Ways of Knowing

Last week (November 6-11, 2011), I attended the Georgia Smoke Divers (GSD) training in Dalton, GA. My head is a jumble of concepts, experiences, connections. I need to get my thinking out of my head and organized. (There is a book in there somewhere!) I begin the effort by relating a very intense, personal experience that added a dimension to my own knowledge base beyond my wildest dreaming.

On Monday (Day 2) when Smoke Diver candidates were learning in environments that were relatively safe, Smoke Daddy David Rhodes (GSD Incident Commander--a.k.a. Rhoadie) asked me if I wanted to go into the burn building. I immediately said, "No!" But I began to think about it. How could I possibly have any way of REALLY knowing what firefighters contend with in their decision making without experiencing the environment in which they operate? I knew that this would probably be the safest day to attempt something like this and that Rhoadie wouldn't have offered if he thought I'd be in danger, so I changed my mind.

Within a matter of minutes, the word was out that I was going to go into the burn building. The guys found a suit that would fit me. One of the firefighters, Captain Charlie Long, Johns Creek GA Fire Department, offered to take me through the building. Various instructors helped me don the gear (which weighed about 60 pounds) and show me how the breathing apparatus worked. The suit was huge and bulky; the boots were about four sizes too big; I could hardly walk. Charlie got in my face and told me that if I removed the mask while we were in the building, I WOULD DIE! He handed me a thermal imaging camera and we entered the burn building.

The building was so smokey and dark, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Immediately, I realized these guys work with limited senses: they are blind; the gloves they wear limit the sense of touch; the mask prevents the senses of taste and smell; the sounds in an incident often obscure or distort sounds with meaning. The experience is absolutely disorienting and frightening. I hung onto Charlie for dear life. Within a minute, I said to Charlie, "OK. I'm ready to leave." But Charlie told me to scan the room with my thermal imaging camera. He said, "What do you see?" I realized I could "see" with the camera. Although, at one point, I realized the person I was seeing was actually my own reflection in a mirror.

After a scan of the room, I once again said, "OK. Let's go." Charlie said, "Oh, but you have to see the burn room." We inched our way down the hall and into the room with the fire. Charlie told me to point the camera at the ceiling. The camera told me the temperature on the ceiling of the burn room was 650 degrees. At the mid-point of the room, where our heads were, it was about 300 degrees. I was beginning to feel my internal temperature rise. I said, "OK, Charlie, time to go." Charlie said, "We can't go back the way we came. Another team has come in behind us. We have to go down the steps to go out." DOWN THE STEPS???!!!! I fought hard to keep calm. For two days, I had been listening to the instructors work with the candidates on regulating their breathing. I consciously began to breathe very slowly and deeply. This help to calm me. We moved slowly to the top of the steps. Charlie put me in front of him. I had to find the top of the steps by feeling my way. It took an eternity to get to the next floor, but I made it unscathed.

There are multiple levels to this experience. Taking it at face value, the experience was one to cross off my bucket list. At a deeper level, I realized that I was making decisions moment by moment to stay calm, to breathe, to keep moving forward even when I don't know what is in front of me. But the ultimate lesson came from Charlie Long. By keeping me focused outward, Charlie kept me from turning into myself. When we turn inward, we become closed systems. Closed systems implode on themselves. Having someone to help keep us focused outward is invaluable, but we need to be situationally aware in those moments when we are alone to motivate ourselves to be outwardly focused.