57 - Learning from Others

Are you part of a team at work?  How does your team work together?

Self-efficacy is a special kind of confidence we have about our ability to do particular tasks or
jobs.

People with high self-efficacy often improve their own workspace, try new things, and persist
through failure.

There are several deliberate things we can do ourselves and as leaders to build self-efficacy at work.  Yesterday, I spoke briefly about Mastery and how doing a job gets better with practice and that boosts self-efficacy.  Not exactly rocket science.  Leadership, though, can be the catalyst for getting that mastery process started.

But mastery is just one piece of the puzzle.  Another thing that helps is our ability to learn by watching other people.  This vicarious learning occurs throughout our lives, but an effective leader will design work that allows several people to work together and be able to actually see each other working.  As they work and discuss things, people will notice that they each do a job in a particular way.  Even when everyone is following the standardized work, there are still individual differences and knack points that certain people bring to the task that make it easier or quicker.

We have to see these differences ourselves, because the nature of expertise usually means the expert can't really explain what they do differently.  As we watch, we learn vicariously.  That gives us an opportunity to try what we've seen and then to make it better.

Bottom line:  put people on small teams and encourage them to experiment with different techniques to use while following the standardized work.

Join me at noon for a Lean Coffee discussion, and join me tomorrow for a webinar on Navigating Changing environments.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.