Rethinking Worker Training
Continuously improving standars, building teams are the challenges

Dr. W. Edwards Deming argued, perhaps a half century ago, “Training must be totally reconstructed.” Deming maintained that the biggest problem in training and supervision in the U.S. was variable standards. He thought managers too often manipulated standards in order to produce a certain quota of production within a given time period. This activity always resulted in poor quality. He further argued that this kind of behavior amounted to not knowing what was acceptable work and what was not. Deming thought the only proper approach was to “institute modern methods of training on the job.” There are at least three aspects to Deming’s hypothesis. We will look at all three aspects.

What are standards?
Years before Deming, Henry Ford stated a similar position. Ford believed it was important to understand what are standards. He outlined his definition in his book, Today and Tomorrow, published in 1926.

Standards, according to Ford, result from choosing from the many methods to do a thing and using them. He said standards mean very little unless they are used as a baseline for continuous improvement. “Standardization means nothing unless it means standardizing upward,” he wrote.

Ford asked, “What is the best way to do a thing?” He answered his own question by saying it was the sum of all the best ways that have been discovered up to the present. He wrote that “to decide that today’s standards shall be tomorrow’s is to exceed our power and authority.” Ford was the first man in America who first had the idea of continuous industrial improvement. Ford said it best: “If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow, you get somewhere.”

Modern methods of training
The way we think about training and what Dr. Deming had in mind are not the same. Deming had in mind the training of a team member on the job by a trainer. He saw this being the responsibility of management. The shop floor supervisors should know the most about how to do a thing. Therefore, they should be better utilized as teachers. We often have the notion that training means sending a team member to a class somewhere out of the work area. This practice is well-known to be the most inefficient training setting. Could you imagine medical doctors being trained like this?

I will take Ford’s method of argument by asking a question, “What are the minimum skills needed by a supervisor to begin a training assignment? First, most people who occupy jobs are adults. This suggests that trainers needs to know something about how adults learn. The following are five well-known adult learning principles.

It is about the theory of Andragogy as presented by Malcolm Knowles.

1. Need to know: Adults must be led to understand why they need to know something before they will put forth energy to learn. Training on the job is a direct communication about “need to know” between the supervisor and the learner.

2. The learner’s self-concept: Adults have developed a self-concept of being capable of making their own decisions. The adult has a strong need to see others and treat others as capable of self-direction. The adult, if given an opportunity, is capable in most cases of identifying methods for improving a standard.

3. The role of the learners’ experience: Adults come into a work setting with a wealth of experience they want to utilize and share. This means trainers must help adults tap into their experiences.

4. Readiness to learn: Adults are ready to learn those things they need to know in order to be able to cope with real-life situations. Training on the job is a real-life situation.

5. Orientation to learn: Adults are motivated to devote energy to learn something they perceive will help them perform a task or deal with a problem that they confront in real-life situations.

The role of a team member
When we use the word “learner” we immediately get an image of a classroom setting. The name “team member” suggests, on the other hand, someone who is part of a team. There are many psychological benefits involved in this name. This is precisely why Toyota Motor Manufacturing and other Japanese industries use the words “team member.”

There is another very salient, but often mis-understood, reason for teaching on the job. A large percentage of those people who staff manufacturing and who perform tasks with their hands, are sensing learners. They learn best by touching and seeing modes.

Training on the job summary
Deming believed it was essential that his own country’s managers begin to see themselves in a different light, as educators, trainers and leaders.

Managers must begin to think in terms of training on the job as a primary responsibility. The team member best identifies with those activities that allow them to use their skills and abilities to improve their own self-concepts.

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