Wouldn’t it be great if you could tell people what you wanted them to do and they would just do it? How many times have you been frustrated because you told an employee (or your kid) what you needed them to do and they didn’t do it?

Giving information is different from teaching a new skill or a new behavior. An example of teaching a new skill or behavior is teaching a student time management so she can get to work or school on time or for a kid a new behavior could be learning to clean his room every week. An example of giving information is telling a new employee where the break room is located.

When you are asking a new employee or a student to learn a new behavior we have found that telling is not effective. You can’t just tell them and expect results. We have talked to so many human resource professionals and bosses who tell us: “We spend an hour (and sometimes only 5 minutes!) telling our new employees exactly what we expect of them. We give them an Employee Handbook. They don’t listen. What can we do?”

Remember back to the first time you told your child to clean his room? When you came back to check his progress you may have found that he moved a few toys around, but the room definitely did not match your idea of clean. Your child was not being difficult; he did not understand how to clean his room or what you expected of him. “Clean your room” was not a meaningful instruction.

So, you realized that you had to take it one step at a time – over several days or weeks. First you explained that he needed to put away all the toys. The first time through you needed to put the toys away together – so he would know where to put each toy. You probably found it helpful to explain why he needed to put the toys away: “Put your toys away so they don’t get stepped on and broken. You will be able to find your toys when you want to play with them.” Next you told him about putting away the shoes, then putting all the dirty clothes in the basket and hanging up the clean clothes. Finally you showed him how to make his bed. To help your child stay motivated you used a reward plan – a gold star for each task. Your child’s room was clean, he understood some reasons for each behavior and what it means to have a clean room. Your child learned a new set of behaviors.

When you grow this idea up to adults or young adults training you still need to have a list of the topics you want to cover, ways to make the material relevant to your students, ways to engage the interest of your students, examples of the new behaviors and exercises so your students can practice the new behaviors. When you make a behavior relevant to a employee or student you are helping him understand: “what’s in it for me.”

Learning work ethics is a lot like learning to clean your room. If a student has not been exposed to a strong work ethic in her home then she just doesn’t know what is expected in the work place. Perhaps she learned a different set of values and behaviors growing up. Mom and Dad were caught in the revolving door of entry level jobs and they were just barely able to keep the family afloat. When teaching a new behavior like work ethics the training process must also overcome bad habits learned in the past. You may need to overcome many years of bad habits.

You may be feeling discouraged about our young adults entering the work force. You may be asking: “Where can we get quality workers?” Those bad habits were learned and our youth can learn new habits. It is easier than you think. Focus on the end goal; make the training interesting, engaging and relevant; reinforce (reward) desired behaviors and provide ways for your students to practice the new behaviors.