Years ago, I made a move from working in the men’s wear industry, which had been my home for over 10 years, to the optical industry. In the optical business there is what is referred to as the “dispensing area”, the place where glasses are custom fitted to the customer’s face. Fitted is a nice way of saying bent, and I was terrified at the prospect of having to fit glasses. Why? Quite simply, the extent of my ability to do work with my hands stops at changing light bulbs, and I am not exaggerating. So what did I do? I spent the first few weeks on the job avoiding the dispensing counter, convinced that I would break the first frame I attempted to adjust.
Finally I decided that it was time to confront my fears and spend some time at the dispensing counter. A woman walked in the front door and headed straight toward me. I took a deep breath and said, “What can I do for you this morning?” “I need to have these glasses adjusted they’re a bit tight over the ears.” I took the glasses and glanced around, hoping I’d be saved, but there was not a single optician in sight.
I held the temple in the “bead pan” for about 10 seconds to warm it up, to make it easier to bend, then took it in my hands and gently began to apply some pressure and… SNAP! The temple of the glasses broke off in my hand. The customer asked, “What does this mean?” Well, it meant that she was going to get a new pair of glasses, but it also meant that my fear of adjusting glasses had now moved up to complete terror!
For the next three weeks I spent my time doing everything but dispensing. Finally, the General Manager, Cheryl, called me in the office to talk about the progress of my training. She said she was very pleased with my sales and management ability, but she wasn’t sure about how much progress I was making at learning to dispense glasses.
I told her about my first (and only) experience in dispensing so far. She nodded and replied with a smile, “I heard.” Then she said, “Back in the laboratory there is a box of about 100 old frames waiting to be shipped back to the manufacturer. Why don’t you take an hour or so to play with them… you’ll find that most frames don’t break as easily as you think. And,” she added, “don’t worry if you break them.”
For the rest of the day I bent and twisted and mangled every one of those frames, taking notes of what they were made of… the exact type of metal or plastic… and exactly how hard it was to break each of them. I was shocked to find out that some of them were virtually indestructible. The next day I walked in and went straight to the dispensing counter, started adjusting glasses and never looked back. As a matter of fact, in the five years I worked in the optical business I never broke another frame, which I later found out is better than average. Even the best opticians break one or two frames a year.
Which brings me to the point of this story: If the average optician breaks several frames a year, then what Cheryl allowed me to do was to get 30 years of experience in a single afternoon! And this is a very critical lesson… Experience is not gained through the passage of time… it’s gained through participation in activity. Time and experience are not one in the same. The dictionary defines experience as “something done, seen or taken part in… personal participation in an activity leading to knowledge.” Notice what word isn’t mentioned at all: time. Also, notice what words are… participation, and activity.
What I experienced with the eyeglasses was learning acceleration, or learning compression. To compress something is to “press together.” I compressed, or pressed together years and years of breaking glasses into a single day… by pulling the time out of the process. I am convinced that had Cheryl not given me the opportunity to accelerate my learning by letting me break all those frames it might have been many months, or even years, for me to gain the experience I got in a single afternoon.
The question for you is: What can you do in your environment to accelerate learning, and ultimately the performance, of your people? Discover this, and you’re on your way to amazing results!
FAILING FASTER: The Secret to Accelerating The Learning Curve - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Fenton's Website.
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Richard Fenton
(Visit Richard's Website)
Having spent his early years in fleet
sales at the nation's largest auto
dealership, Rich learned to sell, serve,
and succeed from a true master... who just
happened to be his father! But Rich's true
calling has always been speaking And with
thirty years of successful experience as a
salesperson, manager, and training
director for some America's premier
organizations including Disney, Macy's,
Hart Shaffner & Marx, and LensCrafers,
Ricahrd Fenton is uniquely qualified to
motivate people to reach increased levels
of performance. Rich has spent the last
eight years as owner of his own
speaking-training-consulting firm, and
is the author of three books, including
the highly acclaimed "Go for No!" and over
100 published articles on sales and
management performance. Rich delivers
dynamic, engaging presentations that not
only connect with audiences but provide
real-world techniques and strategies that
can be implemented immediately to achieve
breakthrough performance.
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