Practice Makes Perfect

A singer rehearses each refrain of a song before entering the recording studio. Every act of a Broadway play is done over and over before opening night. Professional basketball teams have mid-morning practice shoot-arounds on the day of a scheduled night game. Before approaching the first tee to play a round of golf, golfers, of all skill levels, try to go to the practice area to hit a few shots on the practice range and practice their putting stroke on the practice green. At a sales meeting, typically the sales manager suggests that the participants role-play the skill that has just been taught. Usually the reaction is resistance and avoidance. Entertainers relish practice, business people reject the notion. What is that about?

When we attend an entertainment event there is an expectation that the performers are completely prepared to give you the best show possible. If they come up short of that expectation, we demand a change. That is why Broadway productions fold, singers lose their popularity, professional sport stars are traded, and coaches are fired. When we are using a business service, we also have high expectations. We expect employees to be totally prepared to give us the best there is to offer. If we don’t receive that, we switch to providers that meet our expectations. Our loyalty is completely proportional to the delivered value. It seems logical that businesses would do everything possible to insure that value is delivered to every customer, every time, by every employee. It should be a foregone conclusion that every employee in an organization is completely prepared to deliver to that expectation. So why would managers in the business world not drive a culture of practice, practice, practice?

The reason that practice is not a prevalent notion in the business world is likely related to time perceptions. The prevailing belief is that employees must be on the job as soon as possible in order to have a quick investment return. Most managers believe that the only way to practice the fundamentals of the job would be to take them off the job for extended periods of training. That is not an acceptable management practice. Another belief is that managers do not have the time to coach and practice. They are too busy on other aspects of their jobs. Practice time has to be provided by training departments during training courses. The result of these perceptions is that employees must learn while they go. Their practice is done on the job. They rehearse on actual customers. Those customers do not receive the best there is to offer. The business risk is obvious. The customers who get to be the “learning labs” have a high probability of being customers who switch to the competition. Now you might be saying to yourself that the risk is minimal because this is how most businesses prepare their employees. That might be true. But think of the opportunity to differentiate a business if the employees are always prepared to deliver their best.

We believe all managers could help employees practice to be the best if they knew how to easily make it happen on the job. We know managers want to help employees get better and employees want that help. Employees want to be the best that they can be. There is a technique that is effective for making this happen. It is called situational drill and practice. It is a fundamental learning approach that is easy to do, takes minimal time, reinforces mission critical tasks, and is fun for both employees and managers. Here is how it works and any manager can do it. The manager does the following:

• Identifies an area that needs to be improved.
• Communicates to an employee what has to be improved.
• Makes a commitment to the employee that he/she is going to help the employee get better through repetitive practice situations. These situations are done during opportune lulls during business time.
• Determines a few ways to do 30 second to 2 minute sessions that address the performance gap and result in right way practicing. Example – a salesperson is struggling with handling customer objections to price. The manager walks up to a salesperson that is not working with a customer and says, “I’m a customer. I’m responding to your comments and exclaim that your pricing is outrageous. What do you say?” Then the salesperson states what his/her response would be. The manager and the salesperson then discuss if that is the best way. Then the manager asks the salesperson to do it again. The manager then communicates the expectation that the sales person does it that way any time the situation occurs on the job.
• Implements situational drill and practice any time he/she finds a time when the salesperson is free or the manager is wandering around or talking to the salesperson on the phone about something else (ideally, the manager does this form of practice two or more times during a day and as many days as it takes until “muscle memory” performance is in place). When the salesperson can respond any time, anywhere, and with quality, it is time to start doing situational drill and practice for another area.

This approach of integrating practice time into the job works. It sets up coaching moments that are individualized, customized, and fosters management by wandering around. It drives preparation to be the best. When salespeople feel prepared, they have the confidence to deliver their best performance. Situational drilling makes it easy to practice, practice, practice – deliver, deliver, deliver.