How Is Honest Abe Lincoln Relevant to the Development of the Business?

 How Is Honest Abe Lincoln Relevant to the Development of the Business?

Is it critical to get a degree? After all, we can always pick up new tricks from our coworkers or the outside experts we hire, right?


Well, in my prior role as an IT project director and consultant, I saw firsthand how busy individuals were with their own jobs to bother learning how to be consultants.

Despite extensive training programs, it remains the case.

Skills, however, lose their efficacy in the absence of consistent practice.

The process of learning from coworkers inside the same company is not without its challenges.

"Sitting next to Nellie" is a well-known method of learning that can be effective. However, this results in the replication of any ineffective practices and customs.

It is possible that these ineffective processes run counter to the company's goals.

Another scenario is when you're picking someone's brain because they're about to quit the company. Whatever the case may be. You won't receive their undivided attention when they teach you their job.

Therefore, methods can lose some of their efficacy with the passage of time.

In other words, customer service will deteriorate. Reason being, those providing service to them are clueless as to how to maximize efficiency.

Poor, ineffectual, or uncaring service is the reason over 60% of consumers quit a company, according to research.

Two Wood Cutters' Tale

The tale of two woodcutters is worth examining.

There were twins once upon a time. The two young men had become lumberjacks simultaneously; they were towering, muscular men. They competed in a logging contest side by side one year. They were all formidable opponents, yet each one ultimately prevailed. All the way to the final, where they faced off against one another.

They appeared to be on equal footing. The onlookers cheered them on as they began to saw through the wood at a rapid clip. An hour later, one of the brothers took a brief break. The "idle chopper" is a fitting word to describe him. Even though he continued pausing every hour, he quickly got back to work.

By the time the race was over, it was very clear that the restless chopper had felled far more trees than his sibling.

He was congratulated by his brother, who shook his hand and remarked, "How did you manage to cut twice as much wood as me despite stopping so frequently?"

"I wasn't really resting. I was sharpening my axe, so my cuts went deeper faster than yours with your blunt axe," the idling chopper explained with a smile.

The "smart chopper" was actually the "idle chopper" since he had listened carefully to President Lincoln's speech.

The American president said "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Training can be seen by some as an unnecessary investment in a company's future. Why? Because it's getting in the way of their employees' ability to complete their work.

Observe the woodcutters, though; the victor was the one who repeatedly paused to sharpen his axe.

That holds true for every business that invests in its employees' professional development through training programs.
Although it may temporarily halt the hectic pace, it ultimately leads to staff members becoming more productive and accomplishing more.

In order for a business to succeed, ongoing training is essential.

You can't stop developing and growing until you invest in training for yourself and your employees.

In the next decade, your company will go under the same way as 90% of others if you don't.

That's how stark the choice is.

If I were to give you my recommendation, it would be to use one of several proven methods of training.

Here are two extremely potent examples:

is a weekly workshop for the company.

c) Traditional Classes—with a Modern Twist

Allow me to break them down for you in detail so that you can start using them in your company right away.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Running a Weekly Company Workshop

1) Arrange for a staff meeting to take place once a week.

There will be an introductory and setup workshop initially.

2) The workshop is a great place for you and your clients to talk about the troubles you've had with the firm.

The task of taking action notes has been assigned to someone. That is, a simple list of tasks, along with the responsible party and a due date (always before the next meeting), for those tasks.

3) After that, you and everyone else there can decide on a priority and work out the details.

As a hint, focus on customer complaints because they will probably fix at least one internal issue as well.

4) Make sure everyone present has access to a comprehensive list of addressed issues.
Everyone who works for the company should be there, unless they're sick.

Workshops number two and upwards are known as Issue Eaters.

5) Because it is so crucial, prioritize the first item on the list that was distributed the day of the previous meeting.

6) Come up with ideas about how to fix the problem.

As an example, you may be perplexed as to why a significant amount of your consumers are returning a product to you. You have no idea why customers are sending products back.

A number of potential answers arise:

a) Call the consumers and inquire as to the reason for the return. Call the customers who have retained them and inquire as to why.

b) Include a return policy and product-specific questions in a questionnaire that you send out to all customers.

c) Have the sales team visit each client and solicit their frank opinions.

d) The MD should contact the relevant businesses to find out what's wrong.

Gather all of the responses, and then share your findings with the group next week.

7) Appoint someone to draft the proposed improved procedure or business process and have it sent out before the next meeting so everyone can review and agree on it.

8) Even if you just have 10 minutes to solve a problem, don't spend more than that in a session. You need to give your undivided attention to that matter.

9) Make sure the solution is working by reviewing it. The last step is to add it to the list of finished issues and sign it.

Keep in Mind This Useful Offshoot of the Exercise

The paperwork is for what, I wonder?

It's a corporate file that explains the current operations and procedures as well as the history of your organization, so new employees may quickly get up to speed.

Not only that. This indicates that you have combined the ideas of multiple people into a single, cohesive whole, which has the potential to greatly benefit both your consumers and your employees.

Inform me. Is it your belief that a customer-focused business will see an increase in satisfaction levels?

You might be thinking that I'm only a solopreneur or a little business.

You can also benefit from this approach.

As long as you keep track of everything, you can easily implement new procedures when you hire additional people.

Maximize Your Gains from a Typical Class

Check out the traditional classes, but with a new spin:

1) Make sure that everyone has a formal plan for their training. It makes no difference if your company is one person or three thousand people strong. Training that doesn't align with your company's objectives will be requested unless you have a plan.

2) Make a schedule for the year's worth of classes that you and your staff should take.

3) Show up to class; there's no getting out of it.

4) Now for the twist: inform your workers that they will be asked to give a brief presentation on the course during the next weekly staff meeting before they begin the course. The presentation is an overview of the course material and the six to ten takeaways that the individual will use on the work. Next, we'll have a 10-minute question period.

Reasons behind this include:

a) Sharing the course's content has helped other people.

b) The participant will learn a lot more because they'll be paying closer attention in class.

c) In a casual setting, you're teaching employees to be confident presenters.

d) Additional employees might pick up knowledge they can use on the job.

5) Verify that they deliver the speech. If you do not, you will not receive any of the advantages mentioned earlier. Regardless of how terrified someone is, they must give the presentation. Allowing them to remain seated or simply present for two or three weeks will help them overcome it. Presenting oneself is an essential requirement of attendance, therefore make sure they fulfill it.

6) Has anyone here been a student? I see. You and your employees both do this. They're picking up on your routine.

The Most Important Thing to Remember When Training?

Last but not least, there is a set of guidelines that I follow religiously during training, and they are

a) Once you leave the course, you must put your training into practice.

b) Efforts to capitalize on the training must have the full backing of you and your team.
When first implemented, it might not be particularly effective.

c) The only way to get better at something is to do it again and again, so re-train every so often. Think about all the sports that you need to practice regularly to become great, like karate, golf, football, etc. Training for the workplace is no different.

As an example, while taking a course on time management, many students absorb all of the material but put just 10% of it into practice.
When they return, they retain roughly the same information, but they only remember around 10% of what they learned.

As a result, individuals gradually implement more and more of the lessons learned until they are proficient in all aspects of time management. Have them instruct the new hires!

d) Make advantage of your trained specialists to train your own personnel once you have them.

When employees get training, does it cut into the company's profit? In the end, it increases your earnings even more than before they were trained.

Do you recall the two axemen?

Being the more intelligent pilot is your goal.


Wow, that's funny!

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