People often learn things in one order but encounter them in another order. This is called knowledge-inversion. For example, medical students learn about a bodily function, then about ailments in that function, and then about the symptoms associated with those ailments. However, when they meet with patients they encounter this information in the reverse order. The patient starts talking about symptoms. The doctor must then try to associate a given ailment or disease.
In short, in school, the information flow is "Given ailment X, you'll see symptoms, A, B, C." In practice, the flow is "Given symptoms A, B, C.… the patient might be suffering from ailment X." On paper, this seems like a minor difference. In real life, it can result in enormous complications.
This knowledge inversion challenge appears time and again in professional settings. Many occupations call for a similar diagnostic process. For instance what customer service reps, or car mechanics, or consultants, or technical support professionals do is similar to the doctor's diagnosis exercise. They listen to customers present issues (symptoms) and try to ascertain the source problem (ailments). (And then, ideally, prescribe a solution.)
The medical profession has overcome this challenge through variations of experiential learning, in particular through the use of the case-study. A case-study captures a representative scenario, in which learners wade through noise in order to identify, extract, and analyze the meaningful points of information. The process can be messy, inexact, and tainted by biases, and the resulting conclusions are often subject to fierce debate. Which is perfect -- because so goes life. Think about how often patients receive drastically different feedback when they seek second opinions.
As workplace encounters become more complex and employee development time more precious, organization professionals will need to work in variations of case-study training and other aspects of experiential learning. Here, we can draw an instructive parallel from medical communications training.
Medical physician has been a profession for thousands of years, as far back as documented history takes us. And medicine has been a formal study for centuries. Yet, it's only in recent decades that educators zoomed in on the medical interview --the initial discussions between patient and doctor--as a target of formal communications training. As the medical field became increasingly complex, they found that this brief encounter became increasingly more critical. Obviously, an incorrect or missed diagnosis can be a problem, but, there's more at stake. This encounter also serves to frame the doctor-patient relationship, helps assure the patient of competence, and even determines whether the patient will adhere to the ultimate recommendations.
That brief discussion--usually no more than 2-3 minutes, sometimes as quick as 30-45 seconds--drives the patients' health outcomes and shapes the reputation of the doctor and the institution. Do it well, and things go well. Miss a step…. and the physician's years of study and the institution's vast technological, pharmaceutical, and other applied resources are rendered useless. As the saying goes, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
An advantage the medical field has is that by now this communications training process has matured. Specifically, the knowledge-base is well-documented and systematically reviewed, analyzed, and updated. In contrast, in most work-place domains, we're in virgin territory. Very little is encoded. On average, an established firm will codify 10-20% of the facts and heuristics used in everyday business. And that's being generous. The only reason it's even that high is because of rapid technology adoption in recent years. Firms have been forced to document more knowledge in the process of implementing new systems.
The knowledge exists of course. And firms do send out employees to handle tricky encounters every day. Yet while this knowledge exists at the institutional level, that doesn't mean it's captured and circulated. That is the info exists in the minds of executives and seasoned staff, but is rarely documented and converted to training tools.
Training professionals will have to help overcome this problem. As business solutions become richer, more complex, and more infused with technology, the human interaction--the interface between the firm's solution and the customer--invariably becomes more pivotal. In order to work with and understand and improve and analyze these encounters we have to have the home-spun wisdom captured. Importantly, if we want to leverage technology, we have to capture and act on this information.
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