Just-in-Time Teaching: An Effective Approach to Doing Business Every Day
I am often asked the following question….”What is the most frequent concern you hear about starting and conducting a leaders as teachers program?” The two concerns or questions I hear the most from learning, development and talent management professionals and leaders are:
- Will the approach take too much time?
- How should we start?
In a formal sense, there are five broad categories that encompass dozens of ways that leaders can teach. The five categories are:
- Identifying learning needs and learning solutions/design
- Live teaching
- Teaching through the use of media and technology
- Pre and post-program teaching and coaching to drive application and learning impact
- Recruiting, training, coaching and mentoring leader-teachers
These are the five categories that I wrote about in Leaders as Teachers: Unlock the teaching Potential of Your Company’s Best and Brightest. At the Leaders as Teachers Institute, we think that these categories are as useful now as when they were first published. However, the ink was hardly dry on the pages of the book after publication when I realized an important opportunity. When we write the Leaders as Teachers Field Book of Best Practices, we must include many vivid examples of one of the most common and most powerful ways of teaching and coaching. I call this, just-in-time or just-in-the moment teaching. We have all heard of just-in-time training. This is when some type of structured training and learning opportunities are made available just before or just at the time when they are needed in order to help an individual or team to perform in a new, different or more effective manner.
Just-in-time, or just-in-the moment teaching works in a similar way, but it is even easier. Thousands of examples of this type of teaching occur in workplaces every day and when they occur, good things happen. Just-in-time or just-in-the moment teaching takes place when leaders come to work daily and think of themselves as leader-teachers, coaches, trusted advisors and mentors. Because these leaders think of themselves in this way, they are always looking for, and they find, natural teaching opportunities as they present themselves. Sometimes, these leaders deliberately create teaching moments and opportunities. Other managers and leaders who do not think of themselves as teachers, coaches, trusted advisors or mentors can be presented with these same opportunities and not even know it or pay little to no attention to the opportunity…..another teaching and learning opportunity lost!!
Here are a few examples of just-in-time or just-in-the moment teaching and learning ……
- After a meeting or presentation, regularly conduct learning debriefs or what the military calls after action reviews. Always start with what went well first and then look for areas for improvement. Then, establish commitment and accountability for identified improvements.
- Model the concept of “ethical tone at the top” by taking the “high road” and the right course of action when a lower integrity approach may have been easier. All leaders are regularly observed especially when ethical or difficult decisions need to be made. Your actions will teach volumes.
- Use business trips as teaching and learning opportunities. Few, if any, leaders have hours to spend with members of their organization when they are at the office. However, when you travel together, you may very well have such opportunities. Capture the moment and use some of this time for insightful, teaching/coaching and learning discussions.
- Grab two minutes walking down the hall to make a point or to ask great questions that helps another person to think deeply about a problem, challenge or opportunity.
- For every two or three social lunches with your team or team members, have a “learning lunch” that helps to stretch everyone’s thinking.
- After jointly participating in an activity, have a learning discussion with one or more of your direct reports asking them questions like what they would do that was similar or different than what you just experienced if they were in a similar leadership situation.
These are but a few of many examples of just-in-time teaching. Since only about 30% of professionals and leaders actively and robustly learn from experiences they have, seize the moment that you create or that occur naturally, and stoke the teaching and learning fires in your team and organization.
