DALE SYROTA

Buried in the 1940’s lean training is a brain psychology that few understand and even fewer have mastered. The trainers of the time knew what worked but few knew why. Today’s lean trainers may not be using the same methods for the sake of efficiency. Efficiency may not equal effectiveness.

Recently a group that I have worked with had a consultant come in to teach Job Instruction Training. This program works if it is taught that same way as is was in the 1940’s and if a company integrates the learning methodology into the way they learn about work. Toyota has been using this training methodology in the same fashion since 1951. Little has changed in their training. Why would arguably, the world’s best manufacturer use the same training for 63 years? Because it works!

Unfortunately, with this consultant, the training all occurred over one day rather than over a five quarter-day sessions that should have occurred. It appears to more efficient cost wise to do it over one day period but the psychology doesn’t work. Here is a tip for would be trainers. You don’t learn during the day, you learn at night, when in a sound sleep. Secondly taking in too much (packing training into one day) overwhelms the brain and learning does not occur, even with a sound sleep.

I would say that many, Job Instruction Training sessions, happen in a classroom rather than out on the floor or where the work occurs. You learn much better moving about doing hands-on learning. At least that is what has worked for the last 3.2 million years. Job Instruction Training often was done on the floor while standing up and moving about doing hands-on work. Sitting down is a time for storytelling and rehashing past histories, not for learning non practical skills for the most part. That too we have been doing for the last 3.2 million years. Classrooms came about around 1100 AD. Those 900 years has had no effect on our 3.2 million year evolutionary habits. We just don’t evolve that fast.

It is hard to blame our industrial physiologists. At the time they had no idea that teaching no more two hours a day, and using a power of three training technique (repeating things in three steps three times) is fundamental to how our brains learn. The job instruction trainers broke their learning into small chunks of information that we build upon (we call that brain technique chunking). They could only take their students (normally supervisors) away from the floor for a few hours each day. Supervision was much more hands on. Each day they added new learning chunks to the chunks of knowledge they learned the night before. This embedded learning into their fixed working memory. Each night they would go home and during deep sleep, they would automatically (subconsciously) repeat the learning that was embedded in their fixed working memory 11,000 times.

If they failed to get a good sleep and failed to lock in the learning the JIT, JMT, and JRT system had automatic review. Fixed working memory lasts up to a day and a half. Although not as effective they could still be able to learn during the next night of sleep. The people that put this style of learning together had done so with their very existence at stake. So they used what had worked in the past.

I have done a lot of work with these training methods and they worked for me. If a company was to really research how we learn and to apply that understanding to the training that Toyota uses today they would be a lot more successful in applying lean and any other training that they wish to pursue.

So, get out of the classroom, move about as you learn, understand and use chunking, stop cramming, use the Why hook (adults need to know why), and use the power of three (see, hear, do three times) and finally practice, practice, practice.

Isn't Life Grand