Competency building

When I wanted to stop the car that I was driving, it did not stop.  Then I realized that I was applying the accelerator instead of the break.

Fortunately, I had little more reaction time to correct my mistake and slowed down the vehicle. There was no accident and I was on the edge of the seat sitting with profuse sweating.

This happened more than a decade ago and let me share this personal experience of mine.

When I started my career, I worked in various plants in down south of Tamil Nadu and I was provided with company’s guest house in the quarters situated very close to the factory.  I used to go on time to the factory and mostly leave on time too.  I could walk and reach the guest house in just few minutes. This left me with plenty of time to kill. 

I wanted to spend this time (productively) that I never used to get in the Chennai city was learning how to drive a four wheeler.  After speaking to few colleagues in the office, I joined a particular Driving institute and the driving was started the next day. The instructor was a young chap and I was looking forward to sit behind the wheels and realize my childhood dream of driving a car.

The first day activities included understanding the traffic signals, brief on how to drive the car and I got to observe how others were driving. Nothing beyond that except my disappointment.

However, the next day, I got to sit behind the wheels and drive the car myself. I was very nervous, but I realized that my instructor who was sitting right next to me could also control the car since he had another set of break and clutch pedal under his disposal.  It eased off my nervousness and I got to drive about 3-4 on a daily basis for about 10 days and I could see my confidence going up and picking up my driving skill well.

However, it was in the last 3 days, unlike all these days, the instructor was not sitting next to me, but behind me and it was just me sitting in the driver’s seat and I had to drive.

This meant, the instructor was not available to correct my mistakes immediately and I needed to be careful and drive independently. Things could go wrong and if something goes wrong, it can be serious. That was probably a big risk factor. However, the instructor was confident that I lacked.

The first mistake that I made was applying the accelerator when I wanted to stop instead of the break.  Fortunately, I had more reaction time and I managed to slow down the car. There were few more mistakes but it made me to be alert, focus and learn driving effectively.  Believe me. What I have not learnt in the first 10 days, I’ve learnt in these few days.

Points to ponder 

This whole experience taught me not just driving but few management lessons that I apply even now.

# If you want to train someone, you need to put him in driver’s seat, ie., learning should take place in real time environment, of course with your (mentors / Manager) monitoring and support.  Your support needs to be reduced gradually and brought down to zero level after which you need intervene only if it’s required.

# When you are in driver’s seat, the whole paradigm about learning process shifts. You would realize that the responsibility of learning and doing things right lies with you, not with your manager. You would realize that you have to be responsible for your mistakes and the risks resulting from your mistakes. This itself would turn out to be a good motivator.

# Putting someone in the driver’s seat is the real empowerment and nothing can facilitate effective learning better than this.

# When I was in charge of training and development function during my early part of my career, I had to learning public learning and I did not have any training or no one taught me how to do it. I still remember my first few speeches that I had to deliver. It was not good or rather a mediocre delivery. I remember that I was very nervous and conscious of each and every word I spoke. However over a period of time, I found myself improving myself in a consistent manner. One of the primary reasons that I could attribute was, I had to sit in the driver’s seat right from the day-1. It is as simple as this - if you want to teach someone teaching, you need to first push them into the pool and start the rest of the training.

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