The other day I heard a very valued team member begin to teach a new team member how to do their job. As good as the former team member is, I was impressed that he was even better when he was teaching someone else.
I think that is true for many people. As good as we may be, we are often better when we are teaching others about what we do. What happens when we teach that makes us better?
When we teach, we are passing on the culture of what we do everyday. Often, because we do it everyday, we take it for granted. When we are giving this culture to others, we have a renewed respect for what we do and how it is done.
When we teach, often (as we should) in addition to explaining the "what" of the task, we are explaining the "why." Why we do things is often more important than how we are doing it and even what we are actually doing. By communicating the why, we are reminding ourselves of the purpose of our work in addition to giving that purpose to the person who is being trained.
To be a successful teacher, we need to be comprehensive in our instructions; we need to be complete in our actions. When we are instructing others, we need to show them the complete set of instructions that brings the work to fruition. Often when we are just repeating a task, we tend to engage shortcuts that may contribute to work that is less than fully realized.
Certainly when we are teaching, we should be aware of and communicating the importance of the work. Often, when we have done a task solo time after time, we lose sight of the importance of the work - and that's a shame, because we are significant contributors each and every day.
In short, when we teach, we look at our work with a different set of eyes; if we were to use that extra perspective even when we aren't teaching, it would enable us to be even better and more fulfilled in what we do.
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My book "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" is available for e-readers, tablets and PCs from Amazon Kindle.
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