Show Me
"Tell me and I'll forget;
show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand."
This is an old Chinese Proverb and I think it's interesting it can apply to so many aspects of our lives. The first thing it makes me think of is raising children but then I realized it also applies to my work, to relationships and interacting with people, all the way down to the little things in life like training my dog or using a new computer program. How many things have I been told that I have forgotten? Countless. How many times has someone shown me how to do something and made me remember? A little more. When someone has helped me along but made me do it for myself, I learned and probably still use those skills today.
I have a silly example that happens at work every day. I work part time in a wireless phone store and we have a payment machine that takes cash and check payments for the customers phone bill. It is an advanced machine with a touch screen and it walks the customer through the transaction step by step in about 30 seconds. To me it is the easiest thing in the world. When a customer comes in and we direct them to the machine and tell them to touch the screen and follow the instructions most times they stand there, dumbfounded, staring like it may be a UFO, or it might explode, or maybe they think it's in Chinese, but they act terrified of the machine. I wonder how the banks got people to use ATM machines.
So I started walking the customer over to the machine and I would input the info for them while explaining what I was doing as they watched. It took a few seconds and they were happy but then I realized that those same customers would return the next month and if we direct them to the machine they repeat the same terrified reaction and inability to understand what to do and I would step in and input the info for them. After seeing this reaction for a few months I realized that I need to walk them over and tell them step by step what to do while they actually touch the screen to make their own selections. With this method the majority of them can new walk up to the machine with confidence the very next month.
I realize this is an unusual and silly little example but it illustrates what I'm saying about the proverb being applicable in almost every example of my life. Have you ever told someone how you made that delicious dessert, only to have them call and say it didn't turn out anything like the one you made?
This is an old Chinese Proverb and I think it's interesting it can apply to so many aspects of our lives. The first thing it makes me think of is raising children but then I realized it also applies to my work, to relationships and interacting with people, all the way down to the little things in life like training my dog or using a new computer program. How many things have I been told that I have forgotten? Countless. How many times has someone shown me how to do something and made me remember? A little more. When someone has helped me along but made me do it for myself, I learned and probably still use those skills today.
I have a silly example that happens at work every day. I work part time in a wireless phone store and we have a payment machine that takes cash and check payments for the customers phone bill. It is an advanced machine with a touch screen and it walks the customer through the transaction step by step in about 30 seconds. To me it is the easiest thing in the world. When a customer comes in and we direct them to the machine and tell them to touch the screen and follow the instructions most times they stand there, dumbfounded, staring like it may be a UFO, or it might explode, or maybe they think it's in Chinese, but they act terrified of the machine. I wonder how the banks got people to use ATM machines.
So I started walking the customer over to the machine and I would input the info for them while explaining what I was doing as they watched. It took a few seconds and they were happy but then I realized that those same customers would return the next month and if we direct them to the machine they repeat the same terrified reaction and inability to understand what to do and I would step in and input the info for them. After seeing this reaction for a few months I realized that I need to walk them over and tell them step by step what to do while they actually touch the screen to make their own selections. With this method the majority of them can new walk up to the machine with confidence the very next month.
I realize this is an unusual and silly little example but it illustrates what I'm saying about the proverb being applicable in almost every example of my life. Have you ever told someone how you made that delicious dessert, only to have them call and say it didn't turn out anything like the one you made?
posted by Magickal @ 1:08 PM
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