Synapsys Blog - Communicating with Novices – getting the basics across when you’re the expert

Communicating with Novices – getting the basics across when you’re the expert

Ever found yourself running training and staring at blank faces when all the time you’re thinking – “but this is simple stuff”? Maybe you’ve been inducting someone into your organization and you’ve simply forgotten to tell them a detail that is important to them but seems like just commonsense to you? It may be that what you’re experiencing is part of the inherent communication difficulties between novices and experts. When we are designing learning experiences for our organization we often turn first to our subject matter experts to provide the content and maybe even the training itself. The only problem with this approach is that experts have often forgotten what they didn’t know and have moved to a stage of performance which is enormously fluid and often difficult to explain.

Contrast this with the needs of Novices – clear rules, simple situations etc and the communication gap can sometimes be too wide to cross. Novices become confused, experts become frustrated and everyone looses out. So how can we encourage our experts, and ourselves, to provide learning experiences that are accessible to novices?
Step by step it – encourage Subject Matter Experts to break information down into workable chunks
Start with the commonplace – guide novices through the ‘normal’ tasks first to allow them to begin to develop a base of experience to learn from.
Provide constant, simple feedback – novices can find lots of complex reasons difficult to absorb so stick with the ‘one reason’ explanation.
Make sure they feel they can ask – remember novices have limited situational judgment so encourage them to seek clarification and feedback by being receptive to questions and providing ‘one reason’ answers.

These tips are based on the Dreyfus and Dreyfus Novice to Expert model of acquiring expertise. For a great summary of the 5 stage model and some coaching tips for each stage – have a look at this article www.nols.edu/store/pdf/leadershipnb_competence.pdf