Lesson 193: Keeping It Simple

Answer: C. Understanding how people think.

This final lesson addresses the most common mistake that we can make in training people. Too often, we start with what we know instead of what our audience knows. To build a successful training program, we actually have to forget everything we know. We can then approach our subject from the same viewpoint as a beginner. We have to see ourselves as one of the crowd.

This is, of course, very difficult to do. One of the first steps is to escape from the technical nomenclature of our expertise, or, more simply, to stop using jargon.

Every area of skill develops its own terminology. These special vocabularies are filled with obscure terms and—too often these days—acronyms. For example, in the military a car is know as a POV. Why replace a three-letter word that everyone knows with a three-letter acronym that no one knows? When we are immersed in a specialty, we learn to think in its special terms. Unfortunately, those special terms often act as an obstacle to learning, a barrier to entry.

Having a special language makes us feel special. This specialized language can sound impressive to outsiders. It points to the secret knowledge that we have and that others lack. Unfortunately, it also makes it difficult to explain our ideas to other people.

To teach others, we have to learn to see our special knowledge with fresh eyes and explain it without letting the depth of our knowledge get in the way. We can find simpler terms that capture the basic premise of very complex ideas.

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