Training and the “Mastery Loop”
Training and the “Mastery Loop” By Pete Bottomley

Training challenge

Have you noticed that the word “training” has been watered down lately and confused with education? I see education as the first step, where we learn new ideas, and training as the second, where we practice and use what we have learned to improve our performance.

Training, in the purest sense, is a dynamic and continuing process. Through it, we can produce profound physical and psychological changes. Unlike a timed educational session, training continues as long as there’s room for improvement — that’s why I’m always training!

The “Mastery Loop” developed by Rex Sykes, an expert in the field of accelerated learning, shows the various learning phases we go through on our way to mastering a new skill:

Approach. The new idea is discovered. Example, “Acknowledging your customer is the first step to great customer service!”

Bewilderment. An effort is made to make sense of the information or concept. Examples: “Why do customers want to be acknowledged?” “Why do I want attention when I’m shopping?” “How do I act now with customers?”

Clear Understanding. The individual grasps the information and has a clear understanding of it. Example: “Customers remember how they are treated above everything else.”

This is where most training stops. The concept is mastered at that moment in time, but there’s been no change in skill level. If there’s no further reinforcement, 90 percent of everything learned evaporates, and behavior will stay the same. Completing the Mastery Loop brings learners to successively higher levels of skill development.

Complete the Loop

So if mastering the skill isn’t enough, what is? When do you stop training on a skill? You don’t. You keep repeating the skill, learning more about it, maybe even inventing a better way to address that problem. The advanced stages of the Mastery Loop teach you how to do this.

Drill. Hands-on experience that allows the learned concepts to be used. Role-play ways to acknowledge customers in the following situations: 1) you’re spacing or watering plants: “Hi! I’ll be right with you.” 2) You’re talking with a co-worker: Stop talking with co-worker immediately. 3) You’re talking with another customer: Make eye contact with other customer and smile patiently. 4) You’re on the phone: Make eye contact as soon as possible, smile, gesture that you’ll only be a minute, or ask phone caller to hold.

Enact. The daily application of what has been learned. Consistent practice of the above role-plays with actual garden center customers. Example: Every movement triggers the thought, “Does someone need my attention?”

Fuse. The concepts and skills become habit. Example: Customers seek out this person because he/she is so attentive.

Genius. The individual begins to develop new applications for the concepts learned to bring about increased results and successes. Example: The person practices remembering the names of customers, which helps cement long-term relationships.

Keep it Going

Whether you’re training for a marathon, to speak a new language, merchandise more effectively or become a genius at acknowledging customers, it’s helpful to think of real training as something that takes place all the way down at the cellular level. You have to work at your goal consistently and make lots of little changes before you start to see results. When a person starts to reap the rewards of training, a strange thing happens: he or she starts to really enjoy the training process and looks forward to it!

Here’s another way to look at it — training is the “educational maintenance” that puts new ideas into practice. Telling someone how to sell companion plants isn’t going to change their behavior. Now, just think what would happen if you asked that same person to organize a “companion plant bundle of the week” and present it to the rest of your team. WOW! It wouldn’t take long for the teacher to become the resident genius on bundling and for the rest of the crew to start understanding more about the bundling concept.

Training isn’t just about delivering educational events. It’s about each person using the new ideas learned to start their own deeply personal training program. As a trainer, your ultimate job is to act as the catalyst to spur someone to make that choice to think and train on his or her own.



Pete Bottomley

Pete Bottomley, JP Horizons' director of training for the Lawn and Garden Retailer Training Challenge, is an ASTD certified trainer and garden center consultant with 18 years of green industry experience. To learn more about the Training Challenge, or consulting services available through JP Horizons, E-mail [email protected] or call (877) 334-3600.