I appreciated Norm’s post discussing “three things employers can do to help their employees use critical thinking in their position” (Beange, 2018).

The idea of transferring process from managers to employees to facilitate critical thinking struck me as immediately transferable in my context. I am currently training one of my staff to take my job. I have been the leader of my department for the past four and a half years and so I have been the creator of many of the processes within the department. As I am training my replacement I can become fixated on teaching her the processes I have developed and ensuring she is doing them to my standards. Many of these processes work for my personality but do not necessarily work for her. Norm articulated so clearly that “the only way for companies to thrive is to get employees to think and not just follow procedure” (Beange, 2018). As I read that I was challenged that I may need to rethink how I am training my replacement. While she needs to understand the goal, she does not necessarily need to follow the exact same processes.

Norm do you (or anyone else reading) have advice for me about how to train my replacement well, but allow her the freedom to own the process?

References:

Beange, N. (2018, October 11). [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/norm/2018/10/11/73/