Perhaps, like me, some of you have had this experience with your children. A chore regularly isn’t completed, and when you remind your child about it, they respond by saying, “I know, I already know. You don’t have to talk with me about it again.” When this happened, I always responded by saying, “You don’t know. You only think you do. And the way I can tell is that you haven’t acted any differently; your behavior hasn’t changed.” In my experience the best way to check if learning has really occurred is to see if someone’s behavior changes: if a team has been to problem-solving training but you don’t see them using the new way, then you can be pretty sure ‘learning’ hasn’t occurred. So, if you’re a coach, don’t just rely on your coachee saying they understand, that they’ve learned: check and see how they are putting the new concept or skill into practice. If they’re not, no matter what they say, you’ll know they haven’t learned.
