Home improvement is not my forte. This weekend, I moved into a new house, and I wanted to try some little projects - assemble some particle board furniture, maybe hang a shelf or two. It was simple stuff that felt inspiringly doable.
I called my friend Becky and asked if I could borrow some tools.
"What do you need?" Becky asked.
I ran through my mental toolbox, which is very small.
"A screwdriver and a hammer," I responded. Familiar, easy to hold, easy to picture.
"If you're hanging stuff, you might want a cordless drill, a level, a tape measure, and..."
I stopped her. "No. Please, no."
Some people approach technology the way I approach home improvement - cautiously, fearfully, and eagerly reaching for the one or two tools that we can comfortably hold. It's not that we aren't smart or capable of using additional tools - but we're not quite ready for that learning period, that time of tension when the tool feels foreign and awkward. I know exactly how much damage I can cause with a screwdriver; a cordless drill in my unaccustomed hands might unleash an unstoppable (and portable!) torrent of destruction.
New and additional tools also make it more difficult to blame our shortfalls on a lack of proper tools. For example, I knew that if I borrowed Becky's level, I would have no excuse when my shelves were hung at an unfortunate angle. The blame would rest solely on my shoulders, because I had a level and either chose not to use it or (perhaps worse) used it improperly. In a world with no level, I could shrug off the crooked shelf and say I did the best I could, with the limited tools I had. Likewise, an employee without access to a good content management system can easily blame the lack of tools for the disorganized mess of files on his or her desktop.
So, how do we move past this mental model? How do we present an array of tools to our users and have them deftly and confidently select the right one, do the task at hand, and excitedly check out the shiny new tools we're working on?
* Teach people about their tools. Make sure the learning is customizable and reaches the audience at the appropriate level. A prolific social media user will not need a primer on the differences between Twitter and FaceBook. A newbie might need an explanation, a demo, a hands-on experience, and a cheat sheet for quick reference.
* Make expectations abundantly clear. If you want people to use e-mail for certain types of conversations, instant message for others, and make phone calls for other situations - explicitly say so. Offer usage guidelines and concrete examples. Don't expect everyone to walk in with a finely honed sense of netiquette.
* Give feedback. You tried teaching, but some people just didn't get it. Maybe they send giant, texty e-mail missives without a single paragraph break. Perhaps they use the reply-all feature when it's just not appropriate. Or maybe their writing is so rife with acronyms that it reads like a 13-year-old's text message. If you have the skill and eye to identify these faux-pas, embrace it. Pass on the gift in the form of constructive, timely feedback directly to the person who made the error. If you had spinach in your teeth, wouldn't you hope somebody would tell you? Extend this courtesy to your colleagues.
* Make it safe to fail. Take it a step further and embrace failures. Learn from them. Celebrate them. Praise people for their contributions to the organization's learning. This is good advice all around, but it's especially important when people are trying out new tools and getting past the discomfort of holding something new and unwieldy in their hands.
Now if someone could convince my landlord of that last one, I'd like to get my hands on a power drill.
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