The title for this paper came during a lunch meeting with the Director of Training and Development for a very large construction company. He was talking about making a training program specifically for reducing human error in the construction industry. What he said was, "You have unlocked the code to human error—at least for industry—but if no one in construction can relate to it, then it's not doing any of these folks any good."
I agreed, and we decided to produce a different lesson plan and learning design to teach these concepts—more easily—in a construction environment.
After he got me to commit to going forward with his idea, he paused and looked at me. Then he leaned forward and in a low, confidential tone of voice he asked me, "How'd you do it? How did you figure this out? I've been in safety, training and business development for over 30 years, and I've never seen anything like it… and I mean (pause), it's not like you're a scientist or anything… so how did you do it?"
Well," I said, "it's really pretty easy to explain if you use terms that most people don't really understand all that well. It's also pretty quick too."
"The real version takes a bit longer."
He looked at his watch. "Ok, let's try the short version," he said.
