DURING the course of my work, I get to see and meet many interesting characters and in turn, learn valuable lessons from them. One such example was when I visited a vocational skill training centre up north, where I was invited to give a motivational talk to the teaching staff on how to manage their Gen-Z students.
I was fascinated to see some of the students' work. There was a racing car that the lecturers and students had built together and entered for a real competition. They managed to get third place, a very commendable achievement.
I then realised that these students were excellent in working with their hands. However, when it came to other academic subjects like Mathematics or languages, they struggled. It caused some lecturers to resort to the negative route, like scolding and yelling at them for not doing their work. That approach had proven to be unsuccessful.
A DIFFERENT TAKE
So during our discussion, I suggested a softer approach called "strength-based improvement", which required the lecturers to view the students as individuals with huge potential. It was clear that these students excelled in working with their hands, producing quality products like the racing car, or furniture, and artwork and many more.
Strength-based improvement is all about focusing on the work that an individual is already good at and using it as the base. What's needed is just a few more tweaks here and there to make the student a more holistic person.
For example, there was a student who was really good with in his work, but had an attitude problem, such as coming late and not submitting homework on time. My suggestion was to use a combination of praise and criticism in order to get his attention.
The lecturer should to tell him that he has the potential to achieve many great things in life, given his skills and ability. However, he may jeopardise it all if he didn't improve his attitude and time management. This approach, rather than just focusing on the negatives, is far more motivating. We could have easily killed off his enthusiasm and ability when we zero in only on his weaknesses.
REVIEW THE APPROACH
Unfortunately, we have the tendency to highlight things which are negative. But chances are, the good outweighs the bad maybe by 70 to 80 per cent. If we use the strength-based improvement plan, we'll become more attractive to the poor performers as we're playing to their strong and positive side. At the same time, we'll become easier to listen to when we stop yelling and scolding.
In conclusion, let's review our approach and ask ourselves this question: "Am I focussing on the strengths or on the weaknesses of other people?" Let's change our approach and use their existing strong character as a base.
Include minor adjustments to make them even better. Get them to improve on those weaknesses without forgetting to praise and encourage them. In doing so, we'll not only make the education approach more positive, we'd also be creating a better person tomorrow as compared with yesterday.
Zaid Mohamad coaches and trains others to bring out their best while enjoying a peaceful, purposeful life. Reach him at coach@zaidmohamad.com.