Part of the training process is explaining what not to do. If you say, “Don’t do X,” people may tune it out. But if you say, “John did X and then the furnace blew up!”—well, people tend to remember that.
It’s easy to come up with stories that give positive examples, but sometimes a negative example can be an even more effective training tool. It can be a tricky proposition, though: Do you want to risk embarrassing your employee who made the mistake? Here are some tips for how to use negative stories in training without shaming a valued team member.
1. Consider Your Purpose
If your goal is just to share a funny or interesting story, it’s not really a training tool: It’s just gossip. If you don’t have a specific training objective in mind, telling a story that could potentially embarrass a good employee isn’t worth it.
To keep reading, click here: Stories Are Great Training Tools—If You Don’t Embarrass Someone
We have a literal poster child for ladder safety. A fellow employee ended up badly injured after falling off the bottom rung of a ladder doing some work in his home, and nearly died. The photos his wife took in the emergency room were quite effective.
Sharing those photos was his idea, and it was pretty much done by the numbers you list.
When I worked at a coffee shop, at least 3 different people told me the cautionary tale of the employee who put a croissant in the toaster, which then caught on fire. I don’t know how she felt about that being told, but I sure as heck never put a croissant in the toaster!