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" target="_blank">Share this PageInstructionsPeople in an office develop patterns and habits in the ways that they work based on the company history of how work gets done. They respond to instructions according to these patterns. When managers want something done in a different way from company custom, they must stress the departure or bear the consequences of having the instruction ignored. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) Instruction--comes from Latin struere, which means to pile up, to arrange, to build. Reassurance should be an aspect of every instruction. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) Five parts to instructions:
(Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) Instruction: "An education; knowledge, information, etc. given or taught; any teaching; lesson; directions, orders." (Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary) Components of Instructions:
Look at what a big mistake the medical profession made when it coined the term doctor's orders. They are the first things everyone wants to disobey. We might eat and smoke less if they had called them doctor's instructions. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) Following instructions is one of the most difficult comprehension tasks encountered in daily life. (H. A. Simon & J. R. Hayes, Understanding Complex Task Instructions) Good instructions involve letting someone know that the conversation you are having with them IS instruction and not just idle chatter. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) DO YOU TAKE WATER IN YOUR COFFEE? Rumor has it that Braun manufactured a coffee maker on the back of which was the simple instruction: "DO NOT PUT IN WATER." The company started getting calls from disturbed customers who couldn't get the machine to make coffee. In talking the customers through the process, the company discovered that the customers had interpreted the instruction to mean that they shouldn't put water into the machine. In the next batch of coffee makers, Braun changed the instruction to read: "DO NOT IMMERSE THE COFFEE POT IN WATER." Shad Northshield, a seasoned instructor as the senior executive producer of CBS News, stressed the importance of the destination or objective in empowering instruction-takers. "You don't tell people to do something unless you make it clear what it is you want to achieve. That takes into account their own creative facilities. Instruction-giving should be a kind of enlightened autocracy. Let them make an investment; out of that comes great respect and affection. When I ask an editor to do something, I'm dealing with a person who is very creative. At the same time, he is a technician. My instructions work best when they understand what I want and why. Often, they don't do what I suggested. Very often they do something better, but it still fulfills a need I had." (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the yellow Brick Road) We tell kids to be more enthusiastic, work harder, be more careful. These are meaningless, vague concepts. Does enthusiastic mean you should smile more or jump up and down a lot? Does working harder mean working longer or just sweating ore during the same period of time? We also resort too often to negative abstractions, which are even more meaningless than positive abstractions. Studies have shown that very young children have trouble with negative concepts. When you tell them "Don't slam the door." They hear "Slam the door." Slam and door are familiar and well rooted in their minds; the concept of don't is not. Children understand negative messages more for intonation than meaning. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) One of the most overwhelming obstacles that defeat giving and following instructions is self-consciousness. It destroys creativity, deprives people from feeling a sense of purpose in their work, makes them fearful and inhibited, and stops the flow of ideas. If you are always worried about how you are performing a task, about how others perceive your performance, you will never perform it well. Performance requires forgetting yourself. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) What you may not realize is that the skills required to assemble your kid's bicycle and program your VCR are the same ones needed in your interactions with other people. The same reasons that you cannot figure out how to set the clock on your microwave might explain why your employees don't perform up to their capacity--you don't understand their language. So you can't understand their instructions about what kind of direction they need to perform their jobs; you can't make the best use of the information they bring to you; and you can't use fully their abilities." (Robert Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) A good manual should lead you through a machine, in much the same way a good boss leads you through work. Instead, more often, the language of the manual isn't translated into your language and you can't seem to reach what you need to know. The instructions seem contradictory and confusing; they are out of sequence; or they bog you down with intricate, elaborate instructions for every feature, but neglect to tell you the most essential information that would enable you to plug into those features. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) What most companies fail to realize is that even if all employees are adequately trained to perform tasks and operate machinery, the problems are only half-solved. The day-to-day operations will require constant communication between staff members, between staff and management. The main component of these communications is instructions. The communication of instructions is how management tells employees what to do, how it translates its vision into products and services. It is the means by which work gets done. (Richard Saul Wurman, Follow the Yellow Brick Road) Three types of Instructions...
(Richard Saul Wurman) If you love instruction, you will be well instructed. (Isocrates, Ad Doemonium) " target="_blank">Share this Page |
