As a veterinary practice owner or manager, you will likely have to train your staff on multiple occasions regarding a multitude of tasks. Dr.Annika VanNoy, IGNITE’s Learning and Development pro, suggests familiarizing yourself with these three laws of learning before you begin.

Following these three laws will optimize your training, making the most of the time you dedicate to training your team.

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The Law of Readiness

The Law of Readiness refers to the readiness of your audience. To foster readiness, you must provide clear objectives to the learners. It’s easier for adults to focus and listen if they know the end goal. If you successfully and clearly deliver the objectives, you will set the stage for you team to receive the information you are about to teach.

BostonUniversity states: “A clear learning objective states what the learner will be able to do upon completion of a continuing medical education activity, in terms of behavioral change. A clear objective identifies the terminal behavior or desired outcome of the educational offering.”Click here to access the full worksheet on how to write clear learning objectives.

HTTP://WWW.BU.EDU/CME/FORMS/RSS_FORMS/TIPS_FOR_WRITING_OBJECTIVES.PDF

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The Law of Effect

The Law of Effect speaks to emotion. If you can connect a positive emotion to the task or information you are about to impart, you will gain the buy-in of the learner.

“Accessing you learners’ emotions may sound like a tricky endeavor but, rest assured, it is really quite simple,” says Dr. VanNoy. “Chances are, you have identified the need for training because your current process is not working or you don’t even have a process in place. Either way, there is likely some existing frustration.”

Dr. VanNoy suggests having your learners verbalize their emotions around these frustrations. “If you can create emotional buy-in by outlining how this new training will create a better process, you will be able to associate positive emotions with the new process,”says Dr. VanNoy. Your team is more likely to remember and attempt a new process or procedure, if they are excited and pleased about it.

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The Law of Exercise

Practice makes perfect. The Law of Exercise is all about repetition. It takes six weeks for a new method to become a habit. To encourage repetition, try mini-training sessions every other week, teaching the same process, answering any new questions that have risen, and assuring everyone is still bought-in.

Pairing repetition with accountability is certainly a recipe for success. Check in with your team, ask questions like: How is this new process working? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it? What kind of feedback do you have to improve this process? Partnering with your ‘men on the frontlines’, working with them to fine-tune and regulate new methods that are implemented, will go along way towards creating not only a hospital that runs like clockwork, but an excellent and positive team culture.