Everyone Knows How to Wash Hands! The Wrong Way.
Are you an expert in your field or an advanced practitioner of specific tasks? The answer you are looking for is, “Yes, of course!”. No matter what our life experiences, we all have expertise and tools in our toolkits that we take for granted or assume is common knowledge. The reality is that everything we do is a skill we had to learn at some point.
- The cook assumes “everyone knows how to make a basic soup stock”.
- The healthcare worker assumes “everyone knows not to touch their face”.
- The remote consultant assumes “everyone knows how to utilize video conferencing software” or “work effectively from a home office”.
It is not true!! Believing certain tasks are easy and simple for everyone is a mental bias that expertise breeds. No matter how talented and resourceful a person is, no one is a jack of all trades.
Think like a beginner
Looking at events and tasks through the lens of the beginners mind is a powerful tool for learning professionals. It is harder than you think! Breaking complex ideas into small, logical chunks that are easy to understand takes practice.
You have to strip away all the assumptions, ask all the questions, and build the skill step by step. Imagine explaining the topic to a child, or an alien, or your mother-in-law.
If you can’t explain it to a five year old, then you don’t know what you are talking about. -Former Mentor
Teach new ways to do old tricks
Let’s take hand washing as an example since there is an influx of training, videos, and advice on when and how to wash your hands to protect against the spread of COVID-19. The advice I see most frequently is about the amount of time, 20+ seconds, we should spend washing our hands. Suggestions of singing specific songs to make sure you are spending enough time washing are plastered around social media. Bringing bathroom karaoke sessions to an all time record high. ๐
So I started paying attention to the duration of hand washing. My brain flagged this information as a focal point to level-up my hand washing game. This is important! I have been washing my hands for decades. My moma taught me how! I preform this task without conscious thought. Unless you live in a cave with no running water, you probably do too.
Moma taught me wrong?!
Sure, she taught me to wash before meals and after visiting the bathroom. She even insisted that I use hot water and soap! It wasn’t until I watched the video Proper Hand Washing Technique that I realized, “Oh man, I have been doing this wrong the whole time!”.
How did this video by David Gravelle succeed in breaking through my belief of expertise? The use of black paint to demonstrate the mechanics of properly washing hands is brilliant and contrary to expectations.
- Brilliant because you can see the result of your fight with an invisible enemy. Each step of the process uncovers a different area of your hands that won’t get clean if you don’t follow the procedure.
- Contrary to expectation because instead of using the real-world tools, washing with soap and water, the video uses a more visually compelling and surprising device; black paint.
The use of the standard hand washing images in the bottom right corner was also a helpful point of reference. I seriously had an “ah, ha!” moment watching this video and was excited to share.
Experts seem to learn by magic
I shared the experience with my RN friend and he immediately said, “Who doesn’t know how to wash their hands properly?! It is common sense”.
No. No it is not. There are levels of competence for every task. I could do something every single day and still be doing it inefficiently or ineffectively. Practice does not make perfect, unless you are practicing the right things.
After a little probing, he realized that he did indeed get specialized training on washing hands for maximum germ prevention. Not only did he receive training in school, but it was reinforced daily on the job in the hospital. Amazing! He did not magically or intuitively know how to do it correctly. ๐
Share what you know
The pandemic has forced a lot of rapid change in how most people work. The learning curve is steep and there are a lot of beginners using new technologies and ways of communicating. I bet you can help! If you have work-from-home experience or are a master of remote technologies, then be on the lookout to support office workers transitioning to this new reality.
Any “aha!” moments to share?
I recently found myself rolling my eyes at the 1000s of tips for working from home plastered across social media. Until I remembered, I didn’t know what I was doing when I first started!!! What biases have tripped you up? Where do you need to apply the beginner’s mind?