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Editor’s note: Alan Feuer, ACE, technical director, Preventive Pest Control, Albuquerque, N.M., is also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. At the 2025 Purdue Pest Management Conference, Feuer gave the following presentation "Telling is Not Training," and provided a few fundamental tips on training and development.
What I have learned is that simply telling someone a fact or telling them to do a certain thing in a certain circumstance is certainly not training. I make this point because I have had this happen to me in my career and I have also seen this applied to others. In any instance, the result was typically frustration and disappointment at the results.
So, instead to simply telling others how to behave or act, we need to appropriately develop them and train them to habitually behave in a prescribed manner. This is relatively challenging if we do not look at this from a holistic point of view. We must consider the “whole patient” when prescribing a developmental process.
With that said, let us look at the 2, 3, 4 of developmental fundamentals:
2 FATAL ASSUMPTIONS
1. Assuming my student UNDERSTANDS the concept, task or behavior.
2. Assuming by student AGREES to apply the concept, task or behavior.
When I use the word assumption, I take this to mean we have not verified that either of these states have been achieved.
3 T of DEVELOPMENT
1. Time
2. Tools
3. Training
These THREE T are always interconnected.
4 DEVELOPMENT PHASES
1. Enthusiastic Beginner Unconscious Incompetent
2. Disillusioned Learner Conscious Incompetent
3. Cautions Performer Conscious Competent
4. Reliant Achiever Unconscious Competent
We must pay attention and have judgement where our personnel are as they develop in each skill set.
Now, let’s drill into these concepts just a bit.
2 FATAL ASSUMPTIONS
Often our biggest disappointment in life is because we were misunderstood. This might occur because we were less than clear in describing our desires or it might occur because the recipient did not make a sincere attempt at listening to our need or want. The big mistake is to place the blame fully on the recipient. This is specifically true when the recipient is an individual or group that we are developing in a skill set.
We must simply accept that ensuring COMPREHENSION of the learning or mission expectation is 100% on us as the leader. To ensure this, we must not make any assumptions, but rather we must force a proof of the comprehension of the lesson or communication.
Here are six tips to overcome any misunderstandings during development:
1. Address the theory. Get to the why. Encourage Questions.
2. Have your personnel verbalize the what and the why of their task.
3. Instill ownership during training. Make consequences real.
4. Slow down development and training to ensure understanding. Correct misunderstandings and mistakes
immediately.
5. Finish development in one arena before starting in another.
6. VERIFY AND DOCUMENT competence and ability.
3 T OF DEVELOPMENT
TIME – Like many fine foods, people will take time to prepare and age appropriately. Additionally, the concept of time will mean many things during development.
1. Time to learn.
2. Time to make mistakes.
3. Time to pick themselves up and consider why mistakes occurred.
4. Time to develop strong, positive habits around the expected tasks and behaviors.
5. Time invested by you and others into them.
In essence, don’t rush the process. The amount of time needed to ensure appropriate development will vary by person and developmental goal.
TOOLS – Tools come in many forms as they apply to development.
1. Actual tools that will be used in their daily job. These can by physical tools or intellectual tools.
2. Development tools such as documents, books, multi-media resources and classes.
3. A progress tool that will clearly path and then capture data on their status of development.
4. Testing tools to verify their competence and ability.
TRAINING – Training is defined as “Teaching or developing in oneself or others any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies.” There are THREE basic choices when it comes to training:
1. Classroom -- Introduction to concepts, Awareness of Topics
2. Self-Study -- Gathering facts and knowledge
3. Hands-on -- Reality, Feeling, Muscle Memory
During training it is important to place our students into a state of EUSTRESS. This means putting them into situations where they are under a manageable level of pressure and challenge which causes them to intentionally engage with their circumstances.
Many if not all their senses will be engaged and they will need to be on significant alert as to what is going on.
Basically, the trainee ought to be able to say, “this is hard, but I can do this!” The opposite of EUSTRESS is BOREDOM.
Bored people are checked out and unchallenged and therefore are usually inattentive to the development.
One way we induce EUSTRESS is to force our trainees to actively participate in their training using the I (trainer) YOU (learner) model. This happens in 4 steps:
1. I Demonstrate and Explain the Why You Watch Intently
2. I Do and Get You Talking You Explain What I Am Doing and Why I Am Doing It
3. You Do and Explain the What and Why I Watch, Correct and Hold Accountable
4. You Do I Watch and Coach Only When Necessary
At the end of the day, we want to develop our trainees to the point that they are “unconsciously competent” in all the things they will be doing.
4 DEVELOPMENTAL PHASES
Yes, we want our trainees to become UNCONSIOUSLY COMPETENT. Since I put out the 4 phases much earlier in this article, I will restate them here.
1. Enthusiastic Beginner Unconscious Incompetent
2. Disillusioned Learner Conscious Incompetent
3. Cautions Performer Conscious Competent
4. Reliant Achiever Unconscious Competent
To better illustrate these phases, think of it this way.
Enthusiastic Beginner: “Yay, I have a cool new job, I’m ‘gonna make money and do great things!”
Disillusioned Leaner: “Oh no! There is way more to this job than I imagined, maybe I should give up.”
Cautious Performer: “OK, that wasn’t too bad, but I have to pay attention and ask for help.”
Reliant Achiever: “I am good at this. I don’t even know why I do certain things; I just know to do them.”
Each person, including us, will necessarily pass through these phases for each new thing we learn. Even us old veterans will have some degree of a “learning curve” for all things we desire to master. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, get a new software to run your business routing and client management…… The part where you want to cry is phase 2. That is when you realize (you are conscious) that you are magnificently unskilled (incompetent) in using and understanding this new tool……… Been there, done that, several times. I want to curl up and either retreat to my comfort zone or quit and maybe work at Chick-Fil-A, “my pleasure!” Once we suffer through the
development process, we get better out of need which then moves us to be a Cautious Performer and then on to a Reliant Achiever.
To that point, we will need to ensure we follow the first two principles for each core discipline we desire to have developed in an individual or team.
We must provide the Time, Tools and Training and we must prove Understanding and Agreement of each subject. It will take TIME for students to move from being a beginner to a reliant achiever. While we can take steps to move this process along, we cannot rush or force this to happen any faster than the recipient can absorb the lessons and experiences that will develop them into the subject matter expert we and our clients need them to be.
