One of the more significant challenges facing military and civilian trainers is inculcating, in a trainee, a thought process. The ability to apply a fact or skill learned to solve an unexpected  problem. As trainers, you cannot anticipate every possible scenario a student will encounter in the field. So, you need to develop the skill of thinking. I’ll give you a very simple example to support my point.

In the HVAC business, a rule of thumb for cooling a space is that you need 12,000 BTUs to cool a space of 500 square feet. Other factors come into play, like heat loads, but I’ll set that aside in the interest of simplicity. So, it’s a very simple ratio that can be expresses as 12,000:500  or 12,000 / 500. As trainers, we introduce this relationship to our trainee. To apply it, you present the trainee with a question. How many BTUs do I need to cool 375 square feet?  This is how you would structure the problem for them.

12,000/500 = x/375 , “x” is the number of BTUs needed, or the unknown value.

The trainee is taught to cross-multiply so you end up with 500x = (12000 x 375) which can be further simplified to 500x=4500000. To solve for “x”, you divide both sides of the equation by 500 so that x = 4500000/500. Now, perform the math and you get 9,000. So, the answer is that It takes 9,000 BTUs to cool a 375 square foot space. Not a lot of mental gymnastics involved.

Now, let’s change the problem. Ask the trainee, how many square feet can you cool with a 6,000 BTU a.c. unit that’s sitting in their shop. This is where you get a cerebral shutdown. The first words out of your trainee’s mouth is, “we didn’t cover that.” What you didn’t do is teach your trainee to think. Thinking, in spite of what you may believe, can be and should be taught. You need to teach trainees how to think. Answering the question is no different than the original problem

12,000/500 = 6,000/x the only thing the trainee needed to do is assign “x” to the unknown, which in this case is square feet.  Lets cross multiply again and this time we get

12000x = 3000000. We solve for “x” as we did before x = 3000000/12000; therefore, x = 250 square feet.

In the tactical and military disciplines, trainers with exception of guys like Larry Vickers and Pat Rogers, are teaching skills sets. I’m not trivializing the importance of skill sets, but your trainee is memorizing a skill set and fails to learn to apply them successfully when the operational fabric changes even slightly. Trainers, and your organizations, need to pay attention to the thought process – the how and why we employ skills to solve problems – in developing your training product.