Painting the Fences

https://serkanozizmir.substack.com

Serkan Ozizmir – Teacher / Trainer

The Karate Kid is a kid who has just moved to the neighborhood and is being bullied at school. This frail child, who is constantly pushed around by the school bullies, decides to learn karate to escape his situation and meets his master, Mr. Miyagi. However, the new kid's journey to becoming the Karate Kid does not start as expected because his master's teaching method, which c

an be summarized as “polish and shine,” is based on the student painting the fences surrounding the house for days on end.

Development processes are also a fundamental element of working life: training, one-on-one work, and performance management are all for development. Although being the Karate Kid of working life seems like something everyone would enjoy, most development efforts in our companies go to waste.

✍ Desire for Development

The first reason for failure is the individual themselves. What enabled the Karate Kid to spend days polishing and buffing was the difficult situation he found himself in at school.

His desire to learn karate, in other words, his determination to be a “student,” is the foundation of his success.

All resources spent on people who are not determined to improve themselves in their professional lives are doomed to be wasted. While 10 liters of fuel could take you 100 km, these slip-ups mean you only get 20-30 km; you start well for the first few weeks, then decline.

In Kill Bill, the great master tests whether poor Uma Thurman is a true “student” by making her climb stairs carrying yogurt pots tied to a stick on her shoulder.

✍ Achieving Development

When we conduct development work with someone who is truly committed to this path, the secret is now ours.

We must avoid these two mistakes:

Conflict of interest and poor timing.

Mr. Miyagi painting his own fence is a conflict of interest: Is the master doing this for his student's development or to get the job done for free? The question marks that form in the student's mind are the most common factor that hinders the development process in professional life. “Is my manager giving me this information to get their own work done, or for my development?” The student must be the subject, i.e., the main target, of the development process.

In terms of proper timing, development activities should be carried out independently of daily tasks and within a regular program. Training cannot be based on a mistake made in daily work. This approach will not yield lasting results.

If development activities are pre-planned, the employee will feel secure and be open to learning and developing, regardless of how work is going at that moment. No process that begins with “Come to my office immediately” will result in development because the person being reprimanded goes on the defensive; they cannot hear or listen, they only try to respond.

For effective development in the workplace, we must ask two important questions:

🤳Are we as determined as the Karate Kid to grow? Can we show enough effort to “polish and shine”?

🤳Are we as patient and eager as Mr. Miyagi to develop? Or are we sure we're not just trying to paint our own fences (or at least not appearing to be)? 😊