On Pie Eating and Pie Charts

Let’s say I signed you up for a pie eating contest that was to take place at the county fair in 10 days. You’ve never been in a pie eating contest before and really don’t know what it’s all about, other than the fact that the person that eats the most pie will be the winner. But there are some rules for the contestants: You have to set up your own training schedule (no official coaching!), and you can only do one form of practice each day leading up to the pie eating contest.

Here are your choices:

1. You can read about pie eating techniques from the Joey Chestnut manual of pie eating. Don’t laugh, this type of book exists!

2. You can watch your friend, who is also a contestant, practice eating a pie for the contest and ask them for some tips.

3. You can dig in and eat some pie yourself.

Remember, you can only do one form of learning per day, and you want to be as prepared as possible. So, how do you spend your time?

My guess is that the majority of your days would be spent eating some pie. Makes perfect sense! You need to figure out how to stuff the most pie in your face to be successful, and it’s a simple enough task, so practice equals eating some pie. You probably would have a few days of watching your friend scarf down some pie and learning that way too. And, since you’re new to competitive eating, maybe you’d get in a day of studying techniques at some point.

The above allocation of learning time is what researchers, way back in the the 80's, dubbed the 70/20/10 Rule. That is, if you asked employees (these studies were done in a business setting) how they learned how to do their job, they reported that 70% of what was needed to do their job well was learned DOING THEIR JOB. Not shocking. When they were challenged in their daily work activities, they had to figure out how to get better, so they did. 20% was learned from PEERS and other people doing the same or similar jobs, and just 10% was learned in a formal, classroom learning setting where they were told what they were "supposed" to know.

So, this is the natural order of things. We, of course, don't know how great all these employees were, so maybe they weren't learning in a "perfect" way, but we know how they organically learned what was needed for their job tasks and how to get it done.

Ok, so I feel like all this has been straight-forward so far. Other than maybe hearing the 70/20/10 Rule term itself here for the first time, the concept makes sense. And you’ve likely naturally followed the rule in a bunch of areas of your life.

Now, let's flip this scenario a bit:

What if, instead of asking you how YOU would prepare for the pie-eating contest, I asked you how you would prepare SOMEONE ELSE for the pie-eating contest? What would happen if I changed your role from a learner to a teacher? Would your answer change? You may not consciously think so, but there's a lot of evidence that points to a big change, and all you need for evidence is how most "learning environments" are set up.

Think about it. Where did you spend most of your day in school? IN THE CLASSROOM! Yeah you had some labs and problem sets and presentations and fieldtrips and all that, but teaching has historically been done by telling people what they should know and how to do things, not by challenging them actually do it. The same has historically been true in the business training world too. Come into the classroom and let our trainer tell you what you need to know, then go do that thing in your job. In fact, it could be argued that most teaching/coaching/managing environments flip the 70/20/10 Rule so that 70% of the time spent learning is done in a classroom, completely separated from the real-world application.

I do not say any of this to throw teachers/coaches under the bus! I've fallen victim to this many times myself! Early in my career, my mental training with clients was ALL done in a classroom! You taught a group of people concepts like visualization or goal-setting or mindful breathing, and then you told them to go out there and apply it to their environment. Maybe I would do some observation on the field, but direct usage and practice in the performance environment while doing their thing was almost non-existent. My point is that there are natural tendencies of learners and natural tendencies of teachers. Learners are (hopefully) excited to do the thing, and teachers want to teach. Coaches want to coach. That's their nature.

It's outside of the scope of today's 1000 words (I need to stay on brand!) to get into what the BEST learning environment entails. Or other terms that get at the same point (deliberate practice anyone?). I'm happy to have that discussion! DM's welcome! But, in simple terms, in order to get better at what we do, what I am suggesting for today is that, if we find ourselves in the teacher/coach role, we need to remind ourselves of the natural habits of the learners in front of us. The 70/20/10 Rule does not need to be followed to a T in order to be more successful in your knowledge transfer. In fact, there’s been some follow-up research that showed managers thought they learned their job best at more of a 60/20/20 allocation. Fine, but it’s still not learning entirely in the classroom. You still need a big chunk of real-world learning.

That’s what this rule can help remind us. It means DOING THE THING! Let the learners figure it out and ask their friends. You're simply there to guide. But, learners, if you don't spend any time studying, then you may never learn what the perfect "water-to-pie" swallowing ratio is to win that pie eating contest! An even simpler rule to remember the 70/20/10 mindset is this:

A. Teachers: Take on more of a learner’s mindset when teaching.

B. Learners: Take on a little more of a teaching mindset while learning.

Knowledge transfer occurs on common ground, not the extremes.