Episode 100: Training vs. Familiarization

Episode Description

In this milestone 100th episode of Veteran Led, John Berry tackles a leadership lesson: the difference between familiarization and true training. He shares a personal failure in replacing hands-on training with videos and web-based content, leading to increased mistakes within his team. John breaks down the four essential steps of effective training: familiarization, practical application, mastery through practice, and advancement to higher-level skills.​

This episode provides leaders with a clear framework for developing robust training programs that go beyond basic familiarization to achieve true operational excellence.​

Episode Transcript

John Berry

Welcome, fellow veterans. From the tip of the spear to in the rear with the gear. I went from active-duty infantry to reserve component logistician. I’m your host, CEO, entrepreneur, trial lawyer, and lieutenant colonel retired, John Berry.

John Berry

Familiarization is not training. Familiarization is only the first step in training. Do you remember weapons familiarization? You held the weapon, you learned about the weapon, and you even fired it. But you didn’t qualify at the range yet because it was only familiarization. Later, once you were fully trained, you went to weapons qualification to prove whether you were trained or whether you needed more practice to meet the standard. In business, it’s the same way. Familiarization is not training. It’s step one a PowerPoint presentation, a video, and a step-by-step process delivered on a pretty graphic are not training. You are not training until you are doing. I made the mistake last year of building a ton of videos and web-based training for our team, believing that I had improved our training, but the feedback from our team was this. We’re seeing more mistakes. It’s not working. Why are we not training like we used to? What I failed to realize was that all of our onboarding training and familiarization training was just that. It was just the starting point. I thought back to familiarization in the military, and many of those schools had a zero week where we familiarized ourselves with what was going to happen.

John Berry

Later in my career when I ran the officer candidate and warrant officer Candidate School Battalion, we had a phase zero which gave candidates familiarization so they would better understand their training once the program started. To clarify, familiarization is the key. It’s foundational to any training plan, but it’s only the first step. Think of it this way. Step one, familiarization. Step two, the practical application. This is where you actually do the thing. Step three, practice till you can’t get it wrong. And step four, once you master the basic skills, go to higher level skills. You remember basic rifle marksmanship. Once you qualified day fire, you moved on to qualified night fire and you even qualified wearing a protective mask. Then what did you do? You moved on to a dynamic live fire exercise, but you just didn’t show up on the range of maneuver and shoot. No, before you’re qualified to do the dynamic exercises, you had to do a walkthrough and then you had to qualify on the dynamic exercise with blank ammunition, then and only then did you receive live ammunition for the dynamic live fire exercise. As a leader, you can’t just show someone something one time and expect them to be trained on it.

John Berry

And you certainly can’t expect your leaders to develop their teams without practice. At scale you need a training program that has written standards so that you know whether your team is untrained, practiced but not trained or trained to standard. You can’t reach excellence without training for excellence and familiarization is not training. So after you create an initial familiarization period with your videos and your PowerPoint training and your graphics, help your team get real hands on training, set the standard and hold them to the standard.

John Berry

After action review. Number one, sustain. The thing I did right in this example was that I understood we needed familiarization, and I developed a system using videos, PowerPoints, and infographics to build that familiarization. Improve, where I failed was I thought the familiarization training was enough. Yes, it was enough to onboard our team. Yes, the familiarization helped, but that was not training and it certainly was not training to standard and that is where I failed. Don’t make that mistake.

John Berry

Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.