Tips and Insights

To understand the aliteracy pervading American society, I think we have to differentiate between two types. Yes, we do have functional aliterates-people who won't read, who haven't felt the thrill when they discover something about the world or themselves in a story, essay or memoir. In the classroom, teachers are trying to ignite interest in reading, asking their students for introspection, reflection, new thoughts and strategies. Though that process is muddy and unclear, teachers know that if their students wade through text to learning, understanding and innovation, they'll be hooked.

In the business world we're talking about a different kind of aliteracy called conditional aliteracy. I wrote about it in an earlier blog. It's the kind of aliteracy that can happen to any of us, even the best readers. It's the aliteracy that comes with the challenges of the job, when people are under pressure, under time constraints or under attack-literally or figuratively. These workers can't read, even though in normal situations they're perfectly capable and willing.

And while many businesses hope to elicit introspection-and often demand innovation-from their workers, that can't happen until workers understand what they have to do and feel at ease with the process. For instance, let's take an employee who has to change 10 bolts each day during line changeovers. If her job performance is rated on speed, if she's new to the process, if English is a second language, she may be confused, frantic and frustrated. Quality will suffer.

If, however, that employee has been trained to the one best practice and has access to procedural documents that don't demand deciphering, she can learn that job as well as other jobs, moving between processes and giving the company more flexibility with their personnel and product scheduling. This exposure and training also allows her to be thoughtful and critical of the processes, increasing the likelihood that she'll identify ways to improve them. Again, using our simple example, she may determine that changing a bolt by hand rather than using an impact wrench can save her three minutes, and because she has to make 15 changeovers a day, the company can save hours in a week.

Encouraging employees to remain attentive and enabling them to make change allows for this type of innovation. Here at Explainers, we advocate for those users. We want to make the procedures so straightforward that users remain free of frustration, anger, or cynicism. That means our document has to be credible, consistent, clear, and accessible. If it's missing any of those attributes, it becomes ineffective.

Because the guiding principle for us is the user's needs, a work instruction can look very different when we explain it. For example, the original directions for cleaning the water tank of this ultrasonic cleaner were conventional-outlined steps written in numeric order with the occasional photo added. By using line art, we were able to show, without any text, that the operator would need to unplug the unit, scoop out the water while wearing gloves, and document the information on a form.

Our goal is to orient the operator quickly, so that she can look at that page and know immediately what she has to do. It's not that we're against reading, it's that we want her to understand what she needs to do. It just so happens that most processes we explain are more effective when shown rather than written.

I believe lots of people still read books, and I'd like to think that E. M. Forster's speculation is wrong. He said, "It is a mistake to think that books have come to stay. The human race did without them for thousands of years and may decide to do without them again." I think teachers will convince future generations of the benefits of reading and help those who won't read "get" it. They will instill the benefits of reading to their students, sharing the aesthetic pleasures that come with reflection, the brain surge that results from learning something through words.

And while teachers are taking care of functional aliteracy, companies will win against conditional aliteracy. As they move toward or continue their quest for quality standards and lean operations, they'll create conditions that support their employees, allowing those employees to be thoughtful, efficient workers who positively affect the bottom line.

Labels: aliteracy, conditional aliteracy, functional aliteracy, quality, user's needs, visual work instructions