Since it's graduation season, there have been a lot of stories in the news about learning, testing, and finding a job. I'm currently training a group of new employees and am struck by a dichotomy: the information we require them to learn to get licensed and certified has very little to do with the tasks we will be asking them to perform after that training. That's the problem with testing.

Tests are created by people who start with an answer and then create a question for which that answer is correct. Life -and business - is different. Life creates questions and many times there is no correct answer, only imperfect responses. Learning how to respond to those questions requires experience, the experience of inappropriate responses. The fact is, we don't learn much when our responses work out well. We truly learn only from making mistakes. Hot is just a word until you've touched something that burns you. That physical/emotional response makes a lasting impression.

I've come to believe that the same is true in training. Perhaps this belief comes from raising kids. If you provide safe opportunities for kids to fail, they learn from those mistakes. As parents, our job is to raise human beings who can operate independently and successfully. The approach in business should be similar.

In business we need people who, when they are confronted by a situation that falls outside the norm, will think through the options and respond in an appropriate way. Make sure your training is reinforcing that ability. You probably don't have the time - or patience - to provide all the answers.