The Rise in ‘Learned Helplessness’
Over the last several months or more I have been encountering the consequences of ‘learned helplessness’, which seems to be on the rise especially in our ‘service industry’. Upon asking simple questions I have been met with the frequent “I don’t know” response. Whether I am asking a question of a customer service rep or simply making a request to a restaurant server, the answer seems to be “I don’t know” or “that’s all I know”. And of course, there is that shoulder shrug.
What has happened to the mindset of ‘going the distance’, or ‘I will find out for you’, or “I want to make sure I have your contact information correct so that I can contact you with the information you have requested”? Or “Allow me to check with the kitchen to see if we can do that for you”? Or “I do not have the answer, however I will find out for you”.
Throughout my journey in learning and development my teams were responsible for training service industry employees and our vision was simple, - ensure the learning intellectual properties, facilitation process and tools to provide the results needed to create a ‘conscious competence’ workforce were current and state-of-the-art. - ‘Conscious competence’ is the condition in which the leaner can say with confidence “I know that I know, and I am confident that I know”.
I find myself asking, where is that confident ‘conscious competence’ worker today? Being brutally honest, I put the responsibility for these results directly on the shoulders of the companies’ providing customer services and on the employees who have signed up to deliver excellence in service.
Learned helplessness is the condition in which an individual feels as though they have lost control and do not have the tools or resources to perform their tasks or do what they need to do. They then become resigned to this condition and their natural curiosity shuts down. This then results in the “I don’t know” response.
Responsibility in this situation goes both ways. The employer not offering ample tools so that their employees have a vast number of resources, SOPs, Blurbs, etc. to explore, dive deep to ultimately find the right solution. Or have the means through leads/managers/supervisors to noodle on the problem and find solutions to resolve them. And the employee sitting idle in “learned helplessness” having lost control of the situation while at the same time not asking for the tools they need.
Additionally, part of this equation is the hiring process. Are companies filling headcount or are they searching for candidates that aspire to serve and are curious, creative, go the distance on behalf of customers. For those employees who accept the job… that means you are responsible to ensure you are trained to understand the issues/problems and the ways and means to resolve them using tools and resources provided to you. If the tools and resources are not provided, then demand on behalf of customers, that they not only provide you with right tools they also provide the training on how to use them.
With my recent experiences in mind, it seems as though companies are hiring and settling for the headcount they need rather than hiring the qualities, attitude and characteristics required to serve their customers in excellence. And their candidate pools are only looking to get paid. When these two forces meet the customer service vision and mission begins to self-destruct and the original commitment to offer excellence in service has no accountability or responsibility.
It used to be that employees were hired through a process that investigated and tested their customer service, phone, English skills, as well as their ability to find the right solutions. Once they were hired and before they even answered a phone, email or chat they were trained and tested to ensure there was an optimum level of understanding of what it takes to provide excellence in service. Ideally the training successfully provided the new hire employee with a solid starting point to then build on their experience, which would result in a vast amount of knowledge about the job, company, and the customers they served.
To create optimum success in the learning process we focused on the adult learning principles as follows:
Unconscious Incompetence (ignorance) - “I Don’t know that I don’t know”
Consciously Incompetence (Awareness) - “I Know that I Don’t Know”
Conscious competence (Knowledge) - “I Know that I Know”
Unconsciously Competent (Excellence) - “I Don’t know how I know”
Using these adult learning principles, we built learning processes and activity-based learning modules to ultimately form new habits.
(Refer to Figure 1.0 below): In stage one the new hire can say that they have basic customer service skills, however when it comes to their current company, they do not know what they do not know about the company’s products, systems, or specific customer contact issues and queries. At this point the new hire is unconsciously incompetent.
In stage two of the learning process the new hire through training activities and practice becomes conscious and aware of what is required to offer good customer service for their employer’s customers. At this point the new hire is consciously incompetent.
In stage three of the learning process when the new hire is provided activity-based exercises, simulations of systems/tools, and opportunities to shadow more tenured customer service employees they begin to become more competent in exactly what it takes to offer excellence in service. At this point the new hire is consciously competent in their tasks at hand.
In stage four, unconscious competence forms as the new hire has practiced, performed, and repeated all required tasks to consciously support customers to resolve issues and answer questions. No longer does the new hire require training to perform the day-to-day tasks of their job. I will point out that it is also important that the new employee stays current in their knowledge and accountable to customers.
Figure 1.0 - Forming Habits - Conscious Competence
This successful methodology resulted in supporting employees to be confident in their understanding of the tools and systems while connecting with their own independent thinking and objective psyche (intuition) to resolve customer issues effectively and efficiently. It was also easier to hold customer service employees accountable as everything they required to solve an issue was at their fingertips.
In summary Learned Helplessness can have an entire customer service organization resigned to the fact that they only have the ability to answer the questions they know answers to. Everything else they deem too hard to figure out hence the “I don’t know” response. Customers deserve better and quite frankly so do the employees that are making attempts at resolving issues. Good for you!!!!
My books offer insight into respond-ability and the distinctions between collective thought and the objective psyche. They are available on Amazon in paperback, Audible and Kindle formats. "It was ME all Along, the Path to FREEDOM" and "The Dolphin Lady, the Story of a Unique Relationship”