Recently, I had the opportunity to provide several sessions of training on Microsoft Excel to the team at RV Designer. The team members varied in both their computer experience and their confidence.
My favorite moment was when I had given instructions for everyone to perform a part of the task at hand, and was walking around. As I reached one person’s computer, he rushed to switch gears. “Sorry,” he admitted, “I was just playing around.”
“Never, never apologize for playing around! Playing around is how you learn!” was my immediate response. He had been experimenting, trying to extend the application of formatting cells–just to see what would happen.
The message throughout my sessions, which resonates with my overall approach to life, is that people should experiment, test their theories, and just see what happens. Using a computer is like cooking–you can start out with someone else’s recipes. Once you’ve done that, try to go beyond the boundaries of what you’ve read or been shown. See what happens.
There isn’t much of a risk (since you can always save a backup copy of the file) when you’re in a training class. If you (or your organization) take proper steps to mitigate risks (backups, malware protection, etc.), you can learn a ton by just playing around.