PRO on the Go Video: Training Pays

Would you consider your painters to be coatings experts? And, does it really matter? Nigel Costolloe of Catchlight Painting tells why it pays to educate your crew about the technical properties of the products they’ll be applying. And why being open to learning and embracing new ideas will pay big dividends – not just for your workers, but for you, as a leader.

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Video Transcription:

Narrator:

Would you consider your painters to be coating experts? And, does it really matter? Here’s Nigel Costolloe of Catchlight Painting on why it pays to educate your crew about the technical properties of the products they’ll be applying.

Nigel Costolloe, Catchlight Painting:

And, we have learned that it is imperative to not assume that the people that we hire have a certain level of knowledge about the materials that they work with. Sometimes they can just have an innate skill, a gift of actually applying the materials but no one has actually given them the time, paid them to actually learn about the product they’re applying. We think that’s important. It makes them more informed. It’s also nice to reward them to actually engage intellectually in the process of painting rather than just the mechanical process of painting. They own the work.

Narrator:

Being open to learning will pay big dividends – not just for your workers but for you as a leader.

Nigel Costolloe:

Education takes many forms. It is reading a magazine put out by Sherwin-Williams. It is reading the newspaper. It is learning from our peers. It is overhearing a conversation. It’s reading the side of a paint can and it’s also just about being open to and acknowledging that we, I, may not have the answers. Donald Rumsfeld said during one of his press conferences many years ago, “There are no unknowns and there are unknown unknowns and it’s the unknown unknown that really help us move to the next level and that’s where education plays a critical role and that impacts us both as business owners as well as human beings. The stuff that I have learned in running my business has been just as helpful in my marriage and in raising my teenage boys.