I believe the biggest challenge in supporting someone through the career pathway system is helping them get through the barriers that they may have. Depending on the barrier, the pathway could take a very long time and even through SMART goals, it can be difficult to keep someone motivated and on track when they have so much holding them back. 

I had a communication challenge once between a new employee who was having trouble grasping some of the technical and organizational terms the company used at the time. We were able to handle the challenge by providing proper information to the communication. We provided them with a guide/glossary of the terms that they could refer back to until they became comfortable with the terms. My advice to a peer would be to make sure that all stakeholders in a communication situation have the proper information or context needed. 

My previous training team once had a new employee who was struggling with our training process. The critical thinking I focused on to help with that situation was gathering information by asking the employee themselves what they felt they were struggling with. In future situations, I want to make sure to check my own assumptions so that they do not influence my decisions more than the facts and information I gather. Putting aside my assumptions could have helped me better train this employee by focusing on what the concrete issues were rather than what I assumed were issues. 

I once had a meeting where the training team was trying to decide how to best train a difficult new employee. I was not the sole facilitator but I was one of the more vocal members of the training team. Some good progress was made in the meeting but it did not do much to relieve the tension in the training team. If I were to have that meeting after this module, the most important factor I would change is simply coming more prepared to the meeting. For future meetings, I will make sure to have a clear agenda and set of questions to keep meetings on track.

I had a situation with a previous employer where we were forced to completely shift our training process due to the pandemic. The shift was very difficult but the leader at the time was able to motivate our training team to stick with it when the team all had the ability to simply step down. The most important factors of the leader was their honesty and transparency (they knew it would be difficult and they communicated that fully) and their ability to communicate their vision. That leader reminded us why we were on the training team in the first place, which was to help others succeed.