What Ethiopian Cab Drivers Taught Me About Training

After I graduated college, I took a gap year and picked up a couple part-time jobs, including working at Starbucks. My manager always put me on the register, and always on opening shift, so I quickly met a lot of “regulars”. 

One group in particular was really interesting to me: the Ethiopian cab drivers. They always came in around 5 am and collected around a single table. And they never paid for their own coffee—as soon as one of the cab drivers walked in, someone else from the table would jump up and pay for them.

My manager and the other baristas knew the names and orders of most of our regulars…but not the Ethiopian cab drivers. And to be honest, I don’t blame them—the names were really different from typical English names, which made them hard to pronounce and even harder to remember. But I had a degree in Applied Linguistics. So when I learned their names, I used the International Phonetic Alphabet to dial-in the pronunciation. And I showed the other baristas how to pronounce their names, too.

Over time, I became familiar with each of the cab drivers and their preferences, just like my other regulars. They started teaching me Ethiopian greetings in Amharic (hello, how are you, etc.) And any time I learned a new phrase, I’d scribble it down on receipt paper and stuff it into my apron pouch, so I could try it out on the next driver to come in. The others would watch from the table, excited to see how their friend would react. We had a great time.

Eventually, my gap year came to an end, and I was ready to leave for my next adventure. When the cab drivers found out, they surprised me with a farewell gift: a card that each of them had signed, along with $100 that they had pooled to help send me off.

I was blown away. So was my manager—she had seen lots of baristas come and go over the years, but she had never seen any regulars react like that.

What Made the Difference

The Ethiopian cab drivers didn't care about me because I got their coffee orders right. (Because I definitely didn’t—I was a terrible barista!) But I had done something else:

1. I genuinely cared about them. I invested in understanding their world— their names, language, and community.

2. I looked past their surface need (coffee), and met their deeper needs: belonging, community, and recognition.

I had stumbled onto something fundamental about human connection that I now see everywhere:

When you genuinely care about people, you can become more than just an order-taker. You can move past surface requests and solve problems that are truly meaningful.

This is critical for trainers (or anyone doing consulting work). If you have stakeholders or customers, you have to care about them.  You must be able to identify what their real needs are—and how you can help.

Your Stakeholders Have Deeper Needs Too

It’s easy for training professionals to get stuck in order-taking mode. Someone asks for safety training, you deliver safety training. Someone requests a compliance report, you generate the report. But when you only fulfill surface requests, you remain transactional—and replaceable. (Especially in the age of Industry 4.0, when managers can just ask ChatGPT to create a training and get an outline in seconds!)

Here's a typical example of what happens when you respond to a training request like an order-taker:

An Order-Taker Conversation

Manager: We need forklift recertification for 30 operators.

You: Ok - how soon? He sounds stressed, so you’re matching his urgency.

Manager: By the end of the week.

You: Ok - I'll get it coordinated. You know there’s no way to meet that deadline without pulling people off of production or bringing them in on their day off, but you don’t need to trouble him with logistics—he’s stressed enough. You’ll just get it done.

Now you’re toast…

• Later, when you try to coordinate training with Production, they’ll want to know why the deadline is this week. But all you’ll be able to say is “Because [the manager] said so”. Even if that’s enough to get the training scheduled, you’re definitely going to sound like a jerk.

• Then, when the training leads to unplanned overtime, the Manager’s Manager is also going to want to know why the rush.  You’ll have to decide whether to throw the manager under the bus (“Because [the manager] said so”) or take the blame yourself.  Either way, you can forget the pat-on-the-back you expected for hitting the deadline.

• Finally, when another incident happens three weeks later, the first thing people will point to is your rushed training.

You might think you’re being helpful when you respond like an order-taker. After all, you deliver exactly what people ask for, when they ask for it, and you don’t push back.  But, when you don’t dig deeper, you risk wasting time checking boxes and meeting deadlines without actually demonstrating strategic results. And that’s hardly helpful.

In contrast, here’s how things can go when you respond like a problem-solver:

A Problem-Solver Conversation

Manager: We need forklift recertification for 30 operators.

You: Sure, I can help with that. What's driving this? He sounds stressed, but didn’t share why. You care enough to ask what’s really going on.

Manager: We had an incident last week and my manager’s all over me about it.

You: Yikes! Okay—so if we put 30 operators through a training, we can get your manager off your back. Is that all you want? You know him better than that, but saying it out loud makes it easier for him to recognize that he needs to give you more information to be helpful.

Manager: What? No! I need to know this won't happen again. I can’t sleep. This was my responsibility, and I want to show my manager I take our commitment to safety seriously. Bingo! You’ve just uncovered a deeper need: He’s worried about his responsibility to keep people safe.

Now you’re set up to solve a much more meaningful problem:

• Before you just agree to recertify 30 operators, you can ask the manager to clarify whether the goal is certification compliance or actually preventing future incidents. He’ll recognize that you’re trying to solve his real problem, not just "do training."

• When he confirms that his goal is both, you can propose the recertification AND a root cause analysis to address the underlying safety concern(s).

• Later, when you share your training schedule, Production will understand the timeline because you can justify it. And the manager’s manager will recognize the investment as proactive safety leadership.

• Three weeks later, when operations continue to run smoothly, you'll get credit for strategic thinking, not just order-taking.

If you’re used to responding like an order-taker, shifting to respond like a problem-solver might feel uncomfortable at first. You might be afraid of how your stakeholders will respond when you don’t immediately agree to their requests. That’s valid. But when you dig deeper, and ask better questions, you’ll be able to solve problems that your stakeholders don’t even know they have. Over time, you’ll develop more credibility with your stakeholders and more confidence as a strategic partner.

The Choice is Yours

The Ethiopian cab drivers showed me that when you genuinely care about people, you can move past surface requests (like “coffee” or “training”) and solve problems that are truly meaningful (like “belonging” or “safety”).

Every day, you get to choose: Will you be an order-taker or a problem-solver?

As a manufacturing trainer, you’ve got a ton of stakeholders and customers: Plant Managers, Department Managers, Shift Leads, Operators, etc.

Do you actually care about them? Do you know what they need? Not just the surface stuff—the deeper needs.

If you're not sure how to answer that, try this out this week:

1. Pick one person you work with regularly and dig deeper:

   • What keeps them up at night? (Not their job description—their actual worries)

   • What would make them look like a hero to their boss?

2. Then, the next time they come to you with a request, try this:

   • Instead of immediately jumping to "how soon do you need it?", look for a gap between what they’re asking for and what they actually want. Then, steer the conversation towards filling that gap.

Want to go deeper?

In this post, I’ve shown that you can choose to shift from order-taker to problem-solver, but developing problem-solving skills is a topic that spans entire books.  

If you're ready to dig deeper, here are a couple easy reads that I can’t recommend highly enough. Mine are covered in highlights and sticky notes!

Reset, by Dan Heath

Chapter 2: "Consider the Goal of the Goal" has an unforgettable story about how one company met a goal at face-value, but failed spectacularly to address the real goal underneath.

You'll get some relatable, practical wisdom that'll stay with you for a long time.

The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick

This book is all about "how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better."

Chapter 3: "Asking Important Questions" has great advice for how do determine when people really care about a problem vs. when they just say they care.

The whole book is about 4hrs on audiobook.