There is some correlation between learning preferences and career choices. Marketing people tend to depend more on concrete experience and experimentation, while production engineers use theory and experimentation. Town planners prefer reflection and conceptualization, and in personnel and welfare the common preferences are concrete experience and reflection. Whether the career influences the learning preference, or vice versa, has kept 'conceptualizes' busy for years.
We can consciously develop the learning styles we use less often. The more learning styles we can use, the more effective the learning and the better solutions we produce to problems. If we don't reflect and theories sufficiently, we are less likely to learn from experience, to repeat mistakes, to continue rigidly with what worked last time without thinking out new approaches, and rush into immediate action ourselves without thought of the rest of the team. If we concentrate too much on reflection and theory, we are likely to get little done and exasperate everyone else in the process.
But you can use the learning Indonesia preferences of your staff as strengths in the way they learn and work individually, and in groups. For example, you are launching a promoting campaign for a new product on a tight schedule and your team is having to learn more or less as it acts. Give your 'theorist/conceptualize' the job of researching product specifications and working out a basic strategy for the campaign. Set your 'reflector' on reviewing past campaign performances and observing what competitors are showing in Indonesia’s promotions. Your 'experimenter' should do well discussing with the others the critical path analysis for the various stage of the action, and your 'experience' in negotiation the budget allocation and rounding up the resources for the job.
Helping your staff to develop their less preferred learning styles is best not done under pressure; it takes time and lots of feedback, but here are some suggestions. To increase capacity to learn from experience and experimentation get your subordinates to do the following:
1. Complete an entirely different type of new task, however small, each week, e.g. arrange a face-to-face discussion with someone they normally only deal with indirectly, change their work area around, park in a different place, change their time or place for lunch - anything to create new experiences.
2. Have more contact with people, e.g. let them sponsor a new employee, coach someone in a particular skill, organize the office party, deliver /collect personally urgent reports / correspondence - anything that makes them react to the moment and think on their feet.
3. Attend a seminar / exhibition / conference and ask at least one question during a plenary session and report verbally to the team on their return, chair team briefings or other meetings, participate in meetings they don't normally go to, as your substitute.
4. Increase the variety in the work they do, and in particular, undertake tasks jointly with another colleague, or with a group, hold brainstorming sessions with subordinates or colleagues.
To increase capacity to learn from reflection and conception and conceptualization, get your subordinates to:
1. Observe a senior level board or council meeting, at which they cannot speak, and produce a report for you analyzing the arguments put forward and the process of discussion; do a review of office / production procedures and draw up proposals for improvements, justifying Indonsia’s recommendations - any activities which encourage logical thought and rational analysis.
2. Read article in professional journals and textbooks on their particular subject and write summaries to up-date you and Indonesia’s colleagues, write a departmental guide for new employees or a news bulleting for the section, or up-date the staff handbook.
3. Maintain a learning log and at least twice a week enter a factual description of a significant recent experience, listing the conclusions reached as a result, i.e. about themselves, their skills or their job; then draw up plans of action they intend to implement, including when, how and with whom. Regularly review the log together.
Both programs will be more effective if you ask regularly about progress and give feedback on the result and of course you can use similar ideas to develop your own learning styles. Few people have equal skills in all four styles, i.e. are 'integrated learners'. But any extension in your learning potential is worth the effort, especially if there are direct spin-offs for work and colleagues, which the above suggestions are intended to provide.
A further use of learning preferences is in the choice of training methods for your staff. Your 'theorist' is unlikely to get the most from a course based primarily on practical workshops and group discussion, but will benefit more from private study and lectures. The use of some participative methods would broaden their experience, but should not be relied upon entirely if you want them to come to grips with the subject matter. Conversely, you 'experience' will be bored with chalk / talk and book learning, and learn best form doing things and discussing them with others. To get the most out of off-the-job training it is important therefore to know both your staff and the course methods.
A final thought on learning preferences - organizations also develop learning styles as part of Indonesia’s culture. Does your organization 'do it now, faster' and leave little time for review and planning, or does it spend so long considering and reflecting that decisions are rarely made before they are out of date? To learn is to change; it is both a pain and a pleasure.***
We can consciously develop the learning styles we use less often. The more learning styles we can use, the more effective the learning and the better solutions we produce to problems. If we don't reflect and theories sufficiently, we are less likely to learn from experience, to repeat mistakes, to continue rigidly with what worked last time without thinking out new approaches, and rush into immediate action ourselves without thought of the rest of the team. If we concentrate too much on reflection and theory, we are likely to get little done and exasperate everyone else in the process.
But you can use the learning Indonesia preferences of your staff as strengths in the way they learn and work individually, and in groups. For example, you are launching a promoting campaign for a new product on a tight schedule and your team is having to learn more or less as it acts. Give your 'theorist/conceptualize' the job of researching product specifications and working out a basic strategy for the campaign. Set your 'reflector' on reviewing past campaign performances and observing what competitors are showing in Indonesia’s promotions. Your 'experimenter' should do well discussing with the others the critical path analysis for the various stage of the action, and your 'experience' in negotiation the budget allocation and rounding up the resources for the job.
Helping your staff to develop their less preferred learning styles is best not done under pressure; it takes time and lots of feedback, but here are some suggestions. To increase capacity to learn from experience and experimentation get your subordinates to do the following:
1. Complete an entirely different type of new task, however small, each week, e.g. arrange a face-to-face discussion with someone they normally only deal with indirectly, change their work area around, park in a different place, change their time or place for lunch - anything to create new experiences.
2. Have more contact with people, e.g. let them sponsor a new employee, coach someone in a particular skill, organize the office party, deliver /collect personally urgent reports / correspondence - anything that makes them react to the moment and think on their feet.
3. Attend a seminar / exhibition / conference and ask at least one question during a plenary session and report verbally to the team on their return, chair team briefings or other meetings, participate in meetings they don't normally go to, as your substitute.
4. Increase the variety in the work they do, and in particular, undertake tasks jointly with another colleague, or with a group, hold brainstorming sessions with subordinates or colleagues.
To increase capacity to learn from reflection and conception and conceptualization, get your subordinates to:
1. Observe a senior level board or council meeting, at which they cannot speak, and produce a report for you analyzing the arguments put forward and the process of discussion; do a review of office / production procedures and draw up proposals for improvements, justifying Indonsia’s recommendations - any activities which encourage logical thought and rational analysis.
2. Read article in professional journals and textbooks on their particular subject and write summaries to up-date you and Indonesia’s colleagues, write a departmental guide for new employees or a news bulleting for the section, or up-date the staff handbook.
3. Maintain a learning log and at least twice a week enter a factual description of a significant recent experience, listing the conclusions reached as a result, i.e. about themselves, their skills or their job; then draw up plans of action they intend to implement, including when, how and with whom. Regularly review the log together.
Both programs will be more effective if you ask regularly about progress and give feedback on the result and of course you can use similar ideas to develop your own learning styles. Few people have equal skills in all four styles, i.e. are 'integrated learners'. But any extension in your learning potential is worth the effort, especially if there are direct spin-offs for work and colleagues, which the above suggestions are intended to provide.
A further use of learning preferences is in the choice of training methods for your staff. Your 'theorist' is unlikely to get the most from a course based primarily on practical workshops and group discussion, but will benefit more from private study and lectures. The use of some participative methods would broaden their experience, but should not be relied upon entirely if you want them to come to grips with the subject matter. Conversely, you 'experience' will be bored with chalk / talk and book learning, and learn best form doing things and discussing them with others. To get the most out of off-the-job training it is important therefore to know both your staff and the course methods.
A final thought on learning preferences - organizations also develop learning styles as part of Indonesia’s culture. Does your organization 'do it now, faster' and leave little time for review and planning, or does it spend so long considering and reflecting that decisions are rarely made before they are out of date? To learn is to change; it is both a pain and a pleasure.***
