Human Performance and Learning Style – Part I

The 21st century is often referred to as “the information age”, an era where technology and globalization have led to people having access to huge amounts of information at precisely the time that they need it. Entire countries are shifting from material production, to providing knowledge and services and becoming so-called “intellect economies.” New occupations in these “intellect economies” are being created at an enormous rate. It is estimated that one third of all ten year olds will begin work in a job that has not yet been invented. It’s an exciting time to be alive!

Before I continue, I’d like to thank my coaching school, ICA for the support, information and inspiration for this post.

Instead of sticking with the same job or handful of jobs for an entire career, most people will move through a range of jobs and careers, constantly gathering skills as they go. This will require intensive learning. Having access to information also changes the way we work. In the past people would work in the community in which they lived. They may travel to their workplace but the distance would never be more than an hour or two at the absolute most. With the information age we can now work with people anywhere around the world.

You can call them, chat to them via the internet and share documents. You can now easily work with someone who not only doesn’t live in your community they don’t live in your country. The future is about working globally in teams that are constructed from different locations around the world. Small business is the new growth industry. Part of the information age has taught us that human connection is paramount. So working in small teams will support this. In the past people worked in companies with several thousand employees. Large corporations will need to deconstruct into smaller parts to survive. Knowing each other is vital. Human performance and potential are the new unique selling proposition.

In the future you will work in a small team, sourcing partners from around the world, finding the skills you need to support your business. You will be directing your work tasks, vision and the learning that you will need to achieve this. You will set meetings with your virtual assistant who lives in Spain, your marketing consultant in the USA, your accountant in China and your sales manager who lives in India. You will be the driver of your business. To do this you will set in place a support team. Your virtual assistant, personal trainer, coach, mentor, yoga instructor, social network group and partner or friend will be your support team.

You will determine the learning you need, when you identify what you need. You will want it taught to you in time, flexibly and easily. This is in direct contrast from how you were taught. Someone decided what you needed to know and how you needed to know it. Education systems told you what you had to learn. Education and knowledge were power. With the information age, anyone can access information. You will see knowledge reduce in value. Increasing in value will be more intangible areas such as intuition, creativity, and empathy- right brain activities.

To survive in this new world you will need to reinvent yourself. You will need to be open to learning and development. Self directed learning is the new learning, although some have been doing this all their life. Self directed learning is as it states, directed by you. You will no longer sit waiting for your trainer or lecturer to tell you what you need to know. You will determine this. You will let your trainers and lecturers know what you want to learn and how you want to learn it. You will learn flexibly, online and voice to voice. You will plan out your learning supported by your coach. You will learn, change and grow.

Self directed learning is the way forward because its focus is on you. This is so much more empowering. Currently, many billion dollars are spent by corporations each year on training and consulting. Many studies have found that the returns on investment of these activities are very, very low. Organizations are looking to new ways of developing themselves. Coaching departments are being created in many top 500 Fortune companies. The results from coaching, as recorded so far, are great, creating a much higher return on investment.

Improving human performance is all about self directed learning. As an individual committed to personal development you decide what you want to learn and how you need to change or develop. A life coach can support you along this learning pathway. Part of self directed learning requires you to learn more about who you are and how you learn best. Keep a journal to document how you gather and generate information and ideas. Then create a plan and action steps. A life coach is a great asset to support you in this process.

Developing, changing and growing is a fun but challenging experience. To be successful you need to have a team supporting you. If you look back and observe a tough time in your life, did you have a support team there with you? Usually when we are going through difficult times we shut off all supports. We recoil and this in itself exacerbates the difficulty. To be successful in moving forward you need a support team. You need to know as much about yourself as possible, understanding what you believe in, what you value and how you learn. There are many ways and styles of learning.

Experiential Learning

In the past few decades, theories of “experiential learning” have entered the fields of business, management, and education. Life coaching also shares some of this philosophical basis. Put simply, experiential learning is based on the idea that we learn through doing, or as Chinese philosopher Confucius put it:

“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.”

In the early 1980?s, David Kolb, professor of organizational behavior at Weatherhead School of Management, developed a famous model of learning. Kolb’s theory is that learning occurs in a cycle that looks like this:

Kolb believes that adults learn by having an experience, then reflecting on that experience, coming up with new insights or ideas and then going out into the world to apply these new insights. Upon applying new insights, adults then have new experiences to learn from. In this way, learning goes on and on in an endless cycle.

Self Reflection

Learning Styles

Have you ever been to a high school reunion? If you have, you may have noticed that the people who went on to achieve success in their lives were often not necessarily the highest scholastic achievers. In fact, the history books are full of examples of high achievers who did poorly at school and hated the experience including Thomas Edison, Nelson Rockefeller, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson, Winston Churchill and General George Pattern. This is because schools have traditionally worked on the assumption that people all learn in the same way and those who can’t fit the pattern of the day, have had no option but frustration and failure, regardless of their skills and abilities. The success of the people cited above is testament to the fact that there is no one-way of learning. We all learn differently.

In 1987, Peter Honey and Alan Mumford built on the work of David Kolb by suggesting that, not only does learning occur in a cyclical fashion as Kolb suggested, but that different individuals feel more comfortable at different points of the cycle. Honey and Mumford identified four different preferences, or ways in which people prefer to learn, each related to a different stage of the learning cycle.

These preferred learning styles they called Activist, Reflector, Theorist and Pragmatist. They developed a questionnaire to help people determine which style they preferred.

I’ll continue next week with a short description of each learning style and how they apply to personal goals and human performance.

If you’d like to improve your performance, know how to set AND achieve personal goals my e-book, “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” will affect the way you think and act, so that you can live up to you ultimate personal power!

If you’d really like to make fast progress towards realizing your personal power and how you really can achieve your personal goals, request your Introductory Consultation today!

OK…what are your thoughts about learning, learning styles and how they affect your performance in life? Please let me know in the comments below.

Related articles

• Mental Strength and a Self Development Plan – Part II (warriormindcoach.com)