2. A Learning Quote…
Erich Hoffer said…
“In times of change learners inherit the earth while the
learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world
that no longer exists!”
3. Adaptiveness…
We live in volatile, uncertain, complex and
ambiguous (VUCA) times… and the ability to
learn and adapt is more valuable than it ever has
been.
Which raises the question… What did you learn
this week?
4. Learning is Essential
If you search the internet you will find thousands of definitions of
“learning as a process”, here is one I like....
‘A person is said to have learnt when they have increased their
options for applying, to a specific set of circumstances, new or
different behaviour which they believe will be to their benefit.’
Whilst the definition is a little “wordy” (certainly for a traditional
powerpoint slide!) There are some important linguistics contained
within it….
5. The phrase: ‘increased their options’, highlights the concept of
“choice to apply learning or not”, since learning is not always
immediately followed by an observable behaviour shift and can quite
often be stored for future use.
This definition also presupposes that in order to learn we require the
ability to:
sense what is going on in our environment;
assess whether our response to an event is beneficial or harmful;
remember the event, our response and the consequences;
respond in future with a different behaviour.
6. Competence Ladder
This traditional and intuitive approach considers “learning levels” for individual skills. It is also a
reassuring and helpful approach to managing any emotional highs and lows that can accompany
the learning process. The concept of the ladder is that we move gradually from unconscious
incompetence through to conscious competence as follows...
Level 1 – You Don’t Know that you Don’t Know At this level you are blissfully ignorant: You have
a complete lack of knowledge and skills in the subject in question. On top of this, you are unaware
of this lack of skill, and your confidence may therefore far exceed your abilities.
Level 2 – You Know that you Don’t Know At this level you find that there are skills you need to
learn, and you may be shocked to discover that there are others who are much more competent
than you. As you realise that your ability is limited, your confidence can drop. And this can create an
uncomfortable period as you learn these new skills when others are much more competent and
successful than you are.
Level 3 – You Know that you Know At this level you acquire the new skills and knowledge. You
put your learning into practice and you gain confidence in carrying out the tasks or jobs involved.
You are aware of your new skills and work on refining them. You are still concentrating on the
performance of these activities, but as you get ever-more practice and experience, these become
increasingly automatic.
Level 4 - You Don’t Know that You Know – It Just Seems Easy! At this level your new skills
become habits, and you perform the task without conscious effort and with automatic ease.
This is the peak of your confidence and ability.
Level 4:
Unconscious
Competence
Level 3:
Conscious
Competence
Level 2:
Conscious
Incompetence
Level 1:
Unconscious
Incompetence
7. Climbing the Ladder
Unconscious Incompetence: At the beginning of the learning process, remember you may be
unaware of your lack of competence, avoid assumptions regarding the complexity of tasks, ask
questions and get feedback to understand what and how much you need to learn.
Conscious Incompetence: During this stage, you’ll need plenty of encouragement, both self
motivation and from others. Accept that you will make mistakes and learn from them, ask for
guidance and support where needed. Record and celebrate small successes, to highlight how
much you are improving.
Conscious Competence: Focus on effectively performing the task and don’t give up at this point.
Seek out plenty of opportunities for practice, persevere don’t settle for a mediocre competence
level.
Unconscious Competence: Although this is the ideal state, aim to avoid complacency, and stay
abreast of changes within your field of expertise to avoid out-dated thinking. Tolerate those less
competent than yourself and seek opportunities to share your expertise (this will refine your skills
even further).
8. Steps Activity
Now consider a skill you wish to master – it may even be “the ability to effectively learn”, begin to
identify where on your development journey you are for this particular skill (which level of the
ladder).
Noticing where you currently are, identify what support you may need from others and what you
may need to do yourself to create and maintain motivation (it may help to write this down.
Think back to the initial definition of learning above and more specifically the “learner needs” asking
yourself the following –
Are you aware of the environments you perform this skill within and how each context helps or
hinders you.
Do you know if your actions and responses are appropriate and helpful to you achieving
success in this arena or not?
How willing and able are you to review previous and ongoing performance and consequences
in this field in order to adapt future actions and deliver a different result?
Once you know where you are on your learning journey and have considered and put in place your
learner needs, it may be useful to explore your preferred approach to learning to underpin any plan
and activities you put in place to develop this skill.
9. Traditional Learning Theory
There is no best way to learn; everyone has
their own individual preferences, influenced by a
number of factors.
It can be useful to be informed by how you
learn best, but also to experiment with a variety
of approaches to learning.
There are four phases in adult learning, your
preferred learning style (PLS) affects the point
you enter the learning cycle.
KOLB
Learning
Cycle
Experiencing
Testing
Theorising
Reflection
10. How Do You Learn?
The last time you bought some IT equipment....
Did you take out the instructions and read them from front to back
before doing anything with it (understanding the theory)?
Did you read some key instructions to check how to switch it on, try it,
see if it worked, then move on to some of the functions (putting it to
the test)?
Did you start by plugging it in and pressing a few buttons to see how it
worked without looking at the instructions (experiencing)?
Did you recall the last time you did something like this, and use that
reflection to tackle this item (reviewing your experiences)?
Or maybe it was a combination of a couple?
11. Assess Your Learning Style
1. I often take reasonable risks, if I feel it justified
2. I tend to solve problems using a step by step approach, avoiding any fanciful ideas
3. I have a reputation for having a no-nonsense direct style
4. I often find that actions based on feelings are as sound as those based on careful thought and analysis
5. The key factor in judging a proposed idea or solution is whether it works in practice or not
6. When I hear about a new idea or approach I like to start working out how to apply it in practice as soon as
possible
7. I like to follow a self-disciplined approach, establish clear routines and logical thinking patterns
8. I take pride in doing a thorough, methodical job
9. I get on best with logical, analytical people, and less well with spontaneous, ‘irrational’ people
10.I take care over the interpretation of data available to me, and avoid jumping to conclusions
11.I like to reach a decision carefully after weighing up many alternatives
12.I’m attracted more to new, unusual ideas than to practical ones
13.I dislike situations that I cannot fit into a coherent pattern
14.I like to relate my actions to a general principle
15.In meetings I have a reputation for going straight to the point, no matter what others feel
16.I prefer to have as many sources of information as possible – the more the better
17.Flippant people who don’t take things seriously enough usually irritate me
18.I prefer to respond to events on a spontaneous, flexible basis rather than plan things out in advance
19.I dislike very much having to present my conclusions under the time pressures of tight deadlines, when I could
have spent more time thinking about the problem
20.I usually judge other people’s ideas principally on their practical merits
12. 21. I often get irritated by people who want to rush headlong into things
22. The present is much more important than thinking about the past or future
23. I think that decisions based on a thorough analysis of all the information are sounder than those based on
intuition
24. In meetings I enjoy contributing ideas to the group, just as they occur to me
25. On balance I tend to talk more than I should and ought to develop my listening skills
26. In meetings I get very impatient with people who lose sight of the objectives
27. I enjoy communicating my ideas and opinions to others
28. People in meetings should be realistic, keep to the point, and avoid indulging in fancy ideas and speculations
29. I like to ponder many alternatives before making up my mind
30. Considering the way my colleagues react in meetings, I reckon on the whole I am more objective and
unemotional
31. At meetings I’m more likely to keep in the background than to take the lead and do most of the talking
32. On balance I prefer to do the listening than the talking
33. Most of the time I believe the end justifies the means
34. Reaching the group’s objectives and targets should take precedence over individual feelings and objections
35. I do whatever seems necessary to get the job done
36. I quickly get bored with methodical, detailed work
37. I am keen on exploring the basic assumptions, principles and theories underpinning things and events
38. I like meetings to be run on methodical lines, sticking to laid-down agendas
39. I steer clear of subjective and ambiguous topics
40. I enjoy the drama and excitement of a crisis
13. Preferred Learning Style
Use the Score Chart to record your questionnaire answers, enter only ticks against relevant questions (ignore
crosses). Add up the number of ticks in each column, then double it, and write the total score at the bottom.
Once you have your four scores, circle them on the preference weighting chart.
14. Learning Style Overview
Preference is only a very small part of your personality. The following overviews should inform not limit your
learning options, since it helps to experience a wide range of learning approaches
15. Memory
Primacy, Recency and Frequency
These are three key factors in learning effectively.
Primacy and Recency relate to the fact that we tend to remember the
first and last elements of any learning experience – hence it pays to
“chunk” your development into bitesize pieces – less opportunity for
valuable learning to be “lost in the middle”! This chunking process
also works well due to our limited attention spans.
Frequency relates to the fact that repetition strengthens our retention
of learning. This is a physical phenomenon where neural pathways in
our brains literally form and are reinforced each time we revisit some
learning. Interesting fact – did you know that London cabbies when
learning “the knowledge” (which can take years), can show a physical
brain size increase of up to 10%!
How often do you revisit important learning points?
16. Unfinished Business
This is something I use a lot in coaching and training and it is something I was first exposed to via
with Pegasus NLP in 2002. It is hugely powerful in the learning process and uses the unconscious
mind to make sense of ambiguity.
We undervalue the power of our unconscious – it is for example currently running and regulating all
the key systems within your body to keep you alive. How much are you concentrating right now for
example on your breathing (ok maybe you are now, but I’d guess you weren’t previously), what
about your awareness of the position of your left foot?
A phenomena known as the “zeigarnik effect” might be - when you can’t remember the name of an
actor in a film and by simply “forgetting about it” or “sleeping on it” – ZAP the name comes to you
from out of nowhere (if you didn’t Google / IMDB check it in the meantime!) It is almost by “not
thinking” we allow our unconscious to make sense of things. In learning by leaving open loops
(unfinished business), we can often allow our minds to take the learning further than had we boxed
the learning in and ticked it off as “done” or “complete”.
Open loop learning encourages revisiting and therefore reinforces our learning. So next time you
are learning something, consider this... it might be “ok not have ALL the answers right now”.
17. NLP + Learning - Principles
Two NLP principles that link directly to learning
“There is no failure only feedback” - how many times do you think Edison “failed”
before he made the light bulb? When learning any new skills or behaviour it is hugely
useful to know that successes and perceived failures are all helpful in moving you
towards your goal.
I was lucky enough to hear Sir Clive Woodward speak at an event about how he
coached the England Rugby team through one of their most successful periods in
history. He talked about the fact that in the review of each game EQUAL weighting was
placed on what seemed to have worked as was placed on what seemed to “go wrong”.
This balanced approach enabled an objective and generative appraisal of each game
resulting in extraction of insights into how to be even better next time! How often do
you “focus on the negative”, how can you reframe your experience as an opportunity to
learn?
“If one person can do something anybody can” - this links to the ability we have as
human beings to model each other, learn and adapt. It is one of the key principles that
began the study of NLP. How empowering is it know that we all have within our grasp
the potential to succeed at pretty much anything which is within our physiological limits!
NB - An NLP principle is an “assumption”, forming a foundation to the study and
practice of NLP.
18. NLP – Mind / Body
The VAK Factor
Any learning experience will be enriched by making it multi-sensory.
Could you learn to ballroom dance simply by reading a book or watching
somebody - quite a visual experience and useful!!! Indeed this document
is limited on the number of pictures it includes and could benefit from
more.
How about if you had a telephone conversation and someone told you all
their top tips - very auditory, but limiting!
How about getting on a dance-floor and having a go - very kinaesthetic!
A combination could provide a rich foundation for progress. This
highlights why effective learning requires a mix of approaches this is also
where the idea of “blended learning” came from.
19. And Finally…
Full circle to the initial description of learning and “choice to
apply it or not”.
Three factors evident in effective learning are as follows...
Induction (absorbing the knowledge, skills and behaviours in
whichever way suits),
Deduction (making personal meaning, links and connections for
yourself),
Abduction (taking your new found capability and applying it in a
number of contexts with ongoing review and refinement).
So maybe my initial question should have been... “What have
you / I learnt and applied this week?”
20. Learning Support
The models in this presentation provide an introduction to
a few of many…
For more support to sharpen your approach to learning
please contact….
Lizzi@goingcoastal.blue
