Learning Styles

Challenge in becoming an effective coach is to adapt your coaching style so that it is consistent with the other person's learning style. There are many different ways of looking at learning style but probably the best to use in workplace coaching is the model developed by Peter Honey and Alan Mumford. In the Honey and Mumford model there are four learning styles.

1. Activists

2. Reflectors

3. Theorist

4. Pragmatists

Activists :A preference for hands on learning by doing. Activists tend to have a high energy and low attention span so it is best to provide them with information in bits size chunks. They will be itching to get on and have a go. While trying to accommodate this learning style, you also need to make sure they don't run before they can walk. Because of this, its particularly important to check the output of activist learners at early stages of their development.

Reflectors : Reflective learners are almost the opposite of activist learners. They like to have time to absorb information and reflect on it before taking actions. And after they have taken actions, their preference is to think carefully about what they have done before drawing conclusions. Unlike activists, reflectors tend to produce very accurate work which is often right first time around.

Theorists: Those with a preference for theorist learning style tend to be very objective, non-emotional learners. They are interested in collecting the facts, organizing those facts into a logical sequences and then applying this knowledge in methodical manner. Context is very important to a theorist learner. If they don't know whey they are doing something and where it fits in with other tasks, they will become very frustrated.

Pragmatists : This style is primarily based around practical application. They will tend to discard irrelevant or background information and only retain that which they can apply. Abstract learning does not appeal to pragmatists,who are primarily focused on what to do and how to do it. The pragmatist leaning style is often best satisfied when faced with problem solving or innovations.

Application of Learning Style :

The biggest obstacle for leader to overcome when coaching other is to try to catch in a way that fist their learning style rather than your own. It is the flexibility's that is the key here and being able to coach the same thing in a variety of different ways is a challenge. One of the best ways to develop this variety is to engage your staff in dialogue about their proffered learning style and encourage them to let you know what works for them and what doesn't. The other options is to look at their reactions when you are coaching them When do they appear to be in their element and when do they look uncomfortable ?

Also Read : Development and Coaching

Overview of Coaching Cyle

The basic component and steps are 

1. Tell
2. Show
3. Practice
4. Monitor and observe
5. Provide Constructive Feedback.

The coaching cycle starts with telling what needs to be done, how it need to be done and why it needs to be done. This is knowledge transfer and can also be accomplished by utilizing the other knowledge sources discussed. 

Showing the individual how it should be done, in particularly relevant skills ( e.g preparing some database on computer) and is normally handled by the coach or an expert within the team although some demonstrations are also possible on training courses.

The next stage is for the individual to be provided with opportunity to practise, ideally lost of opportunity to practise. This practice to be monitored and observed by the coach and judgement need to be made as to the right time to make an intervention. The intervention requires the use of constructive feedback so that the individual learns from what they are doing right, what needs to be improved and how this needs to be improved.

As a result of the feedback intervention, the individual might need to be given additional knowledge, provide further demonstrations or most commonly, provided with additional opportunities to practice. The cycle then repeats itself until the person reaches a competency level. i.e some where close to level 3 competency. ) Where they can be allowed to practice independently. Once this level has been attained, the coach is able to adopt a supporting role by helping the individual when they encounter problems of unsafeness or complexity previously not experienced.

Suggestions on Feedback Discussion :
If a feedback discussion is going to be significant, perhaps covering a substantial piece of work, you should try using the AIDA Model to give your discussion structure.

• A: Actions : What did you do ?
• I : Impact : What happened as a result of those actions ?
• D : Desired Outcome : How does that compare to what was supposed to happen
• A : Actions : What do you need to do differently ?

Apart from helping to give some structure to feedback discussion, it also encourage most of the information to come from the person being coached. Your role as a coach is to facilitate the discussion and fill in the gaps when the trainee is not able to come up with their own answers or solutions.

Also Read : Learning Styles