As you coach your employees to develop their skills or improve their performance, you can set them up for success by understanding how they learn best and adjusting your methods accordingly. They may prefer learning through intense experience, sustained reflection, analytical thinking, goal-directed action, or a combination of approaches (the basic steps in what we call the Experiential Learning Cycle—see figure 11-1). By tapping into their preferred styles, you will engage them more deeply and motivate them. As a result, they’ll make greater—and faster—progress toward their goals.
FIGURE 11-1
If the benefits of customized coaching are so clear, why don’t more managers do it? Largely because we tend to favor our own learning preferences when we teach others (see table 11-1). We assume that what works for us will work for everyone else, but that’s just not the case.
Take Marie, a vice president of operations for a national manufacturing company. She had a quick, decisive learning style—and struggled to coach direct reports whose styles differed from hers. Rather than let them take the lead, she jumped in to help them solve each challenge as soon as they encountered it. Things got done her way, but people weren’t really learning—and she became frustrated with their lack of growth.
TABLE 11-1
But then she recognized how she’d contributed to the problem: She hadn’t allowed people to take enough responsibility for their own development, nor had she considered their approaches to learning. She turned the situation around by taking the time to identify her employees’ learning styles and changing her coaching tactics to suit them.
When coaching Tyler, for example, Marie discovered through observation and conversations with him that his preferred style was Experiencing, or learning through feelings and relationships. (See the following section “What Are Your Employees’ Learning Styles?” for more on recognizing preferences.) So she resisted the urge to set goals and take action right away, as she usually did. Instead, she connected with him emotionally first, asking how he felt about his team’s relationships and revealing her own feelings about working on a team, which conveyed her support and established trust.
One of Tyler’s goals was to overcome his fear of difficult conversations and handle them better. Together, he and Marie identified a way of conquering that fear: organizing his thoughts before trying to communicate them. Tyler then practiced by role-playing with Marie. (He felt comfortable doing so because of the personal connection they had established.) Because the learning process reflected his style, he became more invested in it—and his skills improved each time he practiced.
Personality type, education, and cultural background all influence learning preferences. And once someone finds success with a certain style, she’ll continue to rely on it, reinforcing the preference.
Here are the nine learning styles you may recognize in members of your team and the coaching tactics that complement them:
Do any of your direct reports, like Tyler, learn best through feelings and relationships (Experiencing or Imagining)? Which ones prefer watching role models from a safe distance and emulating their behavior (Reflecting)? Which are comfortable with trial and error (Initiating or Acting)? To find out, try asking employees whether they generally gravitate toward feeling, watching, thinking, or acting—and map their answers to the learning styles defined above.
But that’s just a start. (You’ll probably get uneven responses—many people haven’t even thought about their learning preferences and may struggle to articulate them.) So add your own observations to the mix: What appears to interest and motivate each employee? Knowing that can shed light on learning preferences. For example, an employee who always emerges from your group’s annual strategy off-site with renewed enthusiasm, rallying others to support the mission and business model, is likely to have an Initiating style. By contrast, someone who avoids deliberating but digs into every task with energy and commitment probably has an Acting style of learning.
Language cues can also be telling: Note whether employees favor expressions of feeling, believing, thinking, or doing. Someone who often talks in emotional-relational terms (“I loved the discussion we had” or “The financials are making me anxious”) probably focuses on feelings and learns by Experiencing rather than Thinking or Deciding.
Knowing how people like to learn will accelerate their overall development—but using only their preferred styles won’t help them tackle every challenge they face. They’ll often need to try out new styles to meet their goals.
Consider Alex, an accountant who has been promoted to lead his department. His primary learning style is Analyzing; he also relies on Thinking and Deciding, though to a lesser extent. This approach has served him well as an individual contributor. But to thrive in his new leader ship position, he’ll need to expand his repertoire of backup styles to include Initiating, Experiencing, and Imagining.
Now suppose you are his manager. You can help him experiment with these learning styles and strengthen his use of them through practice. Ask him to facilitate a brainstorming session, for instance, to become better at Imagining as he envisions new possibilities for the group. Develop his capacity for Initiating by assigning him to a cross-functional project, where his success will depend in part on his ability to influence people who don’t report to him. Work with him to build key relationships so he’ll spend more time Experiencing—introduce him to colleagues whose styles differ from (and complement) his. During your regular check-ins, talk about these experiments in order to make the learning explicit and deliberate. Ask him what he’s enjoying and what he finds challenging. See what lessons he can tease out on his own; if he struggles to do that, refer him back to the Learning Cycle—remind him which styles will help him succeed as a department head.
As he’s trying out new styles, however, you will still want to use data, frameworks, theories, and goal setting to motivate him, given his natural preference for Analyzing, Thinking, and Deciding. To get him to sharpen his networking skills, for instance, make the interpersonal challenge more appealing to him by enhancing it with analysis: Ask him to map out his current network and identify which people’s functions and expertise will help him most in his new role.
To do everything we’re suggesting, you’ll need to really know your employees—talk to them, observe them, analyze them, ask colleagues about them. Since individuals’ learning preferences are so deeply ingrained, your coaching will be more efficient and fruitful if you meet people where they are in the Learning Cycle. Yet it’s equally important to recognize when their styles aren’t panning out. By playing to their preferences—while also encouraging them to become more flexible—you’ll help them discover and reach their potential.
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David A. Kolb, a psychologist and educational theorist, is the founder of Experience Based Learning Systems and a professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University. His renowned Kolb Learning Style Inventory is outlined briefly in this chapter. Kay Peterson, a principal at Learning Partners Group, is an organizational development consultant and coach specializing in experiential learning and learning-style flexibility.