Maximising Team Potential through Learning Styles
Author: Annie Page
February 3, 2025
I have taken this weeks article from a series of workshops I ran for England Athletic Coaches and sports coaches to help them understand how they can lead and coach through the different ways people have of learning. I have adapted it slightly for business leaders (you may want to get a cuppa as it’s a bit longer then normal and it is from the work of Honey and Mumford)
We are going to look at how we can get the best out of ourselves and our teams by understanding how we take in information and learn and I will be talking about leading – whoever you are, whatever level you are at you lead others. Leading is different from Managing. You need to be able to lead yourself and everyone has their own expertise and will therefore need to lead others at different times.
Why – To explore how recognising our own and other peoples preferred styles – can help us lead and work with them more effectively as we adapt our style for greater benefit.
What – We will be exploring and understanding the styles as defined by Honey and Mumford and how we can recognise and use them.
How – We will look at the traits of each individual style, what gets them into trouble and how to coach it and how you can make sure you are giving a fully rounded learning experience
So now let’s get on and do!
Have you ever considered how you learn? Do you prefer to listen to instructions before trying a new task or do you prefer to go straight into it, learning as you go along?
Peter Honey and Alan Mumford developed their learning styles system as a variation on David Kolb’s experiential learning theory in the 1970’s.
‘Having an Experience’ (stage 1), and Activists (style 1): ‘here and now’, gregarious, seek challenge and immediate experience, open-minded, bored with implementation. – DO
‘Reviewing the Experience’ (stage 2) and Reflectors (style 2): ‘stand back’, gather data, ponder and analyse, delay reaching conclusions, listen before speaking, thoughtful. – WHAT
‘Concluding from the Experience’ (stage 3) and Theorists (style 3): think things through in logical steps, assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories, rationally objective, reject subjectivity and flippancy. – WHY
‘Planning the next steps’ (stage 4) and Pragmatists (style 4): seek and try out new ideas, practical, down-to-earth, enjoy problem solving and decision-making quickly, bored with long discussions. – HOW
What we need to do as leaders is know where someone gets onto the model and therefore how we can engage them and encourage them to move round to get a full learning experience.
What do we do when we’re working with a team of mixed learning styles or we don’t know someone’s style
You need to be able to cover all the styles in a way that works for them and so when presenting information we don’t follow the learning styles in quite the same way.
Start with the Theorists – they need to know why they are doing something or you will loose them immediately.
Then is the What – give the reflectors a chance to understand the session and to make sense of it before they have to do anything.
The How comes next – the pragmatists will have been able to be patient up to this point but will want to know how the session is going to work before doing it.
Now do it – oh and by the way the Activists haven’t heard anything or very little! They will have been sitting their fidgeting or just going off to start!
This is why it is really important after the session to go back through the Why, What, How so everyone can pick up if they missed part of what you said (or all of it!) this means everyone is getting a fully rounded learning experience.
For more information on how you can recognise and use peoples learning styles to help them get the most out of work then give me a call.