The thing is, I really don’t want to write about anything that might identify or embarrass my major client, and that’s where I do all my thinking about organisational systems.
Which is a bit of a shame, really, because I’m doing a lot of really great work on organisational systems and I’d love to find a way to capture it and share it. I just can’t quite work out how to go about it. I know that people on my client site read this, which is fine, but it leaves me feeling that I have to be very careful what I write.
What do other people do about this?
Anyway, I did want to write about learning styles, which is only peripherally relevant to system design but is nonetheless interesting. It’s a train of thought that was kicked off by watching Patrick and Chris posting links to articles on Twitter.
I’ve worked with Patrick on and off since 2005 (full disclosure: I’ve also been going out with him for about half that time) and I’ve always been impressed with his research skills, his ability to track down the latest research and knowledge on a given topic. It’s the Gallup strength of Input; collecting and synthesising external content. * Chris does the same. She’s always sending me articles that should interest me – about positive psychology, strengths, organisational systems, ways of learning and growing – and I’m always failing to read them. And, most influentially, my brilliant father does it – he’s always been the ur-repository of data in our family, and what he doesn’t know ain’t worth knowing.
I don’t work that way. The articles bore me, and I don’t retain the data. I can do it if I want to – the bibliography in my M.Sc. dissertation ran to sixteen densely-written pages – but it’s not my favourite way of working and it’s not how I do my best work.
I’m plagued with a perpetual sense of inadequacy about this. I’m often convinced that I would be infinitely more productive if I read all these articles, if I spent time trawling the Internet for them myself, if I used Twitter to further my professional interests rather than tweeting about my wardrobe and my cats.
Actually that’s really not true.
I’m not practising what I preach here. If I coached someone who said to me ‘I ought to learn through reading and I don’t', I would not say ‘let’s explore ways in which you could get better at this’. Instead, I would say ‘maybe that’s not where your strength lies. Let’s talk about how you learn most effectively, how you have most fun learning, and let’s explore ways in which you can do more of that.’ I’m a great believer in working with the grain rather than against it.
Of course, we always treat ourselves differently from the way we treat others – both favourably and unkindly – and that’s a whole ‘nother post. But it’s good for me to remember that actually there are a lot of ways to learn.
I learn through practice. It’s odd, because I’ve got an incredibly academic background and CV, so it looks like I learn theoretically. But actually I only learn by doing. I’m highly kinaesthetic (that’s a whole ‘nother post as well, one I’ve been promising for about two and a half years) and chucking visual or auditory data at me is a bit of a waste of time. In college, I was very distressed by my inability to understand any of the lectures, because I didn’t know anything about any of this stuff. I just thought I was stupid. But in my final year, when I’d run out of time and had to study, I discovered that I could cover a lot of ground in a short space of time just by doing problems.
I learn through talking to clients and colleagues, through designing solutions and project plans, through writing papers and running workshops and reviewing others’ work. I learn experientially. I learn practically. I don’t learn through reading. I don’t learn from research. I don’t learn through theory – although I know a lot about what I do, I find it hard to describe what I know. I just know how to do my job, and, somehow, I learn how to get better and better at it.
I believe that there are many different ways of learning. I think the work that’s been done on learning styles is not great, but it’s a useful place to start. I don’t buy their model but I like that it allows different ways to learn. And just asking some basic questions about learning is valuable. When have I learned best in the past? What was I doing? What were other people doing? When have I been excited about learning?
And it’s valuable to be positive about difference. No, I can’t do what Patrick and Chris can do, but I can do other stuff that they can’t. It’s up to me whether I pay attention to what I’m good at or where I’m lacking. And it’s up to me whether I pay attention to trying to be like someone else, or to being myself.
* Incidentally, the reason that I am extremely sceptical about the Gallup StrengthsFinder is that they claim that Input is one of my strengths. This is because their questionnaire asks lots of questions about how much people read, and I tell them that I read constantly. Which is true. But I read detective novels.
October 4, 2009 at 11:41 am |
I wonder if your approach and the Patrick/Chris approach are more similar than the ‘learning styles’ approach would suggest.
One way of looking at learning is to see it as chunking up the world into patterns. Then, in order to test these patterns we run our own limited-run mental Monte Carlo simulations and work through the permutations.
One way of working through the permutations is to play or to ‘experience’. Another is to read. A lot.
The ‘a lot’ is the key, though. I don’t think anybody truly learns from reading as such. The only difference between the player and the reader is that the reader has effectively ‘outsourced’ their playing (experience) to a number of authors – hence the ‘a lot’ being so crucial.
In both cases, we’re doing the same, playing with the permutations and seeing where it breaks, where it bends; discovering a structure.
I’m not sure whether learning styles is an indicator of a fundamental difference between us or one of process. Having said that, I guess that’s what ‘style’ means. . .
You’re right about the weakness of the various Learning Styles inventories. The fact that some of them are proprietary is a clue, perhaps. Copyright is rarely conducive to rigour.
But there are two lessons we can learn from them. When we’re working for ourselves, we should probably go with what suits us best. But when we’re designing systems or communicating to groups, we have to push as many learning-style buttons as we can.
That would make a fairly accurate summary of most Change Management textbooks. And is probably all that most teachers (in the widest sense of the word) need to know.
[Incidentally, I came to this page through one of Chris' recommendations. Unlike you, I read nearly ALL the things she points to. One of the reason I like blogs so much is that they're short, they're human (great for outsourcing perspective and experience) and you can play - by leaving, possibly tangential, comments.]
October 4, 2009 at 4:48 pm |
when we’re working for ourselves, we should probably go with what suits us best. But when we’re designing systems or communicating to groups, we have to push as many learning-style buttons as we can.
Oh, yes. Very nicely put.
I’m still thinking about the Monte Carlo simulation thing – not completely convinced. I think there are different kinds of learning, and I also think that this is more abstract than the way I learn (although the way that I think is very abstract indeed). I think that for me, learning is a very practical thing.
October 4, 2009 at 12:38 pm |
Don’t underestimate the amount of learning that comes from reading detective novels. I have learned loads of things from Dick Francis over the years.
I’m not sure how I learn. Not from listening, definitely. When I was doing maths/physics type things, I learned like you, by doing problems. I sort of think that’s the only way to learn that stuff, though perhaps that’s just assuming Everyone Is Like Me. But now I’m learning the kind of thing that doesn’t really work that way. I do learn a lot from having conversations that make me articulate what I think and challenge me with questions I haven’t thought of before. I also do quite a lot of learning by chance – odd things that set of trains of thought in new ways.
October 4, 2009 at 2:29 pm |
I frequently notice yet another item on the Everything I Learned (About Life I Learned) From Detective Novels list.
Listening is not my best skill either, though oddly I do like the radio and do pick up odd bits of information from it. And I’ve discovered that if I’m truly interested in the subject I can concentrate during lectures. I think reading and doing both work for me.
October 4, 2009 at 4:52 pm |
This is an interesting one. I had a reaction to “Listening is not my best skill either” and it got me thinking about what I’m doing when I’m coaching or counselling. I’m listening, but I’m listening on some more abstract level than taking in data. This is going to sound New Age, but I think I’m picking up energy flows. Sometimes I hear all the data that is spoken, but sometimes I hear none of it, and the latter doesn’t appear to inhibit my ability to help people. But I wouldn’t describe it as learning. It’s much more channelling.
October 4, 2009 at 8:37 pm |
Also listening to one person is very different from listening to a lecturer, and a lot of communication flows through body language, for example, as well as words.
October 4, 2009 at 4:50 pm |
What have you learned from Dick Francis? I adore Dick Francis, but don’t think of the books as a repository of data.
October 4, 2009 at 5:08 pm |
How to make a bomb. How to blow glass. How to negotiate with kidnappers.
Okay, these are not things I need to know on an everyday basis, but I feel a better person for knowing them.
October 4, 2009 at 12:51 pm |
Funnily enough, I have been meaning to write about learning styles too – though not in the context of strengths.
I think a lot of the work looking at learning styles is pretty flawed (can’t think what just now…) – the work is often done to support the researchers’ views rather than the other way around, and the classifications often mean that it is hard or impossible to compare research. A lot of it has been discredited. (Give me a while and I’ll find you a reference…)
Thing is, everyone learns in different ways, and the most common way is learning by doing, I would guess – it is just that most people aren’t aware that they are learning. People often think they stop learning when they leave formal education, when in fact they carry on learning.
Sorry, warbling now… I’ll come back to this, or write a post in response, or …
October 4, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
I’d love to read your thoughts on this.
(Give me a while and I’ll find you a reference…)
Are you sure you mean warbling?
October 8, 2009 at 7:44 pm |
Francesca, just stumbled on your post. I’ve written a bit about my own understanding of Learning Styles recently – referenced to the most recent, relevant work. Perhaps it might interest you?
http://edgeofstretch.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/learning-styles/
Not spamming! ;o)
Would be interested in your thoughts.
October 9, 2009 at 12:37 pm |
I am quite sure you are not a spammer.
But I am entertained that your response to a post about the fact that I don’t read is ‘come read this’.
I’m still more entertained by the fact that Chris has read and is retweeting your post.