FREE online courses on CRM - Developing People-The Key To Success - Your
People - Learn
How People Learn
The valuable lessons of life
are learnt by experience. “ Serves
you right!” is the remark that a
naughty child hears when the bottle of sweets, on the shelf it is scrambling up
on a chair to reach, crashes to the floor. Lessons are deeply scored in its
brain for life! We also have the capacity to learn vicariously… from other
people's experiences, that's why biographies sell.
It is important to develop people by allowing
them to make the mistakes that let them to learn their own lessons. It requires
judgment and timing… and commitment to staff development. Learning is a totally
self-generated activity. It must be seen as consistent with organizational
goals. Learning (and
problem-solving) can be seen as a cyclical process of continuing and overlapping
activities:
Concrete experience
Plan and experiment Review & reflect
Conclude & conceptualize
There has to be balanced use of all four in order to benefit from
the process. The best compromise, especially where
there is little leeway for job-content modification, is to delegate according to
natural tendency, e.g. the ‘theorist' gets the job of researching product
specifications.
Getting down to the task of tackling ‘neglected' areas of the cycle means patience and gradually
easing someone into ‘contrary' or ‘against current' areas, but it's unavoidable
for development. Increased exposure to ‘neglected' areas will be important.
Regular progress review and feedback, as usual, play an
important role in the learning process.
QUESTIONS:
1. How do people learn?
What are the compulsions / processes?
2. What has learning theory concerning
humans to do with delegation? Explain various aspects of the situation, giving
examples to illustrate your answer.
