Learning to Change
by Andrew Bryant
Executive Coach and Leadership Trainer
I have just attended the International Federation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO) 2006 conference in Kuala Lumpur. At the conference I delivered a paper titled, 'Creating Lasting Behavioural Change' and I also had the opportunity to listen and talk with my fellow speakers on the topics of accelerated learning and people development.
Change, growth, transformation, improvement and innovation are the mantra of modern business. Human Resource Professionals, managers, trainers and coaches are paid to create change when existing behaviours don't deliver the desired success or a pre-existing set of expectations. Many methods and tools are used to promote behavioural change and yet humans often remain creatures of habit.
The paper I presented outlined one of the Neuro-Semantic approaches to change which has been successfully used by myself and the team at Self Leadership International to coach and train behavioural change in individuals, teams, managers and senior leaders. You can read the full paper by clicking here.
On the subject of accelerated learning I was pleased to hear confirmed, during a presentation by Dr Palin, my belief in the findings of cognitive science that the learner must:
- Be actively engaged
- Work in small groups
- Be asked questions
If, like me, you have sat through a boring lecture where the trainer or professor just talked at you, you will agree that there must be a better way. The truth is people only learn when they process the information.
Neurolinguistic Programming and Social Science teach us that people process in different ways and so we must create a learning environment that appeals to different styles.
Just recently I facilitated a two-day leadership retreat that included a CEO and nine VP's; needless to say there were different learning styles and different agendas. By including; games, questions, case studies, projects, discussions, demonstrations, fun and social time, the leadership team were able to come together and agree on concrete steps forward.
Unfortunately too many of today's educators still believe that it is all about content, there is a curriculum and they must get through it.
At Self Leadership International we have created a leader/manager development curriculum but we have also built in accelerated learning methodologies; an example of this is the Leadership Generator, a one evening two-day event that challenges a team of five managers from each company to learn to solve problems in a fun/competitive environment.
For more details on accelerated learning, management development or Leadership Generator contact zurina@selfleadership.com