Being aware of the way you learn could help you make more money

Some of you may have heard of a couple of guys called, Peter Honey and Alan Mumford - they devised a questionnaire that you may find useful when considering your approach to IM and even product development.

It's all about learning styles.

Let's jump right in and give you a sneak peek. Their questionnaire is 80 questions long, but here's a lite version that's useful for our discussion:

Tick all the unshaded boxes that you strongly agree with and tot up your score for each attribute. (Probably better off printing the image so you CAN actually tick the thing!)



You'll more than likely find that you're dominant in one area. Here's a brief run down of their definitions.

Activist - Activists are those people who learn by doing. Activists need to get their hands dirty, to dive in with both feet first. Have an open-minded approach to learning, involving themselves fully and without bias in new experiences. However, the activist is not a good completer as they get bored quickly and want to move on to the next thing.

Theorist - These learners like to understand the theory behind the actions. They need models, concepts and facts in order to engage in the learning process. Prefer to analyse and synthesise, drawing new information into a systematic and logical 'theory'. Theorists can be great at setting up systems and testing and tracking, but would be less likely to try new, unproven models.

Reflector - These people learn by observing and thinking about what happened. They may avoid leaping in and prefer to watch from the sidelines. Prefer to stand back and view experiences from a number of different perspectives, collecting data and taking the time to work towards an appropriate conclusion. Getting a reflector to take action can be a challenge.

Pragmatist - These people need to be able to see how to put the learning into practice in the real world. Abstract concepts and games are of limited use unless they can see a way to put the ideas into action in their lives. Experimenters, trying out new ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work.

There are no right or wrong answers here. But there ARE lessons that can be learned. You'll notice that each trait has both useful and not so useful aspects. I hope you can appreciate that developing some of these aspects will help you become a better business person.

So here's the interesting thing. Whatever your dominant trait, you CAN learn to shift a little and 'borrow' from the other categories.

I have a slight dominance as an Reflector, and it's closely followed by Activist. Pragmatism and Theorising come a joint fourth. I could do with working on my Theorist side, so I can get the systems in place and be more pragmatic more often so I can just get the job done.

That's me today. I first did the full version some 15 or so years ago. I was a lot more pragmatic then but my Activist score has always been high.

This is an over simplification of the questionnaire, but I hope you get the point.

So what are you and what area do you need to work on?

This model is not the only learning styles model, and it has its flaws, but I figured it might be useful to some folk.

More info on this from Peter Honey Publications (Honey and Mumford)

Peter