Menu

Kolb's learning cycle. Examples. David Kolb's cycle in life

Pregnancy

For those who are engaged in training and study at trainings

About the effectiveness of trainings

Thoughts about why, despite the huge number of products on the business education market, very little changes at the enterprises themselves, are depressing. After all, managers are regularly sent to various trainings and seminars. And it is these people who are responsible for the formation of production culture. And when observing companies, one trend is clearly visible. Changes occur where two basic principles are observed: work with people is carried out systematically, and managers are trained by practitioners who have themselves achieved results in management.

I don’t want to once again throw stones at the coaches. Most likely, their fault for the low effectiveness of training is not so great. That's how they were taught. Much more harm is caused by an inconsistent methodological base and the associated misunderstanding of the learning process for adults. That is, in essence, the lack of a sufficient number of professional methodologists. And the lack of the necessary worldview among trainers who work according to standard programs. Managerial.

Managers are all trained in very similar tools. Some do it better, some worse. Some have a stronger methodological base, some have a weaker one. However, when the teacher is taught by a manager who himself has gone through managing a department, putting people under control, firing employees, raising successors and all the other joys of managerial life, the learning results are much higher. Even if this manager has less training in conducting training than a girl with a psychology degree who has a bunch of certificates from various business schools.

The Kolb cycle in executive education practice

The solution to the low effectiveness of management training is simple. It can be easily obtained using one of the most popular theories regarding adult learning - the Kolb cycle. Just in case, let me remind you of its stages:

  1. Concrete experience (Availability of concrete experience)
  2. Observation of and reflection on that experience (Review and analysis of existing experience)
  3. Formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection (Formation of a new theoretical concept)
  4. Testing the new concepts (Testing a new concept).

Kolb - Having concrete experience

If the education of children in the first stages is based on transferring knowledge to them “in reserve” and only then moves into the practical plane, then education of adults is necessary so that they change their approach to what they are already doing. Thus, firstly, it is almost impossible to teach a person something that has not been in his experience (You can prepare for situations in which he has not yet found himself, but this is a completely different training). Therefore, I always warn that there is no point in studying in management training for those who have less than three months of management experience. And secondly, the one who teaches must have experience similar to the experience of the students. If it is not there, then the teacher will simply have nothing to catch on.

What situations will he talk about if he has never seen the faces with which subordinates come to their leader, and what reasons do they give to justify their mistakes? Or if he never reported to his own boss about problems or achievements? He has no choice but to use other people's stories about it or fictitious ones. And people instantly feel falseness and incompetence. And it’s impossible for someone who has studied management interactions only in theory to go into details. In his experience, these nuances simply do not exist.

Kolb - Consideration and analysis of existing experience

What do coaches do to fill their own gaps? They use a game (case or exercise) in which they think people will activate their experience. However, being far from their workplace, and even in an environment that assumes much less responsibility for their own decisions and actions, the participants begin to play carefree. And they do not use their real experience, but often those models of behavior that they, on the contrary, cannot apply in real life. So, in this game, not experience, but potential is updated. This is probably why I often hear from coaches that “the boss there is completely useless, but one young employee gives them all a head start.” After all, the coach observes both the boss and the young employee in game reality, when money, plans and jobs do not depend on the decision. And in this environment, the boss uses the training time to relax and not make decisions. A young employee, on the contrary, does what he is not allowed to do during working hours.

Of course, you can also benefit from such cases. But to do this, you need to know the nuances of people’s behavior outside of training. And here we again return to the managerial experience of the coach.

Trainers who come to my management programs are often disappointed. After reading the reviews of the participants, they expect that they will now learn some new exercises. After all, they don’t come to learn how to lead, but to borrow something for their programs (by the way, I’m all for it). However, in the first part of the training there is simply no vigorous activity observed: we discuss various practical situations with the participants. That's what we're discussing. We don’t play games, we don’t throw balls to each other, we don’t draw presentations. And coaches often simply do not understand that the first stages of the Kolb cycle are launched precisely at the moment when the usual conversation about managerial everyday life takes place. After all, at this time the leaders are experiencing the existing experience. And they analyze it. Well, trainers who do not have this experience simply sit and wait for the training to begin. (By the way, this is a real phrase of several trainers: “I’m waiting for the conversations to end and the training to begin.” They usually say it at lunch on the first day of training).

Kolb - Formation of a new theoretical concept

At the next stage of the Flask cycle, a new thinking model must be formed. That is, a new theory is not just studied, but is transferred to existing experience and a new algorithm of actions is developed. Which is immediately tested for strength. The thought experiments begin. Participants make various assumptions about the effectiveness or, conversely, the uselessness of the tools proposed to them. At this stage, the trainer must not only have management experience, but also experience in successfully using the tools that he teaches. And not only. It is important that he also has a set of beliefs (psychologists would call them attitudes) that make the very use of the tools possible and form the basis of the leader’s worldview. For example, you need to be pragmatic when evaluating employee performance. It is necessary to correctly consider both the encouragement of employees and punishment and dismissal. Otherwise, management tools will be handed over to an ordinary executive who dreams of being treated favorably by his own boss (or customer) rather than in a practical manner. And his recommendations will be the recommendations of a subordinate, not a leader. And he will answer questions like a performer.

A huge arsenal of working with objections has been developed for trainers in order to withstand this stage of training. And this arsenal needs to be mentioned separately. When trainings came into our reality, due to incorrect translations from English, the very essence of many necessary tools was distorted. For example, we use the word “recycle” to mean “throw away,” whereas the true meaning of this word is “use.” That is, when working with an objection from a training participant, in the original concept, it is supposed to use the objection in order to build arguments on it. And convince the person. In our reality, methods of “excluding a difficult participant” from the process are more often used. In essence, silencing a person who has his own opinion. Maybe. Someday I will write a large article about this “toolkit”, but for now I will return to the main topic.

So, at the stage of constructing new theoretical concepts, the leader’s very worldview must be conveyed. And, of course, it can only be conveyed by a person who has relevant experience or, in rare cases, a specialist who has studied and experienced someone else’s experience to such an extent that he can consider it his own.

Kolb – Testing a new concept

The next step is to turn the thought experiment into a practical one. This is a very important stage. You can ruin everything on it. After all, on the one hand, you need to let the participants make their own mistakes, and on the other hand, you need to give them the opportunity to correct these mistakes and use the tool correctly. Here you need to know a large number of nuances. Moreover, there are nuances concerning not only subordinates and their reactions, but also the nuances of what the leader himself experiences at the moment of using the tool. You need to be able to explain to a person not only the mistake, but also why he made it. Which, again, is very difficult to do if you don’t have your own experience of making mistakes and correcting them.

Many trainers, while practicing tools, do not pay attention to the fact that participants use behavior models that they will never use in real life. Well, for example, it’s rare that a boss will start a conversation with the words: “Dear Ivan Ivanovich, you and I have been working together for many years, so let’s discuss the current situation.” Rather, he will say: “Ivan Ivanovich, there is a conversation.” However, during training, unnatural patterns of behavior when practicing new tools are found everywhere. And no one corrects them. After all, the coach simply does not have experience in such conversations with subordinates. And the result? People leave a “good” training with the feeling that “there” everything was cool, and tomorrow everything will be normal. Instead of taking with you clear and understandable phrases that you can use tomorrow in conversations with employees. But at the end of the training, it also happens that a situation arises when the trainer “turned off” everyone who could be indignant at the pathos and improve the situation, so that they would not interfere with him conducting the training. It’s no secret that “difficult” participants are often people who are ready to argue. By the way, some coaches completely forget that a person does not argue if he does not want to be convinced. When a person doesn’t want it, he remains silent.

Kolb – Repetition

There is one more stage in the Flask cycle. Repetition. Of course, it must be implemented in training. And the right program is developed so that when practicing new tools, participants use elements of those already learned. But the learning doesn't end there. In fact, it is just beginning.

People leave the training and their normal work routine begins. Some people don’t even remember that they learned anything after two days. Some are trying their best to introduce new management tools into their work. And here they are faced with a large number of practical nuances. They gain new experience of mistakes and correct actions. Some people experience it themselves. And someone turns to the coach. And this is where the most unpleasant consequences of the coach’s lack of management experience begin. If during the training he manages the process, then in one-on-one communication (and people often do not want to advertise real cases at any post-training events), he does not have such an advantage. But he must have experience in solving the problems with which the person came to him. They're pretty standard. And if you spent five years in a managerial chair, then you know them like the back of your hand. However, theorists do not know these nuances. And they turn out to be useless. And they refuse people contacts, either citing they are busy, or under some other plausible pretext. Although, no one is stopping them, for example, from writing an article in response to a request from a former training participant. And place it in the public domain.

Games and trainings

Well, the last thing I would like to say in this article. It is possible that the root of the problems in the effectiveness of business training is not only that there are few training practitioners. Many of whom, by the way, are stopped from teaching by the tarnished image of the coaching profession. The problem is that almost any training format is now called training. And they raise the customer's expectations. But you can separate trainings, seminars and business games. And let the trainers do the first thing, the lecturers second, the game technicians and entertainers third. Then expectations will be formed more correctly. No one will expect to complete a large number of practical exercises in a seminar. Or that he will receive real tools in a business game. Well, the training will be ordered by those who clearly understand what competencies need to be developed in employees.

  • Tutorial

If you often come across the following phrases in your work, then this article is for you:
Why did you do such nonsense without understanding it?
Stop asking questions, read this little paragraph and you will understand everything! - I read it, but didn’t understand anything, explain it in human terms.
And you know, we need to do everything differently, since in book X, in chapter Y, there is statement Z that contradicts paragraph 14.5.3 of our technical specifications.
When will you start working? – I’m designing a system, I need three more weeks.
I have an idea on how to make our lives better! Vasya, listen to me, you need to do: a, b, c, d...

So

The Kolb Cycle (Kolb Model) is an interesting theory on how to effectively acquire knowledge. Often used when drawing up a training plan. Why? Read below.
The basis of the method is based on the assumption that the following styles of cognition can be distinguished:
specific experience
reflective observation,
abstract conceptualization,
active experimentation.
More importantly, people tend to have a certain combination of styles of receiving and processing information. As psychologists like, on this basis you can easily divide people into groups. This, in turn, allows you to build training courses either highly specialized for a specific group, or covering the widest possible audience.
His followers Peter Honey and Alan Mumford translated these terrible names into “kitchen language” and away we go. Nowadays, any self-respecting training center, almost without fail, declares training taking into account your cognitive style.

Let's look at these cognitive styles.


Vertically - collecting information, horizontally processing the information received. Let's try to briefly decipher:
The combination of personal experience and practice (adapted “Activist” / according to Kolb “Accommodative style”) is a person who likes to gain knowledge based on his experience through trial and error. He loves it when things are explained to him, when they point out fingers. Usually such people do not try to study the problem in depth, but immediately run to check it in action. Forcing such people to understand deep theoretical works is a lost cause.

Personal experience – Reflection (Thinker / Divergent style) – a person who, like the Activist, likes to gain knowledge during communication, but is in no hurry to test it in practice. He wants to figure it out to the end, mostly by asking questions, or thinking, peering into the blue distance.

Theory - Reflection (Theorist / Assimilating style) - likes to acquire knowledge in a structured way, read and deeply understand theory. Processes knowledge independently, reflecting on its experience, chewing it repeatedly. Just like a thinker, he may not get to the point of practical activity at all. He may be satisfied with a beautiful theory, which in principle cannot be applied in practice.

Theory - Practice (Pragmatist / Convergent style) is a person who likes to gain theoretical knowledge, but at the same time the applicability of knowledge in practice is important to him. He studies only as much as he needs for practical problems. And reinforces it by completing tasks.

How does this manifest itself in learning?

Try to remember your group from university, or your last training. You can easily determine the cognitive style by a person's actions.
For example, did you have a person in your group who asked a lot of questions without opening the book, but at the same time was happy to do (and maybe even demand) practical tasks. So know that a pronounced activist is sitting in front of you. If he sits, asks questions, and even sabotages practical tasks, then he is a thinker. He doesn’t need to solve 15 examples to remember the rule (like an activist), he needs to sit down and reflect, clarify the details, get more examples of compliance with what he already knows. But if a person carefully reads the theory and asks the teacher “uncomfortable” questions about fairly deep details, then he is most likely a theorist. A practitioner will demand that he be shown real-life examples; he doesn’t need examples out of thin air, give us practical ones and more of them.
But the most interesting thing is that these findings can be further applied to normal daily activities.
How style manifests itself in life.

If you go to the store to buy a new DVD player, what would you most likely do?
1. Don't worry too much: buy a record player and go home with it. You'll quickly figure out how it works. You won't have time to study the manual for it: it's written too complicated.
2. Before you buy, you will insist that the seller show you everything and then let you try everything yourself. When you connect and set up your player in your home, you will have the user manual at your fingertips.
3. Before turning on the player, the first thing you will do is open the instructions that say “read this first” and study them carefully.
4. It will immediately become clear to you that there are many similarities between this model and its predecessors. Now you'll focus on new features and elements, try to understand how they work, and experiment with them. You will read the instructions later to check if you did everything correctly.
1 = Activist 2 = Thinker 3 = Theorist 4 = Pragmatist
Source: Thomas, 1995

Another example. I'm a terrible theorist, often I won't touch a single button before I read the instructions. But has anyone even read one book on driving a car? And I take two before I get behind the wheel. And the wife, for example, is an activist, and can easily start clicking on all the buttons to understand how it works.

How this knowledge can be applied in practice

For example, if you are working with an activist, then it is useless to give him books to read; it is easier for him to show with an example, give step-by-step instructions. But they are excellent performers who will not constantly distract you or ask a lot of unnecessary questions. When we identified our styles during our studies, the majority turned out to be activists.

If you have encountered a thinker in life, then you will recognize him by the large volumes of reasoning about how it would be good to lose weight, fly into space, start living again, etc. But there are practically no actions other than trying to persuade you to try will not be. They prefer to philosophize, reason, and force someone to realize their great ideas.

It will be difficult with theorists, they will get to the bottom of things, it is very difficult for them to tell and show anything, it is easier to give literature for independent study. And when you come in a few days, he will already know even more than you. Although there may not be a result, since he really liked delving into this theory and forgot about your task.

If you have a pragmatist in your family, then you cannot avoid suffering. These are hardworking, not very sociable people, for whom the most important thing is practical value. It’s very difficult for them, just like for theorists, to explain anything in detail, and they will constantly torment you with questions “why is this necessary?” If you need to set a task or come to an agreement with such a person, you will have to prepare a report in advance on the topic “Why is life not nice without this!” But he will responsibly fulfill his obligations in a short time.

Total:

Sometimes conflict with a person can be avoided by taking into account their cognitive style. But, what is more interesting, if you accurately determine your cognitive style, then you can significantly increase the effectiveness of your self-education.

Warning

Having looked at articles on the Internet about the Kolb cycle, a bad tendency emerged - everyone comes up with their own examples/advices, perhaps not fully understanding the issue, or, on the contrary, understanding it better than others. Accordingly, some examples are clearly from the category of “Mutually exclusive paragraphs”. But, since all this relates to the humanities, then anything is possible here. Or maybe I don’t fully understand yet, so please don’t take it to heart.

The Kolb cycle is a learning model that is based on the principle of the gradual formation of the student’s mental actions. The fundamental difference of this model is that it is designed specifically for teaching adults who already have personal experience in studying objects and at the same time have a more stable and pronounced motivation to learn.

Author of the method

Its author is a specialist in adult learning psychology, David A. Kolb. In his opinion, the learning process is a cycle or a kind of spiral. This is a kind of cycle of accumulation of personal experience, further reflection and reflection, and ultimately action. According to David Kolb, the learning process is a kind of spiral, the main stages of which are the accumulation of personal experience, its reflection, and subsequent action, which is the result.

The Kolb cycle involves the following stages of training:

1. Concrete experience (CR). This stage presupposes that a person has some personal, specific experience in the aspect that he plans to study.

2. Mental observations (MN). This stage involves thinking and analyzing the initial knowledge that a person has.

3.Abstract conceptualization (AC). At this stage, the obtained information is summarized and a specific model is built. It is during this period of training that new ideas are generated, relationships between phenomena are built, and information about patterns in the topic being studied is added.

4. Active experimentation (AE). This is the final stage during which the created model or concept is tested in practice, the student checks its effectiveness and practicality.

Based on Kolb’s teaching principles, a scheme for the most effective implementation of interactive training has been developed:
  1. Motivation and announcement of a new topic. This stage is also called “problematization” among trainers. Its goal is to attract students’ attention to the topic, arouse interest, and create a sense of the significance of this issue. Also at this stage, exercises are used that can demonstrate to the participants the lack of knowledge in a given topic and motivate them to acquire new knowledge.
  1. Consolidation (repetition) of what has been learned. This stage implies a generalization of the knowledge, methods and methods that the participants already possess. It allows you to structure the participants' experience and prepare them for the transition to the next stage.

This stage takes 20% of the time.

  1. Learning new material. This is the main stage, which involves students acquiring new knowledge and skills. Participants receive answers to the questions that were raised at the beginning of the training and learn how to practically resolve them. When learning new material, it is also advisable to use exercises and practical exercises.

This stage takes 50% of the time.

  1. Assessment. At this stage, an assessment is made of how well the participants have learned new knowledge and skills. It can take place in the form of practical, test tasks, discussions, and cases.

This stage takes 10% of the time.

  1. Summing up the lesson (debriefing, reflection). The final stage, during which the trainer asks what was useful and effective, collects wishes and encourages further independent study of the material.

This stage takes 10% of the time.

In addition, the Kolb cycle formed the basis for the typology of training participants. It reflects the specifics of mental operations and the usual ways of acting of the participants.

Participant types:

  1. Activist(Accommodative style, a bunch of personal experience-practice). This type gains knowledge primarily based on their experience through trial and error. They do not like theory, preferring simple explanations that they want to immediately experience in practice.

Example: such a person, having bought a new phone, runs home and, without reading the instructions, immediately turns it on and starts pressing buttons, trying to see what the result will be.

  1. Thinker(Divergent style, combination of personal experience and reflections). This type, similar to the Activist, also likes to receive knowledge in a simple form, in the form of casual communication, but he is in no hurry to put it into practice. He tries to understand everything to the end, asking questions and repeatedly clarifying details of interest.

Example: this is a person who is in no hurry to make a purchase, asks the seller a lot of questions, asks to show everything and explain it. If necessary, call the hotline and ask to tell everything again.

  1. Theorist(Assimilating style, combination of theory and reflection). This person likes to understand theory on his own and appreciates thoroughness and structure. Delving into theory, he sometimes doesn’t even get to practice.

Example: this person has already read everything about the phone on websites and forums, studying all the advantages and limitations of each model, and if he still makes a choice, he comes to the store fully prepared. Having made a purchase, he first reads the instructions, then begins to use it.

  1. Pragmatist(Convergent style, theory-practice linkage). A participant of this type loves to receive theoretical knowledge, but its practicality is fundamentally important to him. He studies only the amount of information that is necessary for practical application.

Example: I read the minimum required on the Internet, asked a few questions to the seller, read the instructions only if something is not clear.

To summarize, it can be noted that the Flask cycle is a convenient and practical model for building and. It is easy to understand and adapted specifically for adult participants who have their own specific perception of information.


I constantly think about how leadership training should be structured. I don't just think about it. I really want us to have a new management culture. A new culture of relations in enterprises. New traditions of effective management. And the result is a new economy. Don't think I'm naive. I understand perfectly well that, most likely, I will not be able to radically change anything in my life. But if you do nothing, then nothing will change. Meanwhile, local work at enterprises is producing very impressive results. Which are obtained, among other things, with the help of trainings. It must be said that training is generally one of the good tools for introducing changes. Unless, of course, it is held for managers, and not in order to amuse the coach and simply master the allocated budget.

About the effectiveness of trainings

Thoughts about why, despite the huge number of products on the business education market, very little changes at the enterprises themselves, are depressing. After all, managers are regularly sent to various trainings and seminars. And it is these people who are responsible for the formation of production culture. And when observing companies, one trend is clearly visible. Changes occur where two basic principles are observed: work with people is carried out systematically, and managers are trained by practitioners who have themselves achieved results in management.

I don’t want to once again throw stones at the coaches. Most likely, their fault for the low effectiveness of training is not so great. That's how they were taught. Much more harm is caused by an inconsistent methodological base and the associated misunderstanding of the learning process for adults. That is, in essence, the lack of a sufficient number of professional methodologists. And the lack of the necessary worldview among trainers who work according to standard programs. Managerial.

Managers are all trained in very similar tools. Some do it better, some worse. Some have a stronger methodological base, some have a weaker one. However, when the teacher is taught by a manager who himself has gone through managing a department, putting people under control, firing employees, raising successors and all the other joys of managerial life, the learning results are much higher. Even if this manager has less training in conducting training than a girl with a psychology degree who has a bunch of certificates from various business schools.

The Kolb cycle in executive education practice

The solution to the low effectiveness of management training is simple. It can be easily obtained using one of the most popular theories regarding adult learning - the Kolb cycle. Just in case, let me remind you of its stages:

  1. Concrete experience (Availability of concrete experience)
  2. Observation of and reflection on that experience (Review and analysis of existing experience)
  3. Formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection (Formation of a new theoretical concept)
  4. Testing the new concepts (Testing a new concept).

Kolb - Having specific experience

If the education of children in the first stages is based on transferring knowledge to them “in reserve” and only then moves into the practical plane, then education of adults is necessary so that they change their approach to what they are already doing. Thus, firstly, it is almost impossible to teach a person something that has not been in his experience (You can prepare for situations in which he has not yet found himself, but this is a completely different training). Therefore, I always warn that there is no point in studying in management training for those who have less than three months of management experience. And secondly, the one who teaches must have experience similar to the experience of the students. If it is not there, then the teacher will simply have nothing to catch on.

What situations will he talk about if he has never seen the faces with which subordinates come to their leader, and what reasons do they give to justify their mistakes? Or if he never reported to his own boss about problems or achievements? He has no choice but to use other people's stories about it or fictitious ones. And people instantly feel falseness and incompetence. And it’s impossible for someone who has studied management interactions only in theory to go into details. In his experience, these nuances simply do not exist.

Kolb - Review and analysis of existing experience

What do coaches do to fill their own gaps? They use a game (case or exercise) in which they think people will activate their experience. However, being far from their workplace, and even in an environment that assumes much less responsibility for their own decisions and actions, the participants begin to play carefree. And they do not use their real experience, but often those models of behavior that they, on the contrary, cannot apply in real life. So, in this game, not experience, but potential is updated. This is probably why I often hear from coaches that “the boss there is completely useless, but one young employee gives them all a head start.” After all, the coach observes both the boss and the young employee in game reality, when money, plans and jobs do not depend on the decision. And in this environment, the boss uses the training time to relax and not make decisions. A young employee, on the contrary, does what he is not allowed to do during working hours.

Of course, you can also benefit from such cases. But to do this, you need to know the nuances of people’s behavior outside of training. And here we again return to the managerial experience of the coach.

Trainers who come to my management programs are often disappointed. After reading the reviews of the participants, they expect that they will now learn some new exercises. After all, they don’t come to learn how to lead, but to borrow something for their programs (by the way, I’m all for it). However, in the first part of the training there is simply no vigorous activity observed: we discuss various practical situations with the participants. That's what we're discussing. We don’t play games, we don’t throw balls to each other, we don’t draw presentations. And coaches often simply do not understand that the first stages of the Kolb cycle are launched precisely at the moment when the usual conversation about managerial everyday life takes place. After all, at this time the leaders are experiencing the existing experience. And they analyze it. Well, trainers who do not have this experience simply sit and wait for the training to begin. (By the way, this is a real phrase of several trainers: “I’m waiting for the conversations to end and the training to begin.” They usually say it at lunch on the first day of training).

Kolb - Formationnewtheoreticalconcepts

At the next stage of the Flask cycle, a new thinking model must be formed. That is, a new theory is not just studied, but is transferred to existing experience and a new algorithm of actions is developed. Which is immediately tested for strength. The thought experiments begin. Participants make various assumptions about the effectiveness or, conversely, the uselessness of the tools proposed to them. At this stage, the trainer must not only have management experience, but also experience in successfully using the tools that he teaches. And not only. It is important that he also has a set of beliefs (psychologists would call them attitudes) that make the very use of the tools possible and form the basis of the leader’s worldview. For example, you need to be pragmatic when evaluating employee performance. It is necessary to correctly consider both the encouragement of employees and punishment and dismissal. Otherwise, management tools will be handed over to an ordinary executive who dreams of being treated favorably by his own boss (or customer) rather than in a practical manner. And his recommendations will be the recommendations of a subordinate, not a leader. And he will answer questions like a performer.

A huge arsenal of working with objections has been developed for trainers in order to withstand this stage of training. And this arsenal needs to be mentioned separately. When trainings came into our reality, due to incorrect translations from English, the very essence of many necessary tools was distorted. For example, we use the word “recycle” to mean “throw away,” whereas the true meaning of this word is “use.” That is, when working with an objection from a training participant, in the original concept, it is supposed to use the objection in order to build arguments on it. And convince the person. In our reality, methods of “excluding a difficult participant” from the process are more often used. In essence, silencing a person who has his own opinion. Maybe. Someday I will write a large article about this “toolkit”, but for now I will return to the main topic.

So, at the stage of constructing new theoretical concepts, the leader’s very worldview must be conveyed. And, of course, it can only be conveyed by a person who has relevant experience or, in rare cases, a specialist who has studied and experienced someone else’s experience to such an extent that he can consider it his own.

Kolb – Testing a new concept

The next step is to turn the thought experiment into a practical one. This is a very important stage. You can ruin everything on it. After all, on the one hand, you need to let the participants make their own mistakes, and on the other hand, you need to give them the opportunity to correct these mistakes and use the tool correctly. Here you need to know a large number of nuances. Moreover, there are nuances concerning not only subordinates and their reactions, but also the nuances of what the leader himself experiences at the moment of using the tool. You need to be able to explain to a person not only the mistake, but also why he made it. Which, again, is very difficult to do if you don’t have your own experience of making mistakes and correcting them.

Many trainers, while practicing tools, do not pay attention to the fact that participants use behavior models that they will never use in real life. Well, for example, it’s rare that a boss will start a conversation with the words: “Dear Ivan Ivanovich, you and I have been working together for many years, so let’s discuss the current situation.” Rather, he will say: “Ivan Ivanovich, there is a conversation.” However, during training, unnatural patterns of behavior when practicing new tools are found everywhere. And no one corrects them. After all, the coach simply does not have experience in such conversations with subordinates. And the result? People leave a “good” training with the feeling that “there” everything was cool, and tomorrow everything will be normal. Instead of taking with you clear and understandable phrases that you can use tomorrow in conversations with employees. But at the end of the training, it also happens that a situation arises when the trainer “turned off” everyone who could be indignant at the pathos and improve the situation, so that they would not interfere with him conducting the training. It’s no secret that “difficult” participants are often people who are ready to argue. By the way, some coaches completely forget that a person does not argue if he does not want to be convinced. When a person doesn’t want it, he remains silent.

Kolb – Repetition

There is one more stage in the Flask cycle. Repetition. Of course, it must be implemented in training. And the right program is developed so that when practicing new tools, participants use elements of those already learned. But the learning doesn't end there. In fact, it is just beginning.

People leave the training and their normal work routine begins. Some people don’t even remember that they learned anything after two days. Some are trying their best to introduce new management tools into their work. And here they are faced with a large number of practical nuances. They gain new experience of mistakes and correct actions. Some people experience it themselves. And someone turns to the coach. And this is where the most unpleasant consequences of the coach’s lack of management experience begin. If during the training he manages the process, then in one-on-one communication (and people often do not want to advertise real cases at any post-training events), he does not have such an advantage. But he must have experience in solving the problems with which the person came to him. They're pretty standard. And if you spent five years in a managerial chair, then you know them like the back of your hand. However, theorists do not know these nuances. And they turn out to be useless. And they refuse people contacts, either citing they are busy, or under some other plausible pretext. Although, no one is stopping them, for example, from writing an article in response to a request from a former training participant. And place it in the public domain.

Games and trainings

Well, the last thing I would like to say in this article. It is possible that the root of the problems in the effectiveness of business training is not only that there are few training practitioners. Many of whom, by the way, are stopped from teaching by the tarnished image of the coaching profession. The problem is that almost any training format is now called training. And they raise the customer's expectations. But you can separate trainings, seminars and business games. And let the trainers do the first thing, the lecturers second, the game technicians and entertainers third. Then expectations will be formed more correctly. No one will expect to complete a large number of practical exercises in a seminar. Or that he will receive real tools in a business game. Well, the training will be ordered by those who clearly understand what competencies need to be developed in employees.

The Kolb cycle is one of the models that is used in the learning process for adults (trainings, courses, schools). The name of David Kolb, a specialist in the psychological aspects of learning, became known precisely because of the effectiveness and efficiency of the model he developed.

Theoretical basis of the technique

D. Kolb believed that learning as a process is a cycle or a kind of spiral, and its main components were the accumulation of personal experience with further thinking and reflection and, as a result, action.

The stages that a person studying using the Kolb method goes through:

  1. Basic level: a person has direct, concrete experience in the issue that he plans to study.
  2. Stage of reflection or mental observations: here the student must think about and analyze the knowledge that he possesses.
  3. The process of the emergence of an abstract concept or model: the stage of summarizing the information received (experience) and building a specific model. According to Kolb's plan, this period of study or training is designed to generate ideas, build relationships, and add new information about how things work (about patterns in the area being studied).
  4. Active experimentation phase: The final element of the lesson is to check how applicable the created model or concept is to specific situations. As a result, the student develops a completely new experience. In the future, you can observe the closure of the cycle.

The Kolb cycle: advantages and applications of the model

Described is considered one of the most effective and versatile. The interesting thing is that the Kolb model can be used by almost anyone, because it is based on what the learner already knows. That is why its application is so effective.

This method of systematizing professional practical or academic knowledge and skills is used by the largest companies around the world. The Kolb Cycle, used by personal growth coaches or professional development teachers, allows employees to maximize their full potential, as well as activate hidden capabilities and abilities.

Features specific to teaching adult audiences

Unlike pedagogy, which considers the specifics of the work of the child’s psyche in a learning environment, andragogy is the science of how teachers and trainers should work with adults. The Kolb cycle involves the use of the basic principles of andragogy.

The difference between an “adult learner” is the presence of stable motivation to undergo training, education and self-development. This is not surprising, because many working people or businessmen are well aware that new experience will help them more effectively find solutions to professional and personal problems.

In addition, by drawing on the experience he has, such a person benefits not only himself, but also other members of the group. Communication and exchange of information enriches the experience of each of them.

Follower of D. Kolb: model optimization

The widely used Kolb cycle was developed and improved by the Swedish training specialist Claes Mellander. His cycle looks a little different and includes the following components:

  • Motivation (degree of susceptibility and psychological readiness).
  • Information (formation of information from transformed facts and available data).
  • Processing (turning information into awareness and experience).
  • Generation of conclusions (processing awareness and experience into knowledge).
  • Use (practical application of knowledge, development of skills and approach).
  • Feedback factor (evaluation of results, their optimization and new reflections).

This model places more emphasis on the process of transforming the information a student receives from a lecturer or trainer into skills that will be used repeatedly in the future.

Kolb cycle in training: lesson structure

A model that makes it possible to effectively train adults has found application in the field of personnel management. Most trainings aimed at improving the level of qualifications or teaching employees new skills are structured as follows:

  1. 10% of the duration of the educational process: identifying the motivation of those present, arguing the value of this course (updating the course). This kind of introduction allows you to interest students, concentrate their attention on the topic of the training, and also indicate the benefit or necessity of the material presented. A correctly conducted first stage largely determines the success of training as a whole. Motivation can be generated through problematization cases and challenge exercises that point out to participants that they do not have the skills and experience necessary in specific situations. This is the most important tool that the Kolb cycle offers. An example can be given as follows: during a business communication training, the trainer deliberately provokes a conflict situation between the participants, showing them how imperfect their communication abilities and ability to analyze the non-verbal signals of the interlocutor are.
  2. 20% of the training: the process of consolidating and repeating what has already been learned in class. This part of the training allows those present to form a coherent logical structure of skills from unsystematized information.
  3. 50% of the educational process: presentation and explanation of new information. This stage is the most important, as students receive new skills, knowledge and techniques that they will need to solve the problems posed at the beginning of the training.
  4. 10% of the time: evaluation of the work done. Here the trainer evaluates the degree and completeness of the knowledge acquired by the participants. In the assessment process, the teacher should proceed from the principles of clarity, fairness and objectivity. Only in this way can assessment stimulate the audience to further learning. The grades do not have to be assigned by the coach; each student or team can do so.
  5. 10% training: conclusions. This is the stage at which the trainer receives information from students (feedback, comments, suggestions for improving the educational process). The last task of the teacher can be called creating motivation in the audience for further independent study of the material.

Adaptation of the model for teaching children

To use this model, students must have minimal skills in any area and be willing to develop them. Since children are usually taught from scratch, the Kolb cycle is not often used in the pedagogy process. An example for a kindergarten might be:

  1. Demonstration of beautiful crafts made from plasticine.
  2. Appeal to what children already know how to do with this material.
  3. Illustration of the algorithm for making a craft.
  4. Comparison of works, their evaluation.
  5. Questions from the teacher about what exactly the children liked.

The main danger that awaits trainers and teachers using the Kolb cycle is the high risk of demotivation and the possibility of lowering the self-esteem of employees or students (if the experience gained during the lesson is frankly unsuccessful). For this reason, the trainer must be extremely patient and prudent. Using this method, you need to know the rules of criticism and monitor feedback.