Flipping dilemma

I had a really interesting and thought-provoking conversation, the other week, with a participant at the end of an Influencing Skills workshop.  He was an academic, and was interested in - and challenging - the fact that the workshop was a training session, whereas he and his colleagues have all had to learn to be facilitators of learning.

I had to work hard on my listening skills, to overcome my initial defensiveness. After all, I had 'flipped the classroom' by providing all the theoretical material - the models of influencing that were the basis of the workshop - in advance, via videos, podcasts and written handouts.  The idea being that the online workshop could then be about exploring and practicing those models in a highly participative way.

But he was right: for example, I encouraged participants to pick one of the influential behaviours suggested by the model (one which they were less comfortable with using) and practice that in small groups and get feedback from colleagues. (It's quite a neat exercise, in fact: I get people just to practice one moment of behaviour, and stop - no role playing etc - and get immediate feedback both on the words, but also on the use of voice and non-verbals etc - and then try it again, get feedback and try it again.  People often report dramatic improvement in both themselves and colleagues). However, it is clearly a very directed process; and my participant's point was that it took no account of people's prior levels of knowledge and experience, nor of the questions or issues that they might want to explore and so on.

Reflecting on that, I realise that I could change that exercise, and have much more of a discussion-based task: sharing experiences, learnings, questions and so forth. But my reluctance is that I think that they would lose something: after all, the practice sessions are often very useful; and they are unlikely to do them elsewhere, whereas talking about this stuff is something they could easily do outwith the session; and further, such conversations are sometimes useful, but sometimes of little value.

So reflecting further, I thought, I could offer them a choice: it's as easy on Zoom as in real life to offer a choice of activities: if you wish to do the skills practice, go to Room A; if you want to discuss and share learning etc, go to Room B.  But I notice that I am reluctant to do that, too; and the reason is that I suspect people will always opt for Room B, as it is easier and less frightening in prospect; yet I remain convinced, from years of experience, that many people benefit if pushed a little out of their comfort zone so that they do in fact practice and get feedback on their behaviour. It is a skills session, after all.

So the dilemma remains - and I will continue to ponder it.  Is it my job to support learner autonomy etc and give them what they want? Or do I have a responsibility to, as I say, push them a little out of their comfort zone and do something which I know many have found extremely beneficial, but which they are unlikely to choose?  

I could of course offer them a choice, but seek to influence the choice by explaining my views; but again that doesn't feel as though it would be a neutral option, so I wonder if it's just a way of letting myself off the hook...

As so often, this post is my thinking-out-loud about the issue. I think I will ponder it further, and also have a further conversation with the commissioning clients about this issue and see what they think (though even as I write that, I am aware of thinking that I know more about the issue than they do, because of my experience etc... and wonder if that's just another way of letting myself off the hook...)

So I am grateful to the participant who raised this, as it is giving me lots to think about: and that work is clearly unfinished at this stage.

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With thanks to Pizieno and Quang Nguyen vinh for sharing their images on Pixabay 

I will...

Last week, I blogged about knowing what I really want to do; I have been reflecting further on that, and in particular, on how to translate intention into action.

I have blogged about this before: in this post, I describe eight things one can do to deliver on good resolutions (for the detail, follow the link to the post).

But do these things work?  In reflecting on that question, I was pleased to come up on this post, from 2014.  In it, I was resolving to make time to meditate every day.  I am pleased (and even proud) to be able to say that meditation has been part of my daily routine, almost without fail, ever since. And I achieved that by using most of the eight strategies listed.

My point here is not to boast (or at least, not much) but rather to illustrate how adopting new habits is really possible, even when (on a day by day basis) one does not 'want' to do them.

Stephen Covey makes the point (in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) that being confident that you will keep a promise that you make to yourself is a very valuable attribute. After all, how can you expect others to trust you, if you are not able to trust yourself.

So being able to say 'I will...' to yourself, and know that you can deliver on that 'will' is a great skill to cultivate; and as I have remarked before, relying  on a naive idea of will power may not serve you well. You build your will power, as with any virtue, by repeated practice; and the ideas above should help you to do so. 

Learning to finger whistle

I nearly called this post 'What I learned on my holidays,' but reflected that I had learned other things, too, and also that title sounded a little like a junior school essay.

But what I want to reflect on is how I learned to produce that shrill loud, piercing whistle that one produces with one's fingers between one's lips.

I have wanted to be able to do that whistle for years, in a vague kind of way; but never enough to take any actual steps to learn the skill. However, as my dog grows older, harder of hearing and more confused (and you can keep your jokes about dogs growing more like their masters to yourself) it has suddenly become a more pressing need. I love to walk her on the fells, and let her roam freely - but I do need to be able to call her back, and increasingly my old-style whistle just wasn't loud enough.

Mike (my son) can do it, of course, so I asked him to teach me. He told me what to do, (something like this) and demonstrated it; and then I tried - and nothing. 'Now it's just about practice,' he assured me.

So I kept practicing. And eventually, some semblance of a whistle emerged from between my fingers.  

I had thought that once I had found that sweet spot, I would be able to replicate it, and increase volume, pitch and so on by further trial and error. But it has proved to be a more complicated business than that. Four weeks on, and I am still finding that sometimes I put my fingers to my mouth, and no noise emerges. Further, I don't know what to do when that happens. I don't know what makes the noise that does (unreliably) emerge higher or lower pitched. In fact, I don't really have any understanding of the skill I am practicing.

But nonetheless, practice works. The frequency of getting no noise at all is reducing; and the frequency of getting a really good noise is increasing (I'm up to about 90% of the time, now).

Which raises the fascinating question, for those interested in learning: how does that work? Why does practice work, when I don't know what is making the difference?  Clearly, I am gaining feedback each time I practice: either sound emerges or it doesn't.  But my inability to recognise what is making the difference means that I can't (consciously) try to to it better next time. Yet, nonetheless, over time, the more I practice, the better I get.

It seems to me that this experience raises serious questions for our models of learning: I am approaching unconscious competence without going through conscious competence: is that even allowed? And does it make (for example) sports coaching redundant?  

 Maybe the best way to learn a forehand smash at tennis is just to try lots and lots of them, without a coach telling you what to do differently each time. Perhaps your body will learn the skill more quickly like that?  I'd like to think not: I prefer to believe that some guidance and instruction really do add value. But I'd be even more interested to know what evidence there is to believe that, and what theory can be built around these different routes to acquiring skill. 'Muscle memory' is a label for this - a potentially misleading one, as no memory resides in the muscles; but even when not misleading, it seems to me to describe rather than explain...