I saw this excellent quote the other day:
We used the word producer to describe the student who was only interested in getting right answers, and who made more or less uncritical use of rules and formulae to get them; we called thinker the student who tried to think about the meaning, the reality, of whatever it was he was working on.
Holt, How Children Fail, pp. 11-12
It got me thinking about workplace learning and whether the colleagues you’re supporting are more likely to be producers or thinkers. I’d love to assume the people wanting support are thinkers but, in the age of instantaneous information and ubiquitous materials, aren’t they producers?
I’d also be tempted to say producer or thinker are more valid ‘learning styles than the ones we see now.
If people are more focused on production, the practice of building challenge into the learning activity will do little to engage or capture the hearts and minds of the people you’re targeting.
Lost and Desperate 
Hope I’m allowed to disagree. I think building in WIIFM works for both. It’s also about the culture: is it focused on learning and innovation, or performance and output. The latter seems more valuable, but in the long term I’ll suggest it leads to brittleness and stagnation. FWIW.
LikeLike
Thanks Clark…I love disagreement since that’s where the interesting stuff happens.
I think there’s a need for both; the depth of organisational knowledge seems to be an issue and we need thinkers to codify the implicit knowledge across organisations.
LikeLiked by 1 person