Calibrating Adult Learners Reactions to Learning and Change

Our 25 years of experience designing and delivering corporate learning programs, have enabled us to observe that most adults experience deep, visceral, fear based reactions when confronted with learning and change.

It might be as simple as asking the learner to experiment with a more useful mindset, practice a different behaviour, or learn a new skill.

Each of these seemingly simple changes exposes a unique set of reactions, which, if not anticipated, and appropriately handled by the trainer, facilitator or coach will ‘freeze’ the learner in ways that inhibit and restrain the entire learning process.

So much investment in corporate learning programs is wasted, in both time and money,  because many providers do not create the 'safe space' required to allow these fears to emerge, be acknowledged and paced into the overall learning process.

Professor Edgar Schein, in his legendary book ‘Organisational Culture and Leadership’, succinctly explains this phenomenon in detail.

He explains that a learner’s initial fear manifests as 'survival' anxiety. This is accompanied by a set of emotional, neurological, physiological and cognitive based reactions. This is because what the learner currently knows is being challenged, and it may actually be difficult to learn something new. We know that we need to make a change, but we are not sure if we can. The learner feels uncomfortable and even, ‘out of balance' in ways that ‘awakens’ them to what is going on.

As trainers, facilitators and coaches the next most critical challenge is dealing with the second round of fears: the learners ‘learning’ anxiety. If not acknowledged & managed, further 'move away' defensive behaviours and resistance to change occurs. It may be through denial (“I don’t need to do this”), passing the buck (“They need to learn this, not me”), dodging (“You can’t make me do this) and other aggressive or avoidant behaviour. (“Who are you to tell me what to do”)

Learning Anxiety is usually a combination of several specific fears:

-    Fear if loss of power or position

-    Fear of temporary incompetence

-    Fear of punishment for incompetence

-    Fear of loss of personal identity

-    Fear of loss of group membership.

So how do we, as trainers, facilitators and coaches’ best handle this?

We focus on reducing their learning anxiety through creating ‘psychological safety’ by:

1.   Intentionally facilitating safe ‘awakening’ processes.

2.   Supporting people to acknowledge and resolve their personal discomfort

3.   Enabling people to shift out of passive and aggressive defensiveness without making them ‘wrong’

4.   Enrolling them in their own cause ‘to be the best they can be’ through co-creation of concrete and specific change goals.

If you can make the time to notice and focus your efforts on the range of fear based reactions occurring, not only will deep and sustainable learning occur, it could also become a pleasurable and memorable experience for everyone.