During a full session day with you, how do you manage the widely different learning styles of my team, especially when some of us need concrete details while others want to stay at thirty thousand feet?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A successful session day requires navigating the diverse cognitive profiles in the room. Your team naturally consists of different learning and processing styles. Some of your leaders are macro-deductive thinkers who want to focus on high-level strategic vision. Others are micro-inductive processors who need to dig into the granular, concrete details before they can agree to a plan.

To keep everyone engaged and aligned, we structure our session days around an experiential learning cycle. We balance the needs of your accommodators, who love hands-on execution and immediate challenges, with your assimilators, who need to organize and analyze complex information. We do this by moving systematically through experience, reflection, conceptualization, and active experimentation.

When we tackle a strategic issue, we do not let the visionaries float in the clouds, nor do we let the detail-oriented team members drag us into microscopic rabbit holes. We use the IDS® process to ground every discussion. We first identify the root cause of an issue using concrete examples. Then, we discuss it from multiple viewpoints, allowing our divergers to explore different angles. Finally, we push our convergers to find practical, actionable solutions. By honoring these different cognitive approaches rather than fighting them, we make decisions that are both strategically sound and operationally realistic. Every leader leaves the room fully aligned.