ENCOURAGING LEARNERS: 6 MORE SKILLS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for January, 2006

In the January, 2006 Tip of the Month, I listed six skills of encouragement for trainers, mentors, and managers. Here are six more skills to add to your repertoire.

SKILL NUMBER 7: Setting Learning Goals

Help learners set goals for the future. Setting goals fosters motivation to learn and results in higher learning achievement. Decades of research shows that learning goals which motivate best:
- Incorporate specific standards of performance
- Are relatively short-term
- Are difficult but within the learner's perceived ability level.
It's important that the goals be realistic so that the learner has the ability to perform well. Learning goals perceived as unrealistic will be outside learners' decision "doing" capability and they will not carry them out. Knowing the prior skills, knowledge and experience of the trainees will make goal setting fairly easy.

 

SKILL NUMBER 8: Coaching by Encouragement

The purpose of coaching is to redirect behavior and mentally challenge the trainee. Coaching is not intended to "do for" the learner or point out mistakes, blame, or criticize - all of which are discouraging. Coaching focuses on effort and improvement. As a trainer, you can coach the learner to change any incorrect actions or redirect the behavior by asking questions or making encouraging statements that offer alternatives such as these:

"How else might you do it?"
"See if this works better for you." (Be specific, explain, and demonstrate.)
"Why don't you try a different approach?"
"Let me offer a suggestion."
"What happens if you don't do that step?"

 

SKILL NUMBER 9: Giving Encouraging Feedback

The purpose of feedback is to build self-esteem through encouragement. Feedback should be specific, positive, and focused on the strengths and assets of the trainee; it should demonstrate acceptance of and confidence in the trainee; and it should recognize effort and improvement. Here are a few examples of encouraging statements to use when giving feedback:

"It usually takes a couple of practice sessions to master that step. You'll make it!"
"Look how much better it went this time."
"You're making progress. Hang in there!"
"You're really skilled in.................." (something specific)
"You must feel good about the improvement you've made."
"You have put a lot of effort into mastering that task."

Positive statements are appropriate no matter how well or poorly the trainee performed. Always avoid direct criticism. Learners can be very sensitive to it and you may do more harm than good and end up discouraging.

Giving encouraging feedback also means that you must be aware of the difference between praise and encouragement. There is a widespread misconception that praise and encouragement are the same thing. Praise often undermines the intrinsic motivation that leads people to do their best. It increases competition between the successful and unsuccessful learners. Examples of praise would be, "I am so proud of you!" and "I think that performance was great." Praise is a reward given by an external source for success. Notice the difference between the last two examples and the encouraging statements above. Praise tends to develop in the better learners the belief that they are only worthwhile when they are succeeding, so that their successes are never really owned by them and integrated into a positive self-concept. In the discouraged learners, hearing others praised reminds them of their own failures and further discourages them. Using encouraging statements like those listed earlier helps learners internalize the good feelings that come naturally with success. It emphasizes their own response to success or putting forth a good effort and helps build a positive self-concept. Research shows that individuals who rely on intrinsic motivation are more likely to persist in the face of challenge.

The differences between praise and encouragement can sometimes be difficult to grasp. It may help to keep the following questions in mind when wondering whether the statements you make to learners are praise or encouragement:
1. Am I inspiring self-evaluation or dependence on the evaluation of someone else?
2. Am I focusing on effort and improvement and expressing confidence, or the final outcome?
3. Is my comment promoting perfection or the courage to be imperfect.

 

SKILL NUMBER 10: Giving Encouraging Performance Evaluations

The manner in which learners are evaluated is one of the most powerful factors that can affect motivation. It is essential that criticism and blame are not a part of the trainer/mentor/coach-learner relationship. It is a mistake to think that the best way to help employees learn is to criticize what they do wrong. It does not change behavior. Setting reasonable standards and not demanding perfection helps create a relationship in which learners can feel free to learn to the best of their abilities. The attitude that it is OK to make a mistake - that mistakes are learning experiences, not disasters - helps encourage learners to make a good effort. Emphasize what learners do well and how they are progressing. You can only build on strengths. Encouragement emphasizes what we do right. Learning theorists emphasize that for training to be successful learners must achieve success and not be discouraged by failure. Using encouragement, tests could be graded using "C"s for "correct" and leaving unmarked the items that are wrong.

 

SKILL NUMBER 11: Encouraging Self-Evaluation

Encouraging trainers try to move from an evaluative position to one in which the learners become more evaluative of themselves. Ideally, learners should be encouraged to assess their own performance before the trainer provides any feedback. Simply ask the trainee questions like the following:

"How do you think it went?"
"What did you accomplish?"
"What went well and what didn't?"
"What needs improvement?"

There's a very important reason for self-evaluation - adults tend to take errors personally and to let them affect their self-esteem. Encouraging trainers should give learners a chance to say what went wrong or what needs improvement. Research shows that learners are more likely to change their performance if they identify the problem areas themselves. Having learners assess their performance first allows the trainer to focus the feedback on what went right. Learners' growth is stimulated when they learn to trust with their own internal evaluation, and less so about external evaluation.

 

SKILL NUMBER 12: Encouraging Self-Encouragement

Before you can encourage others, you need to be able to identify your own assets and strengths. You can only encourage others if you are sure of your own value and position, when you are confident of your own ability. The more discouraged you are, the less you can encourage others. Trainers must constantly work on self-encouragement. This requires the courage to be imperfect, which means the gracious acceptance of your own inevitable imperfections and failures. Having the courage to be imperfect provides a built-in protection against discouragement. Self-encouragement requires the realization that in the end, learners are responsible for their own training.

To be self-encouraging you must be aware of behavior that difficult learners might use that will end up discouraging you. Only if you recognize these behaviors for what they are - signs of discouragement, will you avoid falling into the trap of discouraging yourself.

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