Coverdale — the custom tailor in consulting:
We offer exclusively tailored solutions for your organization.
Solutions which meet real needs and deliver sustainable and measurable results.
We work in partnership with our clients and develop solutions in each part of our portfolio which ...
- discover and fulfill the real needs of the organization,
- are long-term oriented and enduring and
- bring measurable improvements for your organization.
From us you won't get solutions off the peg!
Coverdale learning: skill development through deliberate practice.
Organizational learning begins with the purpose to improve performance through developing skills and capabilities. Many learning activities today focus predominantly on imparting knowledge and raising understanding. While this is an important element of any program, we believe it is not sufficient to achieve and sustain performance improvements.
Coverdale learning emphasizes the development of skill through a rigorous routine of Deliberate Practice we provide our participants with actual tasks for which quality results have to be delivered. We then review results and process against measurable criteria, coach participants to make plans for improvement and set up another cycle of preparation, action, review.
We apply these principles to develop a great variety of skills. The process starts with identifying the critical skills and capabilities needed to improve your organization's performance. Based on these we custom-design a program for you that leads to sustainable skill development.
Transfer – success is proved in practice
For us, success means the successful implementation of the learned material in our clients’ actual working situation. In the Coverdale seminars and consulting settings, transfer to practice is planned in right from day one.
We utilize the latest insights from learning research and on the topic of change to link our content to the participants’ actual working situations and ensure successful implementation of the learned material.
Coverdale stands for Sustainable Learning
We believe that the following insights gained from neuroscience, along with Coverdale’s over 50 years of practical training experience, enhance the sustained continuing development of people and organizations.
This understanding guides us in our work:
Emotions
Experiences that are associated with emotions leave their mark on the brain and decisively influence our learning performance. New information is thus integrated, and recalled in the medium and long term, more readily. Emotions give meaning to information and determine whether or not we pursue a topic further.
Social interaction
Learning processes are fundamentally shaped by social contacts, as the brain constantly seeks cooperation, stimulating relationships and a pleasant atmosphere. Learning in small groups that also enable an individualized approach promotes this effect. In this process, learning also occurs through observation. Participating in the success or failure of other participants triggers emotions essential for learning.
Appreciation/recognition/authenticity
Learning in seminars is a communicative process. Appreciation, recognition and trust in the trainer, her competence, credibility and authenticity encourage participants to try new approaches and adopt impulses.
Attitude
Our attitude and behavior are closely linked. Internal convictions and articles of faith, not knowledge, determine how we face life and how we deal with ourselves and others. Thus, if we want to work on our behavior, do something different than before or obtain new behavioral options, learning must take place on the level of our attitudes. Knowledge alone is not enough.
Curiosity and active initiative in taking personal responsibility
Human curiosity is aroused by unexpected, exciting and challenging stimuli. Curiosity creates the motivation to try new things. When this occurs in an atmosphere of individual initiative and self-determination, participants experience self-efficacy. This positive feeling decisively strengthens an individual’s ability to perform.
Challenging without overloading
Working hard is an important factor in learning. Exercises that stimulate participants to go beyond their own comfort zone promote personal growth and development. Challenges that enable participants to experience success, rather than stressing them, make them hungry for more. Discouragement, by contrast, shuts down performance.
Alternating tension and relaxation
Challenges also require an appropriate alternation between tension and relaxation. Low-stimulus phases, such as breaks, relaxation and sleep, enable learned material to be consolidated, embedded and networked with experiences in our brain. Thus, the emphasis is on effort, not stress.
Addressing participants’ individuality
Every brain has been individually shaped by its experience history, and thus assigns an entirely individual meaning to new experiences. It is thus ideal when a seminar succeeds in forging a link with the prior experience and knowledge of the participants. Reflection enables participants to associate and reinforce personal experiences and new insights.
Repetition
The capacity of our working memory is limited. Additionally, the information it retains can be recalled only for a brief interval. The brain needs time to embed the information from working memory so that we can recall it over the long term. If working memory is overloaded or the consolidation process is interrupted, information is lost. For learning, this means that learned material must be repeated several times before a new topic is started, so that neural associations can be formed.
Meaning and relation to the whole
New information is integrated when it is important, desirable (useful) and associated with positive feelings. The topic must have significance for the participants.
Learning success is promoted by structured communication of information in line with orientation frameworks and clear priorities. The principle “first the overview, then the details” makes it easier for our brains to relate the material to the whole.
With all senses
People use their senses differently in acquiring new information, depending on their personal preferences. Changing methods in the learning process, such as the simultaneous use of language and images, and even physical exercises, help to appropriately serve participants' individuality and promote their learning here as well. The use of examples, stories and metaphors additionally invite participants to actively derive principles and interpret information individually.
The place of learning
Ideally, a good place of learning affords sufficient space to enable all participants to establish contact with each other in many different ways. This enables curiosity and creativity to emerge. This can occur indoors or out, or by changing between rooms. Daylight, fresh air and tranquility promote a positive atmosphere.
