what are those people thinking? - An engineering managers primer on learning styles

Teams that learn faster should be more effective, efficient, flexible. Helping individuals and teams learn to learn together should therefore enhance an organization's ability to compete. Individuals tend to have one of four preferred styles for processing information; conflict can occur when people with different learning styles work together in a stressful situation. Kolb's learning cycle is used to analyze how American and Swedish engineering students and engineering managers process information. Since engineers are predominantly "convergers," they prefer to design first and build second. By understanding the different learning styles, engineering managers can more effectively communicate and work with others.