270. Is flexible work actually fair? PLUS! Corporate politics, motivating Gen X and the truth about learning styles

0:01Coming up this week in work. British banks are hiring psychologists, not for therapy sessions, but to stop AI from sounding confident when it is completely wrong. You have to wonder, is behavioural science now the hottest skill in finance? Well, let's hope so. Also this week, meet the IT director, who's perfected the art of looking busy while doing absolutely nothing. Fake maintenance windows, a$5 ,000 testing lab. Is he a genius or is that just everything that's wrong with corporate culture? and in truth or lie we're taking on learning styles you know visual auditory all that millions have been told they learn best one particular way schools base lesson plans on it companies design training around it but does it actually work i've read the research and i've got a verdict and in this week's workplace surgery one listener asks what do you do when your experienced teams seem more interested in cruising to retirement than picking up new skills how do you get people to engage with change when they're only a few years from their pension that's a bit too close to home for me.

1:01This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Al, I'm a business owner and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to. And my name is Leanne, I'm a chart occupational psychologist and I'm here to answer them and together we'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures. Yes we will, we'll be back right after this quick word from our lovely sponsors. Thank you, sponsors. HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers.

1:34And here's a perfect example. Lee, your turn. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. But with a massive 900-page website, even the tiniest updates took 30 minutes to publish. Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in just a fraction of the time. The results? 30 % more page views and visitors now spend 27 % more time on their site. If you're ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot.com.

2:10Welcome back. Welcome back to another Tuesday. January, is it the last Tuesday in January? It's the 84th of January today. But it is the last Tuesday in January, I think, isn't it? It is. It's our last this week and work of January. yay well not yay for that because obviously we're back in February with the same thing yeah it's the last of January January has felt a bit tough we did a bit of a we did a bit of a cheat thing and I think regular people will know that we took the till the to the 12th off I think was in January yeah which wasn't long enough no it wasn't long enough but we went and stayed in a beautiful place in Italy which I'm sure in the in the summer will be way out of our our price range but in the winter we managed to get it for quite a good bargain and just sat by the fire and read and just got over Christmas.

2:54Now, I know that's privilege and I know not everyone can do that. But do you know what? If you have the opportunity, maybe, maybe just swap a bit of time and take a bit of time off in January, if it's possible. Yeah. It just lasts forever, doesn't it, January? It does. If you're interested in kind of what Alanise life actually looks like beyond the podcast, come follow us on Instagram, a sideways life. That's where we post about what life actually looks like for us. So if you want to get nosy, go see that. Leanne says, where we post. I keep getting the messages from people, from friends, family going, oh, congratulations on your residency.

3:28And I'm like, how the hell do you know that? It's like, because Leanne put it on LinkedIn. I did ask you. LinkedIngram, what's it called? Instagram. I did ask you if I was okay to post about these things. I know you did, but I instantly forgot it because of Instagram. I go on Instagram. I think I've said this before. I think probably partly my demographic and partly because I did engage when it first came on with, with lots of younger women in not much clothes, which just popped up in my feed. and I was like, what's this about? Obviously, clicked on it. And now every time I go on it, it's just that.

3:56And I feel like a dirty old man, so I just don't go on it. It's an odd thing, both Instagram and TikTok, when you are a middle-aged man, I imagine. But anyway, there you go. Enough about that and more about a very exciting episode we have coming up soon. We've got a LinkedIn Live. We have. It's our second LinkedIn Live. Our first one was a disaster. But it wasn't a disaster. It was quite funny because I was like, I don't think we're live. And we were live. We were 100 % live. and I didn't know how to stop it. So this is going to be a little bit better. Who have we got, Leigh? We have got the incredible Louise Hill and Ruth Hancock from Octopus Money and Go Henry.

4:32Not respectively, the other way around. Respectively. Basically, Ruth, Octopus Money, Louise, Go Henry. They are big, big, big cheeses, big cheese eye. Yeah, possibly two of the most influential people in business and education and politics at this point. The number of pictures I see of Louise Hill at number 10. Yeah. Loads. And of course, Ruth Hancock is OBE. So, you know, these are incredibly talented people. We are talking about money. We're talking about financial literacy and asking the question, if money wasn't about what? No, if work wasn't about money, what would it look like? What would it be like?

5:11It's going to be really, really good. You're going to hear very little from us, a lot from these two incredible women. You absolutely need to do that. So if you're listening, just press pause, go onto LinkedIn, search on Leanne's profile, and there'll be an event that you need to go. And to be fair, if you're like me, you'll go and say I'm going, and then you probably won't. 70 % of people don't show up. No, but we will record it. And if you've said you want to go, then we will DM you. As long as you're following Leanne, she will DM you and send you the recording. So there you go. So that's your job.

5:41So don't go, oh, I'll do that in a minute. Stop what you're doing. Press pause. Go to LinkedIn. Search for Leanne Elliott. find the event and then come back we'll wait or even better i'll put a link in the show notes so just click more on your app and there'll be a link for the linkedin live and just click that that's much much better idea come back press play right okay we'll wait we're still waiting no we're serious go do it go do it okay we'll have to assume that you've done it now otherwise we um otherwise we could be here all day lee what time is it you gotta watch um it is 11 53 And what real time is it?

6:15It's time for these round up. My favourite time of the week. I'll do cue that jingle for me. Jingle is being cued. Okay, my love. What have you seen this week? What are your little peepers peeped on? My little peepers have peeped a new word. Okay, go on. Got a new word. Ideals. I-D-E-A-L-S. Ideals. Is it one of those acronyms like NATO and BHAG? Does it mean something like, as in like, no, it doesn't. No, but the I is actually a bigger word and deals remains as deals. Intelligence deals. Oh, no, but that's nice. What would that be? I don't know. I haven't thought that through. Okay, I don't think I know.

6:59This is short, and you'll understand why it's short in a moment, Al. This is short for idiosyncratic deals. Okay, because you can't spell. I can't spell idiosyncratic. You can barely say it. Do you want to have a guess now you know what it is? idiosyncratic deals uh something like um if idiosyncratic as far as i know means something that's a little bit odd your little quirks so if you have an idiosyncratic idiosyncratic sister t like you need a desk being tidy then your deal is if you come and sit my desk then you have to leave it tidy anywhere close no but i guess it's personal it's personal to the individual which is so an idiosyncratic deal or ideal is a personalized work arrangement that employees negotiate one-to-one with their manager and it's going to be things like working from home basically flexible working starting earlier finishing later adjusting hours to match life really so they're not company-wide policies they're private informal agreements and post pandemic they have apparently become the main way that people are accessing flexible work um I thought it's quite interesting this came from um some experimental studies from Australia that I was reading and I'd never come across the term ideals before so that's why I decided to to put it out there um but what the research is showing which is problematic is how flexible work is requested actually changes how it's received by managers and there's certain ways of requesting that will be much more likely to get approved than another.

8:41So the researchers tested four types of requests. So one was care-based. Can I just check? What we're saying here is that researchers test four ways you can ask your manager to work flexibly. Yes, exactly. So the first one is care-based. So I need to work from home to manage school drop-offs and pick-ups. The second was business case. So when I worked remotely during COVID, my output improved. I'd like to continue that. Three was task-based. I'd like to be assessed on completed tasks rather than hours in the office. Wouldn't we all, friend? And number four, total leadership. I want to rebalance all parts of my life so I can be more fulfilled at home, in the community and at work.

9:23Now, what's your instinct here, Al? Which of those do you reckon managers were more likely? Number two. Business case. Business case, 100%. That is one of the ones. Right. There was another one that was much more likely to get approved. Oh, maybe. Care, task, or total leadership. Maybe. See, I'm thinking when you were telling me that, I'm like, from a manager's point of view, what's in it for me? So imagine that you've got Barry, who's a bastard manager, right? So we don't like Barry. Barry the bastard. We don't like him. So what's Barry going to do? You say, I've got to go pick up my kids. Barry's going, I've got kids.

9:52I don't care. No. So then the option number three was task-based. I'd like to be assessed on task-based Barry's going to say the same as you wouldn't we all son back to work number four is probably would be my would be my second choice because he says especially if you put it as saying look Barry you've been such a great manager I don't think you need to worry about me anymore and total management that's my guess nice no it was care it was care-based but you're absolutely right with business case so business case and care-based requests worn out by a long stretch. Task-based and the total leadership were much less likely to be approved, even though, as you said, it sounds like a reasonable request, doesn't it, the way you put it?

10:37The thing is, as well, it wasn't just the type of request that mattered. It was the size two. So across all the studies, managers were far more likely to say yes to two remote days. Right. And no more. Right. So if you're looking for some remote work, two is your sweet spot in terms of request. The problem is, though, the biggest predictor of approval wasn't the request and how it was worded. Right. It was a manager's attitude towards flexible work. Fair. Yeah, it makes sense. Surprise, surprise. Back to Barry. Back to Barry. So if they were already sceptical, even the most perfectly framed request wouldn't really make any difference.

11:16So there you go. Basically, if your manager is a Jamie Dimon of the world, don't bother asking. Don't bother. Jamie doesn't like remote work. What are you thinking, Al? Well, there was a book called The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. It's probably about 25 years. What was it? Patient Zero. Bromad Zero. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Nomad Zero. And back in the day, it was quite a big, it's obviously a huge book now, but back in the day, it's quite a big thing. And his way of getting remote work was, was basically you just go, can I work from home this afternoon? And then you go, yeah, okay, yeah. See, I went home, worked at home this afternoon because I've got to do something.

11:54Use the Cialdini influence technique. Can I work at home because I've got to pick up my kids? Yeah, of course. Then what you do is you go home and you do exactly the same amount of work and then you send it in. Then over the next week, you start to reduce down the work you do in the office. And then you ask again, can I work at home? And then you do more work at home. So it gets the point that your office, you're like 50 % effective. Your home, you're 120 % effective and you just keep increasing, increasing, increasing it to the point where they go, look I'm not going to come in this week and then they'll go fine yeah because you're better off working you are better when you work at home really really clever clever way of doing it I think but I'm not sure it'll work these days it's tricky isn't it whether it would work these days I think the key thing for me was if you are an employer or a business owner is having a think about how this policy will look within your organization I understand we like a bit discretion from time to time don't get me wrong I appreciate some discretion from management but if employees are at the mercy of their managers in terms of if these flexible working requests get granted and there's no real fairness in that then that's problematic to me and not only problematic in terms of of equity but also in terms of potential turnover people might leave for making a very reasonable request that many other employees in the organization have been granted so i think if you are maybe just have a little look at your policies and train your managers on what what the reasonable request looks like what should be automatically approved and if you're an employee some good tips here frame your ask around caregiving or or the business case that's what gets approved more two days is your sweet spot um and like we said if your manager says no it's probably not a reflection of you it's probably more a reflection of their their preferences so maybe go and chat to hr before if you do think your manager is going to be a hard no just to understand what the official company line is i think yeah uh if you're interested in this kind of thing then we have two previous guests we've had on uh alana alena um alaina sorry alaina alaina mitchell and ina pervinova um they've written a great book called the new workplace we have a copy it is phenomenal um and that will basically help you guide you through all of that from an employer's point of view there you go so i like that thanks Ideals.

14:11Ideals. Yeah. So there you go. What have you seen now? I was on Twix, Twitter, X, whatever it's called now. And I found a brilliant article from someone called the IT Unprofessional. To be fair, I think it might actually have originally been on Reddit, but I'll be honest, I read it and then I'll put the link. You read it on X, but you should have read it on Reddit. I should have read it on Reddit. Very good. I X'd it on X, but I should have. Yeah, so I basically controlled. We should all X it X, to be fair. I controlled X on X and then control V'd into my notes. So what did you read on my day?

14:42Come on, let me get on with it. Right, so this guy is called, I said guy, I meant like sort of just person rather than man. He's called IT Unprofessional. And what I want to do, Leanne, is tell you what he's written and then ask you, is it acceptable? What's going on here? So essentially, this IT director, he's making 280 grand a year. He's written what he calls a corporate survival guide. It's essentially a playbook for gaming the system. Now, he's completely open about the fact that being good at technology is the least important part of being a director of IT. Instead, he's mastered what he calls corporate theater, which is strategic incompetence, manufactured optics and protecting the budget.

15:20And he's not even apologetic about it. He argues, and this is argument, is he didn't create the system. He just plays it. So this is the system in corporate seems to be the perception matters more than performance. So he's playing by the rules. And he admits he used to be passionate about technology, but now he's passionate about, and let's just read this, passionate about politics with technology veneer. So this is, and he says, all right, by the way, and he says the positioning, he says, an 80 grand IT guy and a 280 grand IT director, the 80 grand IT guy might think, well, if I get really good at IT, I can be an IT director.

15:54And actually, this guy is saying it's completely the opposite. It's all about the corporate politics. All about the corporate politics. Okay, is he doing this anonymous? monomonas thing. Yes, all anonymous. This is his burner account. He doesn't, he doesn't. So shall I give you a couple of examples of what he's doing? Yeah. Okay, it's the first one. Fake maintenance windows. This is what he does. He says, he announces he's got planned system maintenance for 2 a.m. on Sundays. There's no maintenance. He doesn't do anything. It's just, first of all, makes him look like he's up at 2 a.m. on a Sunday.

16:23Secondly, provides a ready-made excuse if anything ever goes wrong in the following weeks. They go, oh, it must be down to the, end of the thing, down to the maintenance. And then also gives him what he calls political cover, which is we do regular maintenance around here. Well, yeah, of course, because Bernard, he always does. Yeah, he pushed out his Sunday 2am maintenance last week. Yeah, he puts the hours in, does burn, doesn't he? Yeah, does that also mean that he can get a late start on a Monday? Because he's been up until 2am. Oh, I would have thought so. Yeah, he ain't rocking up to work until like lunchtime on a Monday, is he?

16:51I would have thought so. I love it, I love it. The second one is he's got a$5 ,000 testing lab, which where he buys equipment to find out whether it's going to integrate with the workplace. last year he bought high-end monitors macbooks standing desks and one of those vr things that you put on your face and um there he he says he said this is what i love this if anyone asks he says yes they're being long-term stress tested in a controlled environment meaning he's taking them home he brings everything home and every year and also he says he protects next year's budget because every year he spends another 5 000 because he goes well we need it and of course the CFO goes, oh, well, you know, they always spend the budget, so we can't take the budget over.

17:35And the third thing, so that's a bit sort of selfish. The third thing, which is really cool, is basically his CFO asked for an employee monitoring software to be installed in everyone's computer. So basically, you know, that's the mouse jiggling thing. That's the, we're going to watch what you're doing. Jiggalo, mouse jiggalo. Mouse jiggalo, exactly. So he said that he needs to, let's just find the exactly what he said. I haven't written down exactly what he said. So your HR manager is going, please put in spyware for all my employees. It's actually the CFO. The CFO. It's not the HR person. Of course it's not HR.

18:07No, no, no. HR don't have that power. They actually don't. They actually don't. But so he said, right, okay, no worries. All I need to do, I'll do a six-month feasibility study. We need to check with legal. We need to check with the unions. We need to do a company-wide questionnaire on this. and I also need to go to each individual employee and ask them the question, what software, what's the software they're currently using, what hardware they're currently using so there's no conflict. And the CFO went, oh, it's going to take nine months and all that work, forget it, don't worry about it. Obviously, he could have installed it in 45 minutes, but he saved his entire company from being up.

18:45And he did say, his phrase was something like, because I don't particularly want my VPN activity monitored either, which I thought was quite funny. Lee, like, there's loads more like this. I'll put a link. If this has made you chuckle, definitely go and check out that link because it is really i i really loved it there's loads more examples like that tell me lee this feels i love it because i'm a cheeky bastard but this feels like it's wrong is it wrong is he rusted out what's going on um i don't know what do i think the thing is you do this i'm an introverted psychologist if you ask me a question like this i need to literally go and sit and think about it on my own for half an hour and come back with an answer so just thinking off the top of my head what was the first one oh in terms of the surveillance thing love it brilliant that's just a really really smart way of using your knowledge power and influence to protect the masses yes rather than bow to the demands of a singular what a world we would live in today if we weren't bowing down to um one person um feel there's some subtext there leanne no not at all it's not been a week at all the testing thing i think that's fairly legit in that he might genuinely be thinking about that he might use a standing guest standing desk and go do you know what is absolutely transformed how i work how i feel my physical fitness it might be that he'll go yeah do you know what i think people should have right to a standing desk if they want And I'm not too concerned about that.

20:16Because I think there are things that he's going to... It's not like he's buying weekend breaks for him and his partner. Yeah, a good point. He's getting things that could legitimately need testing to roll out. What was the other one? The 2am? That's just kind of clever, isn't it? Yeah. I always think you kind of want to... Again, it's very political. And there'll be people going, why do we need this politics? We're all just open, honest and transparent. Why do we need this politics? Of course. what a world we would live in without politics yeah but we don't so i kind of think it's i was kind of told you know you you under promise and over deliver you manage expectations there's no surprises that's kind of what your man's doing in terms of there's no surprises if there is a problem because i'd be like oh well you know there was that two year maintenance thing we did expect something might happen blah blah blah was there anything else in there that was more no like kind of dodgy no because he said that um he said he goes out every tuesday and he meets one of the vendors for lunch the vendors love buying him lunch he loves italian foods they go out and have a really nice meal and and he just wants free food but he says but because the vendors meet them like every meet him every month so he does like four or five vendors they meet him every month they're like come on we've got to sell to this guy and uh last year they brought in a bit software and he saved forty thousand dollars because the vendor's like come on man what do i have to do i've bought you 10 lunches what do i have to do to get you to buy and he went well this price and went okay i can do that so he is doing good yeah clever anyway i could honestly talk about this for hours because there's another one about um any boring events he's get told to go to workshops he says i'll do the av on it i'll do the audio visual visually and just basically sets up a camera and goes and scrolls instagram lee do you know what i think this sounds more like boundaries and burnout healthy survival based boundaries i'm with you my official answer if i worked in said organisation be well this is terrible we need to look into this but yeah it's a funny little anecdotal story I think I applaud it I don't condone it right but I applaud it there we go what else have you been applauding or condoning this week uh UK banks are starting to make hires again which is exciting Al I hadn't realised not really working with the big financial sector myself that last year, 2025, was the toughest year for recruitment since 2008.

22:34The whole crisis thing. Wow. For UK banks and finance firms. Not a great time. But they're starting to hire again. Right. That's good news, isn't it? Yeah. And not just cautiously. So KPMG spoke to, it's a survey, 150 senior leaders across the UK financial services. This was reported by LBC, by the way. Is that the radio? Yeah, I think it's got a website. Yeah, maybe. The red and the blue. Oh, yeah, yeah. They report a lot on business stuff. But they found, this survey, 55 % of firms are planning to increase hiring this year and more than half of them have said that their recruitment focus will be on technology roles.

23:11That sounds like good news. It does. And not that surprising so far. Why is this a headline? I mean, it's good news, but, you know, what was more interesting is who they're actually looking for. So, of course, AI capability, most in-demand skill that firms are looking for. At board level, 57 % of companies planning to recruit said building AI capability is their top priority. Right. But instead of defaulting to kind of the hardcore engineers, data scientists, what this survey found is that firms are increasingly looking to hire people who understand how humans behave around technology. Now, are they looking to see how their employees behave or their customers?

23:54Both, I would imagine. So, Leanne Allen, who leads AI advisory at KPMG. Hello, Leanne. Excellent name. I also love, Leanne, that if you were to take your first name and the first two letters of your surname, you are us. Leanne Allen. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, we're basically the same person. Sorry. Leanne Allen and Leanne Elliot, I just, yeah, carry on. It's fine. So, Leanne said, It's not fine. Organizations are realizing that the biggest risks with AI aren't technical failures, they're behavioral ones. So over trusting systems, quiet complacency, people deferring judgment because the computer said so type of thing.

24:34That concern has been sharpened. I didn't hear about this. I don't know if you did, Al. a real-world incident earlier this month where a review into a policing decision found that Microsoft Copilot had generated background information that ended up in an official report. So the AI confidently referenced a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham that never actually happened. Right. But it sounded so plausible and fit the context. Nobody challenged it and it influenced an actual decision affecting how a football match would be policed. nothing broke and it didn't cause any issues but it could have and that is problematic so somebody else from kpmg kareem hai he was head of financial services say this is why ai is now actively shaping hiring decisions ethical ai leadership roles are increasingly going to people with backgrounds in psychology behavioral science law and social science so the human aspect of technology and AI is becoming even more important in 2026.

25:39Our thoughts? First of all, if HSBC is listening, then go noise up my wife. Go noise up Leanne. She's excellent at all this kind of stuff. So go and give her a million pound a year job. That would be lovely. Or contract would be even better, actually. Yeah, I don't want a job. No, no, no. You can schedule maintenance at 2 a.m. if you want. And secondly, I think you're right. I think what we're going through, the AI are like, oh my God, it's amazing. We are in two years' time, three years' time. I think we're going to get to the point where we rely so much on it that we, A, have forgotten what we knew.

26:10And B, it's making so many decisions for us that someone says, like, when's your wife's birthday? I don't know. Because AI knows it. And I've not had to think about it for two years. So I agree. As AI gets increasingly better every single day, we need someone in there to help us humans learn how to deal with this new world. Did that make sense? that sound important and clever? It sounded very important and very clever. Exactly. Good. That's my brand. It did. You're exciting and clever. I'm funny and useful. What's really happening, Leanne? Yeah, no, basically that really. It's, do you know what?

26:50Psychologists have been concerned about AI for some time. You know, it's been discussed by the British Psychological Society, the ABP, for a number of years in terms of its ethical use and how it is going to impact not only human behaviour but humans' cognitive processing. And that famous study that came out not so long ago about changes in the brain that are happening with the use of chat-gibutine or the generative models. Is that the right one? Nice, chapeau. Thank you. So it is important to engage people who are experts in behavioural science and in psychology to make sure that we're not overtrusting these systems, making sure we're spotting the bias and discrimination in them, making sure we're using them ethically and not in a way that is harming other people or putting other people at risk, including people within the organisation.

27:41I think it's quite interesting, particularly after a year where the financial services have had this dip in hiring, that of course AI is no surprise that those jobs are going to increase. but the fact that it is opening up these senior, very influential roles in industry where you don't see many psychologists in there talking about ethical practice. So I think it's a really interesting thing and exciting time. And I think, yeah, there was a lot of worry from psychologists that we might get made redundant because generative AI can do all this business. But actually, when you think about being an expert in behavioral science and human behavior and ethics is a big one.

28:22So I think, bravo, it sounds great for finance and great for the psychology community. Love it, love it. If you've got a story that you'd like Leanne and I to talk about, predominantly Leanne because she knows what she's talking about, then check the show notes. There is a way to get in touch with us there. Send us it. If you've written any kind of like article or you've written any kind of like, what's the thing that you like that there's really, I can't think of the word, study. Oh yeah, if you've done, you've just recently finished your, your master's in occupational, organizational psychology, send me a dissertation.

28:50Love sharing that research. Yeah, don't send it to me. That doesn't sound like a fun Sunday afternoon to me, but it is for Leanne. She loves it. Okay, we're back after this very short break. And we're back with Truth or Lie, what we're going to look into. Leanne, I've forgotten already. What is it? Learning styles. And then we've got the world-famous weekly workplace surgery. We'll wrap it up. Your questions to Leanne. See you in a second. Billion Dollar Moves, hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination of business professionals. Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures, and hard lessons of the creme de la creme, so you too can make billion-dollar moves in venture, in business, and in life.

29:29Maybe start with episode 124, where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

29:43Okay, welcome back, welcome back. I'm not going to explain the truth or lie in much depth anymore because i think we might have new listeners who have got new listeners just go back but basically truth or lie we i ask leanne is this truth or is it a lie and she answers she does a lot of research behind the behind the scenes we've talked about manifestation we've talked about maslow's pyramid of hierarchies of needs or something um this one this one is everywhere it's one of the most well-known theories of psychology it's called learning styles you've probably heard about it uh it's talked about in schools universities workplaces training sessions online quizzes and one of those cheesy ones like what learning style are you the idea is from what i can gather is that everyone has a learning style so you might be a visual learner or an auditory learner or someone who actually needs to move things which i believe is kinesthetic yeah yeah yeah and if the teachings match that style then you you win butley is this true or is this a lie i think we need to just untangle some things here because you've actually given me two claims there okay the idea that we have learning styles yeah and the idea number one claim number one claim number two is that if our if teaching is matched to that learning style our learning will improve okay so it's kind of two different things here so with that in mind let's just take a quick look at where this comes from because it has been around for ages it seems isn't it learning styles properly gained momentum in like the 70s 80s alongside a wider push towards student-centered education which is a lovely thing so models like david clob's experiential learning theory the vark frame which just we mentioned their visual auditory reading writing kinesthetic all seem very appealing very positive very actionable teachers like them they felt they could tailor learnings to individuals not force the same thing on everybody by the late 1990s and noughties learning styles were firmly embedded in teacher training they're in educational publishing they're in professional development and surveys have found that the vast majority of teachers believe in learning styles and actively use them that makes sense yeah so it's very much within our society I did teacher training back in 1995 and we talked about it there did you?