Chances are if you are reading this, you have gone to school at some stage in your life. If you were thought like most students were thought 20years ago, you will probably have been given specific direction and instruction on answering questions and will most likely not have spent much time coming up with answers yourself as the teacher always had the right answer.

From what I know of the current education system in Ireland, this approach is changing. Students are being challenged more and more to figure things out for themselves. Many secondary schools now have a transition year where students take time out before preparing for their leaving certificate to do projects, participate in extra curricular activities and go on job placements in a career they think they might be interested in pursuing when they leave school. The difference between this learning and the traditional classroom based learning that I am familiar with from 20 years ago are dramatic. The classroom based learning is referred to as “inductive learning” where the student is told the right answer, learns from an expert and digests a series of instructions to solve a particular problem. The other approach which I would advocate is more suitable for adult learning is referred to as “deductive learning” where a student deduces an answer to a question or a problem by making logical associations with their own past experience and knowledge.

Let me illustrate the different approaches by way of example. Let’s imagine for a moment that you decide you want to climb Mount Everest and you have no experience in climbing or never took on such a massive challenge before. If you were to apply “Inductive learning” to help you figure out what you need to do to be successful in this adventure, you might find an expert such as Pat Falvey, someone who has vast experience in climbing and ask him what the best way would be. You listen and take notes from this expert and learn all you need to learn. You follow every step that the expert has told you, but what happens when something goes wrong or things start to get a little too tough. Chances are you will start blaming the expert for giving you flawed advice and will quickly find yourself cancelling your expedition.

How might things be different if you adopted a “deductive learning” approach? You might sit down and ask yourself a whole pile of questions such as; what knowledge do I have that would be useful on this expedition? What experiences can I call on, that will help me? Who do I know who might support me? What skills don’t I currently have that I will need and how will I get these? What is my first step? Etc. etc. In this way you are coming up with YOUR plan that you can take full personal responsibility for. What happens when things go wrong? You are a lot more likely to face up to the challenge and figure out a way to deal with it to move on. After all, you can’t blame any expert because YOU came up with the plan.

The same philosophy applies when Managers are trying to maximise the potential of their teams. As a Manager, do you direct and tell people what the RIGHT answer is or do you take the time to support them in figuring out a solution for themselves. If you tend to do the former, try out creating a “deductive learning” atmosphere and watch how your team come up with great ideas, ideas you might never have thought of yourself.

Deductive learning is a cornerstone of effective coaching at work. If you would like more information on how you can become more effective as a Manager by embracing some sound coaching principles, please contact me for details of my “Coaching Skills for Managers” 1day workshop.

Fergal O’Connor is a Business and Personal Life Coach working in partnership with his Business and Private clients providing a supportive, confidential, challenging and non-judgemental environment to make their ambitions and dreams a reality. Fergal also facilitates a range of Coaching and Management training programs, Team facilitation workshops and is available for public speaking engagements. Fergal can be contacted at Synergy Coaching Services, Tel: (061) 467287 or through "Contact us" page on this website.

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