If only we could get better at transferring what we learn in one context to all the other situations in which we find ourselves. Something we find out in a training session could be applied in a range of contexts, demonstrating to our employer the immediate benefit of investing in our learning. Or perhaps an insight into managing our defensiveness can
help us not only to receive difficult feedback from a colleague but also to have a constructive conversation with our children about a difficult issue without descending into argument.

Making connections

American psychologists Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak gave the following problem to a group of students to demonstrate some of the difficulty involved in applying learning:

Imagine you were a doctor faced with a patient who has an inoperable stomach tumour. You have at your disposal rays that can destroy human tissue when directed with sufficient intensity. At lower intensity the rays are harmless to healthy tissue, but they do not affect the tumour either. How can you use these rays to destroy the tumour without destroying the surrounding healthy tissue?

Few students found this easy to solve. But nine out of ten were able to do so when they were also given the following passage and told to use the information in it to help them:

A general wants to capture a fortress in the centre of a country. There are many roads radiating outwards from the fortress. All have been mined so that, while groups of men can pass over the roads safely, larger forces will detonate the mines. A full-scale direct attack is therefore impossible. The general’s solution is to divide his army into small groups, send each group to the head of a different road and have the groups converge simultaneously on the fortress.

Most of the students spotted the analogy between dividing the troops up into small groups and using a number of small doses of radiation, which converged on the same bit of
the tumour. But they did much better when the explicit connection between the two bits of information had been pointed out.

Transferring knowledge is a complex matter. You may be able to use your arguing and persuasion skills very easily with someone you know and love, but go to pieces when you try to use the same knowledge in front of your over-bearing boss. Context and environment matter.

One of the determining factors of transfer is the extent of your knowledge. You need to know enough about something before you can really use all of your skills. So, for example, if you do not know how a pack of cards works, you may find the rules of Bridge challenging. The more you can organise information into some kind of pattern or conceptual  framework, the more likely you are to be able to deal with new situations. So, once you have understood the way hand-made wooden furniture is pegged together, you will be able to think about all sorts of possible ways of joining items together without nails or screws.

We can all get better at it

Being able to transfer knowledge is an extremely valuable ability. Indeed it is, in a sense, the holy grail of learning. For if we could successfully use our know-how whenever we need to, there would be a constant payback for us and for our employers for all the opportunities we have been provided with.

If only it were easy to put what we know into practice. But it isn’t.

The good news is that you can get better at transferring what you know. Here are five ideas:

1. Get to a certain level of confidence before you even try using what you have learned in an unfamiliar setting. (Practise your presentation skills in front of your family before you try it at a conference!)
2. Make time to practise newly acquired skills. There is no short cut to this.
3. It helps when tasks share some common elements. So try to identify processes that are common to different situations. (Taking a deep breath and counting to five when you
   feel your anger rising is a simple example.)
4. Consciously look for patterns to link things together. It could be a simple aide memoire like the ‘mirror-signal-manoeuvre’ you may have learned in a driving lesson, or more complex categories that you create to link things together.
5. Reinforcement helps. Once you have learned something (like asking a difficult question), try to apply it in lots of different situations while it is fresh in your mind.

Over to you!

Dr Bill Lucas is chairman of the Talent Foundation. He is a speaker, facilitator, strategist and the author of many books on lifelong learning, parenting and the operation of the mind. He can be contacted through his website at www.bill-lucas.com

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