Entrenuerial Learning calls for Integrative Thinking

Are you like me on this? You have a stack of books nearby your favorite workstation (in my case, a bedroom long vacated by my son Dave, now my home office). When in need of a treat, a break from that fecund Do List which ads tasks autonomically, you grab a half hour and dive into a book to see what smart people have to say about managerial and organizational behavior.

Today, my break was with Roger Martin's, The Opposable Mind. My place was near the end. He presents the "Art and Science of Generative Reasoning". He talks about how at the Rotman School (University of Toronto) he leads his MBS students into using their minds opposibly.

This passage struck me: "We teach them how to seek insights that don't fit into the existing models. Then we ask them to proceed from those insights to visualize new models (the root of entrepreneurial learning). We also teach them how to prototype and refine their mental models, gathering additional data with each interaction."

What they say next is a message to all of us management educators. "Many students find it scary, and somewhat transgressive, to flex their abuctive logic muscles, having been taught to see deductive and inductive logic as the only legit mate forms of reasoning."

Comment, please. Are we the unwitting source of this Mind constraining teaching? Or, can and do we teach in ways that encourage learners to create their own models of how their work works (so far)?