I run a management consulting firm with a se in executive development and
in the management of radical change, and Action Learning is one of the key
tools that we use to help clients faced with the need for radical change
among others at the top of their organization. In the US, Motorola,
Digital, Coca-Cola. PSEG, GE and a few other large companies have
successfuly used it for executive development.
AL is very subtle and does not lend itself well to being described in
words. Like golf or ice cream, it needs to be experienced.
It is hard to condense many years of experience with AL into a short
intro, but I will try:
1) What is Action Learning ?
* AL is a deliberate program for allowing managers to learn by working
with each other in groups (called "sets") on real-life issues, with input
from an external adviser (the "set adviser").
* AL creates an environment conducive to managerial learning:
- learning takes place by grappling with tasks, with and from a group of
others who are also engaged in managing real problems.
- members of the group retain responsibility for solving their own
problems, by contrast with project teams or task forces.
- members of the group are concerned with implementing the issues
explored. They are not simply seeking theoretical solutions to problems.
- AL is not a panacea. It does not guarantee that learning will take
place, but ensures that the prerequisite conditions for learning will be
there.
* AL does not prescribe any solutions as best, or any one as the correct
best way. Participants learn to solve problems and address opportunities
problems by asking the right questions, rather than by trying to impose
favored solutions.
* AL is a simple, yet delicate process: In Reginald Revan's facetious
words, "it is so simple that it takes ten years for professors to
understand it". Many companies make the mistake to try to adapt Action
learning without understanding fully the consequences (shortening the
process, reducing the depth of the learning, or declaring themselves
overnight set facilitators), and fail. AL cannot be learnt by reading a
book or an article.
2) AL IS Different From Traditional Management Education
* AL views learning as a central, natural human behavior. which takes
place during encounters with the real world. However, as human beings do
not always learn from success or failure, AL provides an environment where
learning is integrated with work: periods of action alternate with periods
of reflection.
* Learning is the central purpose of AL. The use of the term "AL" implies
that the focus is on learning. AL uses the resolution of problems or the
exploitation of opportunities as a vehicle to generate the learning. The
learning may seem to be a byproduct. It is in fact both the method and the
purpose of AL.
* AL demonstrates that management development is more likely to occur as a
result of reflecting on real-life experience than from adding more
theoretical knowledge. To maximize learning, AL favors "Questioning
Insight" , obtained by stepping out of one's familiar frames of reference
and allowing new ones to come in, and utilizes "Programmed Knowledge"
(knowledge found in books, or among experts, and that has been used to
solve yesterday's problems) only as a last resort.
* AL surfaces the social dimension of learning . AL is more than mutual
growth or instruction, whereby each partner supplies the deficiencies of
others with the knowledge or skills necessary to complete some mission.
Lending expertise remains incidental, learning from each other remains
key.
* AL allows to safely introduce reflective questioning in the management
process. AL argues that the most effective learning occurs when people
recognize a common ignorance rather than when they share pre-existing
knowledge.
* AL does not try to shape the individual to a predetermined standard.
Rather, its emphasis is on assisting managers in seeing their individual
and work realities from different perspectives.
* AL is eminently practical: Translating newly found insights and
perspectives into practice is an integral part of the program. All that
goes on during the program has its subsequent counterpart on the field. AL
program last from 6 yo 18 months. Depending on the scope of the project
and on their commitments in the organization, some of the participants
work full-time on their project, and some half-time. All participants are
volunteers, who have been recommended by their managers and are perceived
as capable to become prospective directors or general managers within 3 to
5 years. Some participants may work alone on an issue, and some
collaboratively. Issues to be worked on are selected jointly by sponsors
("clients") and participants. During the entire project, participants
maintainclose contact with their client.
Participants meet at weekly intervals, with set advisers facilitating the
process. Each set is assembled with great care from a mix of issues
tackled, experience, ability, personality and geography.
Participants, in turn, present the problems/opportunities which they are
grappling with, while other set members and the adviser listen, pose
questions and offer advice and suggestions. The process causes the
presenters to rethink their positions and approaches. This leads to
further thoughts and ideas to be tested in action during the periods
between set meetings.
The results are later presented and discussed at later set meetings. The
presentation in the set of organizational issues leads the discussion into
the full range of managerial activities: strategy, negotiation, marketing,
organization, finances. Considerable dialogue occurs about the depth and
nature of individual and set learning.
Lessons From AL Programs
1) * The choice of the issues to be worked on is critical.
Broad, systemic problems should be preferred over "technical puzzles".
Problems that are both intellectually and emotionally and politically
challenging are preferable. .
2) * Emphasis away from being a subordinate, towards becoming learner,
increases anxiety. Participants need to:
- have the ability to ask challenging, penetrating questions.
- be willing to constructively criticize and be criticized.
- be willing to listen to and to put into practice other people's ideas.
- dare to surface and overcome their doubts and anxiety and innate
tendencies to flight, deny, avoid, be defensive, resist learning and find
refuge in willing ignorance.
3) * Set participants need ongoing cooperation with:
- the people who own the issue they work on.
- the individuals or groups who have significant stakes in the
problem/opportunity.
- the departments which have a bearing on the issue.
- those that will play a role in the implementation of the recommendations.
4 ) * Set advisers need to:
- Have been themselves set participants. One cannot improvise oneself set
adviser.
- Keep the focus on learning, ask extraordinary questions, introduce new
ideas and help people see connections between ideas, situations, problems
and solutions.
- Let each participant and each set take its own course, depending on
individual experience and circumstances and resist the temptation to be
charismatic figures, providers of solutions, experts, teachers (but they
need to take on these roles at different times).
The choice of set advisers is a delicate one, in that they both need to:
have an understanding of the facilitation process and to master the
complexities of the business issues being dealt with in the sets.
Typical situations that offer opportunities for AL
* A number of opportunities or problems exist which are crucial for the
company. Existential, real-life situations are favored by contrast with
experimental, dreamt-up situations like games or simulations which provide
useful, but limited learning.
* The issues involve a broad understanding of the company, rather than
simply present a technological puzzle.
* The issues extend across more than one function in the business. Their
drivers and implications are system-wide.
* No one solution to the issues at hand exists, and no solution can be
found through systematic analysis. Solving the problem requires both an
intellectual and an emotional stretch. The whole-person involvement of
those that will work on the issues is critical.
* Resolving the selected issues requires the active involvement,
commitment and cooperation from a number of persons at different levels and
in different areas in the organization.
Conclusion
* AL cannot be accurately described: it needs to be experienced. The only
way to learn about AL is to be in a participant in a set.
* The process is difficult: some participants cannot accept the
confronting feedback from their set fellow members. Others remain
opinionated, authoritarian and dismissive of others, creating moral and
performance problems in the sets. Some prefer to work alone and decide
that they are not interested in sharing their work with others and leave
the sets.
* Participants look inward and outwards and tackle previously neglected
strategic aspects of managerial jobs, which they would not have thought
possible before. Their sense of self-fulfillment grows dramatically.
Subsequently, they develop a renewed sense of belongingness with the
organization.
* Most participants express that they had learnt more that they had
anticipated possible: not only been acquiring new knowledge or skills, but
becoming more aware, altering their beliefs and values, reasoning and
doing things differently, and applying new skills and knowledge into
something practical and valuable for themselves and the organization.
My understanding is that there are very few people in the US with in-depth
experience in running sets and Action Learning programs. I will be glad to
answer questions from members of the list
Jean Marie Bonthous
jmb@leonardo.net
JMB International
31339 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu CA 90265
fax 310 457 2218
--jmb@leonardo.net (jean-marie bonthous)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>