The schools have commonalities and differences. Marsick and O’Neil importantly point out that ‘these “schools” do not exist in practice’ (1999: 161). We would endorse this. One of the healthy characteristics of action learning is that its advocates and practitioners have sought to build on each other’s work without corralling a particular approach.
The first ‘school’ is characterized by its originator – Reg Revans – as being the ‘scientific’ method of action learning (1980, 1982, 1983). Given Revans’ physicist background, he validated action learning with recourse to the scientific method. For Revans this involves three stages: 1) understanding the system in which the problem being addressed resides; 2) negotiating and implementing a solution against a background of the scientific method – survey, hypothesis, experiment, audit and review; 3) finally the action learner brings his or her ways of seeing the world to check reality.
The second ‘school’ is characterized as the ‘experiential’ school based on Kolb’s ideas on the learning cycle of: action, reflection, theory and practice. Here set members have a starting point of a current, proposed or emerging action which they are undertaking and reflect upon it with the support and challenge of others in order to yield changes in actions and behaviour rather than simply repeat previous actions and habits. Marsick and O’Neil cite the first edition of action learning by McGill and Beaty (1992) as exemplifying this school.
Further characteristics of this school include making the learning of set members explicit by attention to the importance of process of the set and enabling the set members to learn how to learn. In addition, crucially, is the recognition and significance of emotion and the social context in contributing to learning. The third ‘school’ is characterized by ‘critical reflection’.
In addition to the experiential school, proponents of critical reflection highlight the need to reflect on the assumptions and beliefs that shape practice. This approach draws upon Mezirow’s (1990) notion that critical reflection can transform perspectives. Perspectives drawn from life experience may be ‘flawed’ for being filtered through unexamined views, which may distort the person’s understanding of their situation. We have drawn attention to this above in relation to the work of Schön as developed in Part II and in Brockbank and McGill (1998).
This is where action learning can have a transformational effect for the set member and for organizational change. An explicit recognition of this radical potential is appropriate for set members who wish to embark on this route. Marsick and O’Neil conclude their article with a cautionary note for those who embark upon action learning and that:
it is often a first step for participants in a journey toward greater self-insight, greater capacity to learn from experience, and greater awareness of the political and cultural dimensions of organizational change. For organizations, it is often a first step toward linking individual learning with systemic learning and change. (1999)
Our experience is that transformational change is possible at the individual level. Transformational as opposed to instrumental change (for improvement) at organizational levels is more an aspirational than a practical reality. Where individuals have senior roles in an organization they may be able to effect significant change, particularly in association with others who have experienced action learning. The example of the public sector organization preceding this section is a good example of action learning leading to organizational improvement.
Read More : A typology of action learning
