Personal and management development
Action learning was initially developed by Reg Revans in post-Second World War Britain and he worked intrepidly, ploughing a very innovative path compared to the prevailing norms of training and development. He was very much at the frontier. Advances made in the USA, emanating from the west coast and found in such excellent works as Pfeiffer and Jones (1977), enabled people engaging in personal and management development to work in ways that involved them – that is, their whole person – in activities that at least they could relate to their own direct experience. In the UK, learner-centred development was slower to develop.
In higher education lecturing to students was the norm, and case studies of past events used as material for qualifications like the MBA, modelled on the Harvard one, where the expertise lay mainly with the lecturer leading the case, represented the mainstream. The main alternative in the development field lay with the emphasis on ‘up front’ training. In both the above examples, authority and expertise lay firmly with the lecturer or trainer.
This simply reflected the tendency to authoritarian ways of inculcating learning, even though it ignored much of the research, which suggested that in adult learning the significance of personal experience is crucial. Relatively advanced programmes in the development field at least used simulations that emphasized key issues such as the need for planning, strategy and task/process. In these programmes the participant was actually involved in undertaking a task, albeit using Lego or film. It is perhaps unfair from this vantage point to be critical of the latter methods – for they are still useful as part of the overall development of individuals both within and outside organizations.
Outdoor activities that promote personal and group understanding and team development, for example, come to mind. However, all the above come under the critical gaze when attention is paid to the life experience of the individual and the utilization of that experience by the individual. That experience was usually overtly left at the door to the training or development event. It is here that action learning becomes increasingly relevant for it does just the opposite – bringing life experience to the fore as the single most important resource in enabling the individual to move and learn and develop with the support of others.
Moreover, action learning is increasingly in line with the resistance to what are in effect authoritarian methods to induce learning. By its nature there is, in action learning, a fundamental respect for where people are coming from, their values and their right to learn at their own pace in a democratic environment. Action learning also reflects the growing recognition that learning and development can be, and is, supported by a social context in which learning is shared as a social activity. This again is in contrast to the notion that learning is best conducted in isolation and in competition with others.
There is a tension here in that much of the contemporary life of work is competitive. Again that is part of the appeal of action learning. It creates the conditions for collaboration amid that competitive environment that are also needed for a sane life. Further, while capitalism is the current order, it nevertheless has enormous downsides, and developing alternative collaborative ways of working and living may be pointers to the future.
In the 1980s, one of us, for our research leading to a PhD, investigated the organization of work and the advocacy of industrial democracy by those primarily on the left of politics – including the British Labour Party.
A key feature was the advocacy of collaborative ways of working, a facet of industrial democracy. The espousal of that appeal to democratic ways of working was almost always defeated in the lack of realization of that appeal. While there were often ‘real politik’ reasons why it was not feasible, even where the conditions were possible, it did not work for the simple reason that the actors did not know how to work collaboratively.
What is the connection here with action learning? It is this: to work effectively, action learning requires in the participants a value criterion that promotes collaborative approaches to the task in hand. This includes sets where there is a facilitator. The facilitator is, in the early stages, creating the conditions within the voluntary framework for collaborative work and learning. While the facilitator may lead the process, once set members become aware of and familiar with it, the set can move to more collaborative modes, sharing responsibility and gradually moving into autonomous mode without the facilitator.
Moreover, members of sets collectively share their concerns, issues and proposed actions, which itself may be novel. Just as important is the process by which the learning set works through a set member’s issues. The process is a shared, collective one where the learning about how to work on issues collectively is made explicit. Thus set members gain practice in a way of working that is designed to be collective as well as reflecting upon that practice. This reflection on practice ensures that the learning is made explicit – the practice is sensed, articulated, and incorporated into the set member’s repertoire of behaviour.
This enhanced and ‘different’ repertoire is then applicable in other contexts outside the action learning set, in work as well as in other social contexts. The repertoire of behaviour is different in that the aim is to learn, develop, and engage in tasks in a collaborative way, typified by the term ‘win–win’ rather than ‘win–lose’ strategies.
The approach is not adversarial. Another facet of our experience in working with a wide range of people employed in organizations is the tremendous pressure, often oppressive, from which it is very difficult to disentangle oneself without total withdrawal through voluntary or involuntary retirement or burn-out. It is quite clear that some enthusiastic participants are attracted to action learning because the set is a haven of sanity and reflection.
Working conditions commonly provide little time for shared reflection. Asked if time is feasible in the day, week, month or year for reflection (and the necessary conditions for learning and development), the answer is usually raised eyebrows and laughter. Yet we are asking organizations to make that leap to engage in organizational learning without providing the means for it, often for their most senior staff, let alone the seedbed staff of the future.
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