Understanding Action Learning

Is Your Organization Ready for Action Learning?

Action Learning (AL) has become an increasingly popular method of employee training and development over the past 20 years. Companies face a new set of challenges, including globalization, and need to generate innovative solutions instead of relying on the same old answers. Because AL is based on real-time, hands-on learning, it appeals to practical managers who want quick impact with quantifiable results.

“Participants struggle with new issues in an AL program and, as a result, learn to look at their work and the organization differently.”

To benefit from this system, first ascertain how fully your corporate culture can implement AL. For example, the highest “school” of AL encourages learners to challenge corporate values and the status quo, so if you do not wish to overhaul your culture, select a less demanding approach. The schools of AL resemble a progressive pyramid, where the higher levels incorporate and build on the traits of the lower ones.

“If in the last few years, you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”

Choose from these four schools:

1. “Tacit” – This is the foundation level of AL. Its core idea is that learning will take place naturally if a carefully chosen team works together to solve an issue. It emphasizes action and results, rather than the learning process, although the team is expected to learn as it works. Solving problems and implementing solutions stand at the fore. This school promotes teamwork and quick, practical results.
2. “Scientific” – This level builds upon the tacit school by not just identifying and solving problems, but by “framing” them and approaching them from different perspectives. It strives to achieve management goals in a scientific manner – by drafting hypotheses and conducting experiments. Team members learn by contrasting their initial expectations with their results. This school advocates seeking the right questions, rather than the right answers.
3. “Experiential” – This approach emphasizes cognitive learning. On top of achieving solid results, it fosters “personal development, self-knowledge and learning styles.” Employees use reflection deliberately to meet two goals: generating solutions and discovering their true beliefs. Participants explicitly discuss the learning process, keep learning diaries and follow personal development plans.
4. “Critical reflection” – The highest AL school fosters transformational learning. Here, the goals include innovative solutions, personal development and organizational change. Participants examine their beliefs, and question their potentially “flawed perceptions” as well as the organization’s status quo. At this deeply reflective level, individuals can reframe issues, questions and ways of thinking most easily.

“Each AL program should be co-designed to be unique to the needs and capacity of the organization. The design produced must match with both the corporate culture and the issues and objectives of the program.”

Pick the most appropriate level of AL by matching the school to your company’s learning goals. If you are trying to get your people to think about new issues and solve problems, use the tacit approach. When you want to reframe issues and develop a process for learning, adopt scientific AL. If you want to develop personal learning goals and styles, as well as deeper reflection about objectives, select the experiential method. When you seek personal and organizational evolution, use critical reflection.

“GE’s approach to AL...advocates for managers developing other managers by taking advantage of teachable moments.”

Each method has its own requirements and creates its own set of issues as you use it. Tacit AL is the least disruptive and demands the least organizational preparation. Critical reflection requires the most preparation and will cause the most disruption because its goals involve organizational transformation. Your success also will depend on how ready and willing your “pupils” are.

Codesigning Your AL Program

Include the following groups in the design of your AL learning program:

• AL consultants – They are experts in action learning.
• Members of the human-resources team – They supply organizational knowledge.
• Executives and participants – They provide ownership and support of the AL process. Motivated, team-oriented individuals help the run smoothly.

“Achieving transformational outcomes depends...on the readiness of the learner to confront, rather than resist, the learning experience.”

To get the ball rolling, secure the support of top management and confirm the project’s strategic mandate. Next, formulate the program, and choose your coaches and participants. Each of these steps has independent objectives and, therefore, requires carefully planned sessions. Since each step builds on the foundation of the one before, ensure that one has been accomplished before you move on to the next. Decide whether to carry out the AL initiative as a team project or as a mechanism to solve individual problems. If the work involved is of benefit to everyone, it should be organization-wide, but if it concerns solving problems involving just one or two individuals, approach it on a smaller scale.

Too Many Cooks

The ideal AL team size is around half a dozen people. Include enough people to ensure synergy and a range of views, but not so many that the team becomes bogged down in interpersonal issues or overcrowding. Choose participants according to your desired team dynamics and outcomes. Select sponsors who will champion the project.

“Learning is not compulsory...Neither is survival.”

Decide whether participation should be voluntary or mandatory. Some organizations offer an introductory meeting and allow attendees to volunteer and form teams accordingly. Others require existing teams to participate because they need to address specific issues. Carefully consider which approach is best for your organization.

“Having the right answers isn’t good enough. Managers have to know how to ask the right questions. And AL is a question-focused approach.”

Several factors affect a project’s duration. The first is the calendar length of the project, which can range from a few months to a year. The second is how much time the AL program will take away from individuals’ actual work time. Of course, this depends on the complexity of the problem. The minimum amount should be a few days of solid work to launch the project, bolstered by a day or two of focused time every month. Certainly, short exchanges of observations and learning can take place during work time without the need for special scheduling. Use your AL meetings to add energy to your program rather than sap vitality from it.

Learning Coach

The coach’s experience and ability are critical factors in the success of an AL development program. The coach will be a major contributor to the codesign process, and will work closely with the project’s sponsor and the HR team. The learning coach fulfills several roles:

• “Team intervener” – The coach asks questions, encourages the participants to do the same, helps the team find the right balance of labor and learning, defuses conflict as it arises, promotes the successful work of the team in the organization, pushes the members to better performance, supports the learning environment and, yet, remains largely invisible.
• “Team reflector” – The coach helps the team reflect on its progress and diagnoses issues. This takes place at set times or as problems arise that cause sticking points.
• “Periodic trainer” – The trainer motivates the team to design and implement its learning philosophy, and encourages members to take on the role of learning coach as appropriate.

“The role of sponsor usually exists when the co-design of the program calls for team projects. In this case, the project belongs to this individual, who is usually a high-level manager or executive outside of the team.”

Have participants document their questions, problems, accomplishments and learning in a journal. A learning journal helps people remember what is important to them, and also provides evidence, support and structure that can aid the entire team in accomplishing its goals. Though the journal has no fixed structure, team members should focus on objectives rather than people, and keep the tone positive and energetic. Writing negative thoughts can drag the group down and develop into excuses for failing to reach objectives. Encourage members to drive change by thinking and acting differently today than they did yesterday.

Different Interaction

Each of the four schools views the role of AL coach differently. Tacit programs have no learning coach because it is assumed that the members of a carefully designed team will create learning as a normal result of working together. In the scientific school, a place exists for someone to help foster cohesion and orderly discussion. Learning coaches generally transfer their skills to their students. They do not teach in the traditional way; they try to impart knowledge by asking questions and creating the right conditions for people or teams to find solutions by themselves.

“Many factors...shape the roles and responsibilities of a learning coach. One of the most important...appears to come from internal influences – a coach’s background, values and attitudes.”

The experiential school calls for a coach who is involved in team learning. The emphasis rests on creating an environment that fosters learning opportunities, and on teaching team members to recognize and use the opportunities this environment provides. The team members reflect on their experiences as part of working on an actual project. The stress on transformation in the critical reflection school calls for a deeper, more penetrating style of reflection. The learning coach in this school is not a team member, but asks questions as an outsider. The coach should not be constrained by the team’s norms, processes or existing internal dynamics.

“The fundamentals of the adult learning theories, such as learning from experience and transformational learning, should be included as a part of learning coach development.”

If you need to train more AL coaches to support your efforts as your program expands, search among candidates who had successful AL experiences. A prospective coach might begin by shadowing an existing coach. Train new coaches to create and use content. Ground them in the intricacies of your chosen AL school so they know how to codesign programs.

How to Evaluate AL

Evaluating and measuring organizational learning is always difficult. Ideally, you should set up the measurements as you design the program. An initial gauge is a questionnaire about participant reaction. Always monitor what is happening in your AL initiatives and evaluate it in real time rather than waiting until the end to see if it succeeded.

“When we increase our awareness of our thoughts, intentions and actions, we increase our understanding and learning.”

Use the learning you encounter along the way to make your program more potent. Another measure is to discover how much learning is shifting to other parts of your organization. If significant, valuable learning has taken place, people in other parts of the company might pick up on its value, use its processes and benefit from the new knowledge. To capture learning and experiences, use short, focused, clearly written critical incident reports. Get your team to read them and include new comments.

“The ideal team size is considered to be five to seven participants. This provides for diversity of perspectives and yet permits full participation on the part of everyone.”

To measure the organizational impact of your project’s entire scope, conduct culture surveys before and afterward. These measure whether the program closed relevant gaps between actual and desired performance. While every manager would like a solid ROI measure, such numbers are not always readily available. Some opponents of action learning use this lack of hard data to argue that AL does not deliver strong results. Since your organization is investing time and resources in the program, prove its worth by documenting group or individual achievements. Your communication and documentation process will be critical to your program’s effectiveness.

Corporate Culture and AL

Which AL school suits your organization? If your firm has a directive culture, and your primary objective is to answer strategic questions, the tacit school is your best choice. Choose this level if you wish to reinforce a sturdy corporate culture. If your firm does not have a directive culture, but you are interested in reframing your problems and developing a process for developing strategic answers that resolve problems, opt for the scientific school. If, in addition to strategic answers and problem resolution, your organization strives to achieve formalized learning and personal development for those in the program, use the experiential school. If you want to achieve transformation by using the critical reflection school, your senior leaders must be willing to learn because using this approach will force your company to deal with ambiguity and handle some loud organizational noise.

To implement change throughout a large organization, use a cascading rollout rather than a “big bang” approach. Think of ripples spreading out from a splash in the center of your organization.