When Action Learning doesn’t work

Action learning is a buzz word when it comes to management and leadership education. It is used and, also misused, very frequently by providers of management training. This short piece sheds more light on what action learning is at its core (Razaghi 2016).

Some scholars distinguish Reginald Revans as the originator of action learning, especially in the field of management (Pedler 2011).

Revans emphasizes the importance of ‘action’ and ‘questions that arise from practice’ to the process of learning and talks about ‘learning by doing’, explaining that no learning can occur without action and no action can be taken without learning (Revans 1982).

According to Zuber-Skerritt “action learning means learning from action or concrete experience, as well as taking action as a result of this learning” (Zuber-Skerritt 2001, p.2). Simply put, action learning is based on the idea that people can learn from each other’s experiences (Kemmis and McTaggart 2007).

Some scholars call action learning ‘contextual Action Research’ and focus on the importance of involving all parties and stakeholders in a holographic learning experience, meaning that each actor should understand the inner-workings of the whole system and not only his or her part of the work (O’brien 1998).

Action Learning facilitators are involved in developing such arenas for experience sharing and collective reflection on the practices in order to help the stakeholders gain a better understanding of the problems and consequently find more effective solutions to tackle them.

So, if you are designing a program based on principles of action learning, make sure:

1. There is a careful design to create opportunities for participants to have first hand experiences and sharing their experiences with each other. Action learning and Action research need a social context and close interactions to work best, not just great lectures.
2. There is a built in process in the program to create moments and opportunities to intentionally observe, and curiously reflect on these experiences. To go deep and ask fundemtnal questions on “Why do we do this?”, “Why do we do this like this?”, “Why others approach the same situations, differently?”. And continue digging deeper deeper by asking reflective questions.

We don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience (John Dewey the great educational philosopher)

Action learning is very powerful and can change lives. It has its own disciplines and processes and when used professionally the results can be transformative. But it doesn’t work well if the hard work is not put into it. Doing things without reflecting on them leads to very limited learning and results (Dewey 1904). Be patient, be prudent and be systemtic.