Benefits of Action Learning

The power and multiplying impact of action learning is demonstrated by its many direct and indirect benefits, including:

• solutions to complex organizational problems

• individual and team development

• management development

• the creation of learning organizations

Problem-Solving

Solving problems, as well as resolutions of different tasks and issues within an organization, is a key focus and one of the unique facets of action learning. The numerous case studies described in this Info-line attest to the success of action learning in solving organizational problems.

Reg Revans—The Father of Action Learning Reg Revans is the name that dominates action learning. A physicist from Cambridge, England, Revans began his journey in the 1920s when he observed how scientists who worked at the Cavendish Laboratory were able to share their problems—how they questioned each other and how they received support from their colleagues. No one individual person was considered more important than any other and each had a contribution to offer, even if they were not “experts” in a particular field. By working in this manner, the scientists generated workable solutions to all their problems. In 1945 Revans became the first Director of Education and Training for the newly formed National Coal Board (NCB). Immediately after his arrival, Revans pronounced to the NCB staff college: “We do not envisage the permanent employment of a staff of qualified tutors to deliver lectures and seminars.” This having been said, Revans set about changing how things were done at NCB. He organized managers into small groups of four or five members and met with them in the coal fields, usually close to their own pits. From the start, these managers worked together trying to solve coal field problems—they visited each others' pits and operated as consultants to one other. In those mines that participated in the prototype action learning programs, output increased 30 percent per person, while at the nonparticipating mines, productivity remained static. In his role as Professor of Industrial Administration, Revans, in 1955, addressed a turnover problem at the Royal Infirmary of the University of Manchester. The infirmary could not retain trained staff, particularly nurses. By involving those individuals who were seen as part of the problem to try to solve the problem, Revans discovered that nurses were often discouraged from asking questions and were thus, unable to fully comprehend their roles vis-a-vis the other people at the hospital. Small groups, composed of doctors, nurses, and administrators, worked on nearly 40 disparate projects and accomplished some impressive results. In later years, Revans achieved similar successes in Belgium working with government officials, business leaders, and various academicians. In the 1970s and 1980s, Revans carried the concept of action learning to Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, and Egypt. He then became President of the International Management Center in Buckingham in 1982 where the first MBA program based exclusively on action learning was begun. In 1996 the first Action Learning Conference, hosted by Revans, was held in London and attended by 100 delegates from around the world.

Action learning sets, or the group of people involved in an action learning project, examine difficult tasks or problems in the organization. Then they act to change them and return the results to the organization for review and learning. While undertaking action learning, individuals build skills and create significant change as they begin addressing organizational problems from new perspectives.

Through action learning sets, problems are solved in much more innovative, systematic ways than through any other method. Action learning programs have been instrumental in creating new products and services, saving million of dollars, reducing delivery time, and changing organizational culture.

Individual and Team Development

Research and experience have demonstrated that action taken on a problem changes both the problem and the people acting on it. There are several skills and attitudes developed by participation in the action learning process:

• self-understanding and self-awareness from the feedback of others in the groups

• development of critical reflection and reframing skills, which allow a person to examine “taken-for-granted” assumptions that prevent an individual from acting in new and more effective ways

• questioning and problem-solving skills

• learning how to be an effective member of a group by being supportive as well as challenging

• enhanced formal presentation and facilitation skills

• new knowledge about the organization's products, people, and processes

• facilitation, advising, and leadership skills

• effective communication skills, including giving and receiving feedback

Management Development

During his lecture-based courses, Reg Revans noticed that the students and managers were relatively passive and lacking in energy in the classroom. They came to life, however, when they discussed their own “back home” problems with one another. The message was loud and clear to Revans: Managers are people of action who learn from action. They will help each other in the right environment and will be prepared to share their experience and insights.

In the real world of work, most managers learn by doing a job. Learning is rarely identified beforehand, however, and managers seldom know how to tap these learning opportunities.

In action learning sets, managers submit their actions to the constructive scrutiny of persistent but supportive colleagues. Through this process of enforced self-revelation, managers realize why they say the things they say, do the things they do, and value the things they value. The managers also begin to transcend a self-image built on the assumption that their actions are entirely congruent with their espoused intentions.

Action learning develops three attributes critically needed by managers who want to be effective in today's workplace of rapid change.

Openness

Learning to be truly open to the wide range of perspectives essential to identifying trends and generating choices means managers must be willing to suspend their need for control. In order to process multiple levels of experience, managers must recognize their own values, backgrounds, and experiences. They must also recognize that their own backgrounds or experience can be a fatal flaw.

Systems Thinking

This includes the ability to connect issues, events and data points—the whole rather than its parts. Framing structural relationships that resemble dynamic networks rather than staid, patterned interactions or relationships predicated on one's position in the hierarchy is important. With systems thinking, the collective learning of an organization becomes the basis of future competitive advantage.

Creativity

Increase personal flexibility and willingness to take risks; the ability to be innovative while encouraging, and rewarding creativity around the manager.

Task Forces and Quality Circles

Action learning groups are different from task forces or quality circles because action learning groups are charged with learning from real-world problems, assumptions that are challenged, and actions that are confronted. In task forces, on the other hand, the major goal is addressing the problem; any learning that occurs is incidental. Unlike task forces, action learning groups often address problems outside of their expertise. Addressing unfamiliar problems results in fresh perspectives and provides teams the opportunity to learn new problem-solving approaches. The focus is on a real work-centered project and action is expected.

In addition to individual and team learning, task forces and quality circles tend to focus on specific problems and tasks rather than on identifying the organization-wide, environmental, or systematic elements that must also be changed if effective, lasting change is to take place.

Case Study: Whirlpool At Whirlpool, line managers serve as set facilitators for action learning programs. Tom Helton, former Director of Corporate Learning, proudly notes, “We have close to 100 percent of our line mangers actually conducting the action training. The role of training and HR people has become largely one of training line managers to be action learning facilitators.” Action learning group successes at Whirlpool include: A cross-functional team developed Whirlpool's award-winning super-efficient refrigerator. An action learning set devised a just-in-time system to supply product kits and components. Several cross-functional groups in Europe refined complex manufacturing processes. A team leveraged knowledge from North America into a new dryer designed specifically for European customers. The last item above provides a good example of how action learning enabled Whirlpool to better provide for its European customers. When the North American version of Whirlpool's dryer was introduced in Europe, it was a complete failure due to its different size, color, and customized options that had been generated for a primarily American buyer. As a result of an action learning set that met, asked questions, and sought outside expertise, a new European-type dryer, smaller in scale and customized for that market was developed. The lessons learned allowed Whirlpool to apply these changes to other American products that would be offered abroad in the future.