7.1. Introduction

Learning managerial skills highlights multiple challenges and issues. For managers, it is therefore a question of:

• – acquiring knowledge and know-how in many “technical” fields related to the company and its stakeholders;
• – developing an ability to manage the human dimension;
• – valuing and developing their reflective capacity and reflexivity in all forms of management apprenticeships.

7.2. From reflexivity to reflexive manager?

By reflexivity, we mean taking oneself as an object of analysis, both in one’s actions – and therefore in one’s mental representations and functioning – and in one’s being – one’s “ways of doing”. This position could appear narcissistic. However, this is not the case. The challenge is to objectify the object under analysis: oneself. It is a question of observing oneself (let us affirm the process of distancing oneself), thereby referring to one’s position, role and practices. The analysis is critical. The challenge is to position oneself in a process of continuous improvement and to extract oneself from a satisfecit aeternus by investing in an activity of thought and questioning. The reflective individual is thus aware of his influence on the evolution of his knowledge, his representations and his practices. Reflexivity is a modality and a vector for the progression and adaptation of its practices, renewal and innovation. As a corollary, the thought/action dichotomy disintegrates.

How is this reflexivity that the manager would deploy so relevant today? This provision would first of all respond to the characteristics of the business environment in which companies operate today: an excessively changing, even unstable environment, a quasi-constant need for innovation, complex situations on which it is also important to be able to communicate and explain the chosen adjustment. In these organizations, which should be learning-based and flexible, the reflective manager contributes, through these analyses in action and on action, to supporting a recurrent adaptation, a questioning of the relevance of the actions, tactics and strategies engaged, a critical vision of the methodologies and processes theoretically ad hoc and an ability to amend and renew them. In addition, regularly taking stock inspired by reflexivity encourage questioning of the ethics of acts that have been carried out to issue alerts on the subject. However, since the 2008 crisis, ethics has also become a major issue for organizations.

To manage implies decision-making, but also more specifically supervising and directing the actions of a team (management). In this role, the reflective manager questions his interactions with the members of his team. He then holds keys to reduce the possible perverse effects of the power situation in which he finds himself. A power that can contribute to unwelcome certainties, communications that are not respectful of others and decisions that are not well constructed. However, the analysis can also lead to the urgency of assumed power. Reflexivity is therefore an essential vector not only for questioning and for progress, but also for the regulation of oneself and others. Through the self-interpreting it promotes, it therefore raises questions, and indeed curiosity and a thirst for learning. This, again, is in line with a society where lifelong learning is a new must.

Finally, it could almost be noted that the reflective qualities of a manager would support the company’s evolution towards a more societal conception of its performance. By justifying freeze-frames and replays, it allows not only the reflective manager, but also his teams, to destabilize the cult of instantaneity in the business world, as well as to thwart the diktat of performance largely in the form of quantitative results, and to focus on their why and how. These whys and wherefores, intertwined with values, can also be factors in reducing psychosocial risks. Here again, we are dealing with some of the major issues facing our society.

The manager’s reflective capacity would therefore be essential as a fundamental position. How can it be developed?

7.3. Initial training: from a “classical” learning posture to a reflective posture

For a student in secondary education or in higher education, the dominant learning situation still remains predominantly the oral transmission of knowledge that will become the learner’s knowledge. This transmission of knowledge to the learner has been supplemented over the decades by more dynamic knowledge implementation exercises (visual and sound illustrations, case studies, practical applications, etc.) depending on the feasibility of this implementation (time and physical spaces, number of learners, material and financial resources, favorable institutional framework, etc.). We have therefore observed the transition from a very traditional approach to learning to a more behaviorist approach focusing not only on the acquisition of knowledge, but also on the development of transferable knowledge (Verzat 2013). Of course, depending on the disciplines and organizations providing knowledge, this evolution has taken place in different ways, both in terms of time and in terms of the balance between knowledge and know-how.

Research has shown for several decades that the teaching method, which prioritizes the oral transmission of knowledge by the teacher, shows its limitations. It appears that apprenticeships and retention are much better when one is in action rather than in a more or less passive reception position. In particular, Dale (1969) showed that after a period of four months, the average retention of information is 5%, after attending a course of the classic formula, while it rises to more than 80% in practice in an active position.

In addition, the current generations of learners of Generation Z in so-called initial training show almost permanent mobility behaviors with regard to the attention given to an object or subject. The “zapper” behaviors, linked to this generation, that was born and grew up with technological communication tools, are increasingly out of step with traditional approaches to teaching. Offering apprenticeship methods that combine knowledge, experimentation and reflexivity therefore seems to be a promising approach that offers alternatives.

7.4. In continuous training: a pre-existing professional activity to facilitate the reflective process

In the context of continuing education in management, the profile of learners and the topics covered greatly encourage the adoption and development of a reflective position.

Indeed, for them, when we talk about professional experience, it is not about internships but about a professional life and knowledge already quite specialized in business life. This is all the more true since continuing management training is generally aimed at individuals at undergraduate level and have at least four to five years of experience in the company. They have a substantial amount of material to work on. Even if they have not yet been in a management position, at the very least, they have already experienced being “managed”. However, let us remember that the reflexive approach implies, in particular, a reflection on action. These trainees thus have a more natural “ability to reread” lived experiences because they are numerous. Indeed, in their relationship to experience, students in initial training must first of all live experiences. They test, they rather have “an ability to see” (Dejemeppe et al. 2001). The reflective approach involves reflection in action. However, the involvement and motivation, more generally, of the public in training to continue their training (in particular, for diploma or certification courses) are, again, an obvious springboard for implementing and field testing the tools, techniques and reading grids learned in training.

In a rather intuitive way, these profiles adopt the basics of the reflexivity process. Indeed, new contributions in terms of management always reflect a lived experience. There is a spontaneous confrontation between their representations as they have existed until then and those that the trainers suggest they discuss. If, by chance, some of them did not have any, the other members of the group take care of bringing something to provoke confrontation. The icing on the cake is that the various experiences of the group members are sources of questioning and putting practices, methods and processes into perspective. Consequently, the pedagogical modalities based on the reflexivity of this type of learner are placed quite naturally. Interactivity is a key element of this.

It is also possible to structure the process a little more by following Holborn’s (1992) four-step approach, which distinguishes between description (often omitted), analysis, criticism and invention. Deliverables such as logbooks, surprise reports and professional memoirs can provide a very reflective approach. Even if the exercise of writing may seem outdated, or even obsolete for some, it remains a way of distancing one from oneself, and therefore from the introduction of others widely recognized. There is then a review of the experience. Group activities or activities with third parties can also support the implementation of the approach. They may or may not be a stepping stone to the written deliverables. These may include critical peer groups, reflective companionship, individual or collective supervision, or relationships with experts.

The attractiveness of the approach for this public also finds its reasons in the similarity of situations with those experienced in companies, such as being confronted with problem solving or regulation – in autonomy – of the action. However, the anchoring with practices only satisfies this audience if the theoretical references are present.

Reflexivity training focuses on practices. As we have already pointed out, taking oneself as an object of analysis certainly questions one’s practices, but also one’s position and role. In fact, beyond the practices, the being, the self and identity are also challenged. This is also one of the reasons why, in its pedagogical modalities of reflexivity, while the notion of others is fundamentally attached to it, activities related to the diversity of individuals, modes of reflection, action and communication are becoming more intense. Here, again, societal trends resonate with an interest in emotional intelligence.

7.5. APEL: strong reflexivity in the “being” dimension

Another way of learning managerial knowledge and skills is through experience acquired in companies. Self-taught managers have long been legion. Indeed, many people found themselves in a management position due to their career development and learned to manage “on the job”. Others have long considered that management cannot be learned and that it is rather related to natural, even instinctive, skills.

Created in France in 2003, the Validation des acquis de l’expérience (VAE) or the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) aims to enable experience to be recognized through a qualification or diploma and to facilitate access to the diploma for people who are discriminated against or who have not been able to access it through initial or continuing training. APEL is also proving to be a tool that has an impact on the professional careers of executives and managers, particularly with a view to extending working life and a second professional life beyond the age of 40.

In concrete terms, an APEL approach consists of demonstrating, based mainly on professional experiences and through a personal analytical approach, that one holds the knowledge and skills associated with a degree or diploma. The APEL candidate, for several months, will lead a process that will lead him/her to link experiences with required elements, either knowledge or skills of a different nature. He/she will present a written dossier combining proof of experience and analysis and will defend him/herself before a jury.

It therefore appears that APEL is a powerful reflexivity exercise combining an essential reflexive questioning of experiences that may be close but also distant in time. APEL candidates are always challenged by the level of questioning in which they must engage. Beyond “telling” and analyzing, they are entering a phase of strong destabilization. The introspection phase is beginning to take on its full meaning, and there is a hidden face of APEL: the need to question and analyze the “act” but also the “being” dimension, relating to any situation, particularly professional (Barrand 2017). The “being” dimension refers to the nature and personality of the individual and the “acting” dimension underlines his or her characteristics and ways of acting in action. To this end, we can point out that the recognition of managerial knowledge and skills by the APEL leads to an extremely high level of reflexivity because it is necessarily profound, long and demanding, due to the nature of the exercise. Moreover, it leads the individual to see the powerful emergence of the “being” dimension that leads him to question himself as an individual through his construction as a person since childhood, his personality traits and characteristics, his behaviors, his modes of communication, his reactions, his ability to manage emotions and stress, etc.

The support that the reflective manager can provide to the various challenges facing companies today underlines the importance of associating reflexivity with training, both in initial and in-service training, and even at the APEL level. This must then be part of the daily professional experience as a dynamic. In this way, it contributes to a crucial professional posture. Beyond a capacity, could it assert itself as a transversal competence?