Action Learning - Role of Action Learning Facilitator, The Coach & Action Learning Questions (ALQs)

Role of Action Learning Facilitator, The Coach & Action Learning Questions (ALQs)

An ongoing challenge of action learning has been producing desired organizational results and meeting organizational expectations by taking action and learning in an action learning project. Usually the urgency of the problem or task decreases or eliminates the reflective time necessary for learning. More and more organizations have recognized the critical importance of an action learning coach or facilitator in the process, someone who has the authority and responsibility of creating time and space for the group to learn at the individual, group and organizational level.

There is controversy relative to the need for an action learning coach. Reg Revans was sceptical about the use of learning coaches and, in general, of interventionist approaches. He believed the action learning set or group could practise action learning on its own. Neither did he want a group to become dependent on a coach.

The concept of three key roles for the Action Learning Facilitator has been distilled from Revans by Pedler as follows:

(i) The initiator or “accoucheur”: "No organisation is likely to embrace action learning unless there is some person within it ready to fight on its behalf. ......This useful intermediary we may call the accoucheur - the managerial midwife who sees that their organisation gives birth to a new idea... ". (ABC of Action Learning Gower 2011:98/99)

(ii) The set facilitator or “combiner”: “there may be a need when it (the set) is first formed for some supernumerary ... brought into speed the integration of the set ....” but “Such a combiner ....... must contrive that it (the set) achieves independence of them at the earliest possible moment...” (2011: 9).

(iii) The facilitator of organizational learning or the “learning community” organiser: “The most precious asset of any organization is the one most readily overlooked: its capacity to build upon its lived experience, to learn from its challenges and to turn in a better performance by inviting all and sundry to work out for themselves what that performance ought to be.” (2011: 120)

This is the structure underpininning the accreditation of Action Learning Facilitators supported by Hale (2003, 2004). Richard Hale holds the position Professor of Action Learning at the longest established dedicated action learning based Business School, International Management Centres where he co-founded the development of the Action Learning Question approach which as been adopted by many professional, commercial and government organisations since 2000. This essentially places the Action Learning Question at the forefront of the learning process and provides a system for managers and leaders to embed an action learning approach into their organisation. The modes of the Action Learning Facilitator are described by Hale as Mobiliser, Learning Set Adviser and Learning Catalyst and these form the basis of the Action Learning Facilitator Accreditation approach reported as supporting organisational culture change and leadership development (Hale, 2012).

Self-managed action learning (Bourner et al., 2002; O'Hara et al., 2004) is a variant of action learning that dispenses with the need for a facilitator of the action learning set. Shurville and Rospigliosi (2009) have explored taking self-managed action learning online to create virtual self managed action learning. Deborah Waddill has developed guidelines for virtual action learning teams, what she calls action e-learning.

To increase the reflective, learning aspect of action learning, many groups now adopt the practice or norm of focusing on questions rather than statements while working on the problem and developing strategies and actions. Questions also enable the group to listen, to more quickly become a cohesive team, and to generate creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

The difficulty with relating Self-managing teams (e.g., Wellins, Byham, & Wilson, 1991) to action learning is that the former focus almost exclusively on finding or creating solutions for the problems with which they are tasked. Without reflection, action learning team members are likely to import their organizational or sub-unit cultural norms and familiar problem solving practices into their teams without making them explicit or testing their validity and utility. Cultural norms and practices inform action learning team members’ implicit assumptions, mental models, and beliefs about what methods or processes should be applied to solve a problem. Thus, not always but with great regularity, they apply traditional problem solving methods to non-traditional, urgent, critical, and discontinuous problems while mindlessly expecting them to produce viable, effective solutions—generally without enduring positive effect.

Some considering that action learning teams need a coach who focus exclusively on helping team members to inquire, reflect, and learn from their emerging experiences while explicitly refraining from any involvement in the content of the problem, team members often "leap" from the initial problem statement to some form of brainstorming that they assume will reveal or produce a viable solution. These suggested solutions typically provoke objections, doubts, concerns, or reservations from other team members who advocate their own preferred solutions. The conflicts that ensue are generally both unproductive and time-consuming. Self-managed teams, tend to split or fragment rather than develop and evolve into a cohesive, high-performing team.

One view is that without coaches who have the authority to intervene whenever they perceive a learning opportunity, there is no assurance that the team will make the time needed for periodic, systemic, and strategic inquiry and reflection (Marquardt, 2004; Marquardt, Leonard, Freedman, & Hill, 2009). Thus, self-managed versions of action learning teams are seen as unlikely to enable team members to make explicit efforts to learn – albeit Reg Revans the originator of action learning was somewhat dismissive of the idea of too much intervention from a facilitator, feeling the 'set adviser' might be a member of the action learning group and would seek to reduce any dependency relationship.