Action Learning

What action learning is

Action learning (التعلم بالعمل) is an approach to adult learning in which a small number of colleagues meet as a group. Each carries a real problem from work, one for which no answer is available in advance, and the others help with questions and not with prescriptions. The owner of the problem then takes a real step and returns to say what happened. The real problem is the material of learning, the questions are its tool, and the reflection that follows the experience is the outcome. The approach is attributed to Reg Revans, and the literature says that he developed it in his work with managers.

The approach concerns learning and development, specifically the design of learning inside the work. What follows is an explanation of the approach and of its limits. It does not claim that the approach raises performance or solves problems in every establishment, and it is not a statement of any legal ruling or duty. It does not mean learning that happens merely through doing the work without arrangement: the group, the questions and the reflection are its pillars.

Where the approach comes from

Crossref records Revans’s book “ABC of Action Learning” and a chapter of his titled “Action learning” in the book “More than Management Development”. Both carry a publication date later than the origin of his work, so they appear to be republications. Crossref also records a chapter by Barker titled “Remembering Reg Revans: Action Learning’s Principal Pioneer”, whose title describes Revans as the pioneer of the approach. Secondary archival sources place the beginning of the idea in his work with coal mine managers in the 1940s, without fixing a year.

Secondary summaries online say that Revans formulated an equation of learning that combines programmed knowledge, meaning what is studied and taught, with the questioning that generates insight, and that some presentations added reflection to it. They say that a group is made up of four to eight members, that each member has a real problem, and that learning is placed ahead of solving the problem in the order of priorities.

We did not verify the original dates or the text of any of Revans’s works, so we give no year, we quote no wording, and all of this is a summary in our own wording of what writers circulate.

How the work goes in the group

The order below is a general description that appears in the summaries, and approaches differ in its details:

1. Choosing the problem. Each member brings a problem in which the member holds a decision or an influence, and not a theoretical topic or a matter that someone else will solve.
2. Presenting. The owner of the problem describes the situation in a limited number of minutes and lets the others ask.
3. Questioning. Members put questions that open up the situation instead of proposing a solution: What is actually required? What prevents it? What has been tried? Who has knowledge of the matter? Who has the power to do something? These are sample questions and not a fixed list.
4. Planning. The owner of the problem decides the step that the owner will take before the next session.
5. Reflecting. At the end of the session and at the start of the next, the owner is asked what the owner learned and what changed in the owner’s view of the problem.

The presentations mention a facilitator who looks after the session and reminds members of its rules, such as no early advice and keeping to time, but who does not solve the problem. The group can work with a facilitator from outside or from among its members.

How action learning relates to nearby concepts

• A standing group of workers at one site who meet regularly and voluntarily to identify and analyse problems of their work, and to take the remedy to the person who holds the decision, is called a quality circle. In action learning each member carries a personal problem, the learning of its owner comes first, and members can come from different departments.
• Working through questions and not prescriptions between an employee and a coach is the method of coaching. Action learning moves this approach to a group, so the questions multiply and the experiences vary.
• Passing experience from a more senior employee to a more junior one falls under mentoring. There is no mentor in the group in the same sense, because its members are peers.
• On the job training, in which an employee learns the tasks of the job by performing them under a trainer’s direction, differs from action learning. The problems of action learning are open, they have no answer waiting for them, and no trainer has the solution.
• The experience, relationships and formal training named as sources of learning in the 70/20/10 model relate to action learning, because action learning combines real experience with colleagues who ask questions. We do not state that the approach is built on that model.
• For the sequence from experience through reflection and a conclusion to a trial, see the Kolb experiential learning cycle. Action learning has a reflection stage at the end of the session, and we do not state that either influenced the other.
• How much of what a trainee learned is applied at work is the question of training transfer. In action learning, application is part of the approach and not after it, because the step is taken before the next session.

A hypothetical example: a group of six members

Suppose a hypothetical establishment formed an action learning group of six managers from different departments. The group meets for six sessions of two hours each, and in each session one member carries a problem. A session lasts 2 × 60 = 120 minutes, distributed as follows: presenting takes 15 minutes, questions 45, planning 30, reflection 20 and closing 10. The total is 15 + 45 + 30 + 20 + 10 = 120 minutes. The total time of the group is 6 × 120 = 720 minutes, which is 720 ÷ 60 = 12 hours.

A coordinator in this hypothetical group noticed that the share of questions is 45 ÷ 120 = 37.5% of the session, and that it is the longest single block. After the sessions ended, four of the six members said that they had taken the step they agreed on, which is 4 ÷ 6 = 66.7%, rounded to 67%. The other two are asked: was the step unclear, did circumstances prevent it, or was the problem beyond the owner’s authority? The example does not show that the approach caused the result, since it has no control group and the four members might have taken the step without it.

The figures are hypothetical and set to illustrate. They do not represent an establishment or a study, and the example does not mean that these times or 67% are customary. It shows that the approach is run with time and steps that can be monitored, and that the share who took the step is considered together with the reasons for the delay of the others.

Which problem suits the group

Not every problem suits a group. These practical criteria for choosing one appear in presentations, and they are our guidance from practice and not something we took from Revans:

• It is within the owner’s influence. If the decision is in someone else’s hands, the owner has no step to take before the next session.
• It is open. Nobody in the establishment has an answer available for it, because otherwise asking about it is an inquiry and not learning.
• It matters to its owner. A person who presents a problem that does not concern the person learns nothing from it.
• It can be put to colleagues. It carries no secrets that must not be revealed outside the circle, and if it does carry confidential material, the situation is abstracted or another problem is chosen.

An example of a suitable problem is a manager who complains that the team does not raise errors early, and who wants to understand why and to try a step. An unsuitable example is a question about the details of a written procedure that any colleague has, since that is a question that gets answered and is not presented to a group.

Where the approach is limited

• Limited evidence. No study that compares action learning groups with other arrangements and states their effect on performance underlies what we say.
• It needs time. Regular sessions are taken from working time, and a role with a heavy schedule may not bear them.
• It depends on good questions. A group that proposes solutions early turns into a session of advice.
• It needs safety. Someone who fears that the problem will be held against the person does not present it honestly.
• It does not suit every problem. A problem that has an established answer is solved by training, mentoring or a decision.

How the approach is misunderstood

• Thinking that it is a problem solving meeting. The time turns into discussion of solutions, and what the owner of the problem learns disappears.
• Presenting someone else’s problem. The presentation becomes information about an absent party and does not commit the presenter to a step.
• Running it with a facilitator who directs. The basic idea is lost, which is that the owner of the problem reaches an understanding without being told.
• Dropping the reflection. The group stays a series of sessions with nothing to show for what anyone learned.

The role of human resources

Human resources can organise the groups: choose members from varied departments and from similar levels so that peers are present, train facilitators to ask instead of advising, set aside the time and protect it, and agree with members on what stays inside the group. What the sessions produce can be tied to a leadership development programme if the establishment has one.

A climate in which admitting ignorance is allowed may help, which is the idea behind psychological safety. The value of the approach is said to lie in members seeing their problems through colleagues’ eyes, and not in the number of sessions.

What the evidence allows

We do not state that action learning raises performance or improves problem solving. We did not verify the text of any of Revans’s works, and in the sources we reviewed we found no published figure that we adopt for its effect, nor could we verify the figures about its effect in particular establishments that circulate in summaries, so we carry none of them.

The approach is treated as a way of organising learning around a real problem, and it is judged by what is observed among the members. Did they take real steps? Did their questions change? Did they see their problems in a new way? Any decision after that turns on the nature of the problems and the establishment.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.