Learning Thru Action

Developing Leadership Through Action Learning

November 12, 2012

Action Learning’s Unique Effectiveness in Developing Leadership Capabilities

Although a primary objective of Action Learning is to develop innovative and effective solutions, learning at the individual, team, and organizational level is required to achieve these objectives. Action Learning is a highly effective method for developing leadership capabilities because achieving great solutions inevitably requires team members to think strategically and systemically as well as to lead and work cooperatively with other leaders, stakeholders, and organizational

contributors. Action Learning provides the opportunity and the requirement that team members learn how to be good leaders and followers in order for the team to be successful. Because Action Learning is so effective in developing leadership as well

as followership skills, it has been estimated that Action Learning is included in 60-70% of leadership development programs in global corporations.

Leadership Skills Best Developed by Action Learning

Action Learning is particularly well-suited for the following leadership development skills: critical and analytical thinking, creativity, systems thinking, fostering innovation, asking good questions, active listening, meeting customer needs & expectations, building realistic plans, working collaboratively, and adaptability.

Action Learning’s Ability to Provide Personalized Leadership Development

Action Learning is particularly effective in allowing team members to drive their own personal leadership development agenda. At the start of each Action Learning process, team members are asked to identify specific leadership skills they would like to develop during the problem-solving process. Participants can use results from personal development plans, 360-degree feedback, or a performance appraisal process to establish personal goals for developing leadership skills to created personalized leadership development goals.

Designing Custom Leadership Development Programs Including Action Learning

Action Learning can be used as a stand-alone development process or can be included in a larger suite of development methods including traditional modules focused on developing specific leadership skills, executive coaching, hi-fidelity organizational simulation (see specific practice information on this site), and 360-degree feedback surveys. LTA has extensive experience in developing customized leadership development experiences and will design or work with other organizations to embed Action Learning in a larger developmental process.

If you are interested in learning more about using Action Learning to develop leadership skills contact:

skiptonl@learningthruaction.com
703.880.4915

Action Learning coaching after the first session

January 30, 2016

by Skip Leonard

Many Action Learning coaches are comfortable coaching the first session but feel much less secure of their coaching role in subsequent sessions. These feelings are understandable because the role of the coach is very straight-forward in the first session because every problem, no matter how complex, must start with understanding and defining the problem (the source of the pain or dissatisfaction). The process or steps that the team must go through in the first session, therefore, are very predictable leading to the creation of a script that works well for virtually any problem. The debriefing process, likewise, is also very similar for almost any problem.

Beginning with the second session, however, the situation becomes much more complex. In many cases, the team will realize that the initial problem statement is inadequate or more of a goal (the situation the organization hopes to achieve) rather than a presentation of the current situation that is dissatisfactory. The presenting problem may even be a solution because the problem presenter has already decided how to solve the problem before giving it to the team to develop its own solution. If, as is usually the case, the team needs to drill down further to understand the problem or even back up to define the problem, the coach can’t apply a simple script. Not only must the coach recognize that the team is starting with a goal or solution without adequately defining the problem, but they must craft questions that encourage team members to reflect on their working definition to make sure that they have adequately defined the problem. The questions that are appropriate in this process cannot be put into a script to be used for every problem. book_greatSolutions

After the team has adequately defined the problem and goal, it must apply a proper problem-solving strategy in order to generate great solutions that are both powerful and creative. The stages of problem solving that teams need to go through include: identify of forces that drive or restrain goal achievement, solution generation, critiquing solution ideas, selecting the best ideas, implementing the best ideas and evaluating the results. Each of these stages has different requirements and common obstacles to high performance that require specially crafted questions during the work and debriefing sessions.

In up-coming blogs, I will describe each of these stages in more detail. You will also find much more information about assessing the team requirements, constructing effective questions, and running expert debriefing sessions in our new book Great Solutions Through Action Learning: Success Every Time.

Skip Leonard
Master Action Learning Coach

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