Mistrust, secrecy and suspicion

As action learning expands its reach and spread, and as increasing numbers of people become ‘accredited action learning coaches’ after just a few days training, there is a danger that the lifelong project of Reg Revans and others to explore, experiment and articulate a philosophy of learning and development for managers and their organisations, will be reduced to simple technique. The Journal of Action Learning: Research And Practice seeks to play its part in furthering the depth of understanding and insightful practice through a combination of shared critically reflective experiences of using or being involved with action learning and of theoretically rigorous and questioning writing that presents new thoughts or recent research on action learning. As part of this we will use editorials in coming issues to look behind some of the fundamental assumptions and principles, which could be in danger of becoming unquestioned truisms.

Trust is one of these. One of the most frequently repeated counsel for action learning facilitators, participants and clients alike is the importance that trust be established between set members/participants. It can sound so easy. Establish ground rules, set expectations, begin to air and share questions, challenges and work dilemmas. The acts of self-exposure and critical friendship will help to cultivate mutual faith and confidence in one another. Learning is limited if mistrust and hidden agendas are present. Revans used the term ‘comrades in adversity’ to describe action learners working together. And comrade means companion, colleague, friend or confidant, relations for all of which trust is central. But this can also imply a unitary view of the relations between action learners, in which what is foregrounded is shared interest and community. However, the context for action learning is often complex, whether within a single organisation or traversing multiple bodies. These scenarios are rife with ambiguity and paradox, and constituted by power relations which, as Vince (2012) has argued, bring contradictions to action learning. In this setting the notion of ‘adversaries with commonality’ (Vince 2004) or ‘adversaries in collaboration’ may better capture the relations that hold. And in this context arguably action learning is characterised by a paradoxical combination of trust and mistrust simultaneously within the group. We know very little about how such paradox works in practice or in theory or the consequences for learning and non-learning.

The refereed papers in this issue all offer some insight to this theme of trust in action learning. Annie Yeadon-Lee explores the ways in which a safe psychological climate develops in action learning sets, through a study with managers participating in British post-graduate leadership programmes. Keith Dovey talks of invisible practices as he presents the surreptitious actions taken to innovate within a higher education institution in Australia. He talks of trust built within an insider coalition in parallel with the challenge of bringing invisible action into the mainstream organisation. The context for Thomas Schumacher's paper is inter-organisational learning and the operationalisation of trust-building and ‘comrades in adversity’ when working with strangers.