Action learning: avoiding conflict or enabling action

Abstract

Action learning is based on the premise that action and learning are inextricably entwined and it is this potential, to enable action, which has contributed to the growth of action learning within education and management development programmes. However has this growth in action learning lead to an evolution or a dilution of Revan's classical Principles (RCP)? We illustrate, using examples from a case study organisation, how action learning enabled action but also how action learning supported some participants in avoiding conflict. We argue that key decision makers in the organisation are, often unacknowledged, part of the action learning process and that while the action learning sets enabled participants to practice questioning taken-for-granted-assumptions, this questioning needed to be extended and supported within wider communities. We also argue that critical theory can enhance action learning by enabling better questioning and we refocus attention on the need for ‘organizing insight’ (Vince, 2004). Finally we reemphasise the social aspect of critically reflective practice and in the spirit of engaging and extending the community of reflective practice we offer our reflections; opening a space for others to question and reflect extending further theory which illuminates the idea of action learning.