How do public leaders learn from society? A reflexive analysis of action learners

ABSTRACT

This paper uses action learning as a basis for producing research data that help explore the relationship between learning and listening in public organizations. The regional government of Gipuzkoa in northern Spain is engaged in a sustained effort to change the way it interacts with and interprets the future needs of society. Based on grounded theory and on a review of key concepts about critical action learning, a reflexive analysis of the implementation of the methodology of action learning with policy makers was conducted. The paper explores the learning journey participants undertake when implementing a governmental programme of citizen engagement, and shows that a space for criticality resulted in participants learning to listen to each other, and consequently to society, in ways which had previously been beyond reach. The paper concludes by discussing the learning implications for listening to society.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational learning
• listening
• social listening
• critical action learning
• collaborative governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Anne Murphy is an independent educator, researcher and consultant with many years' experience of individual and organization development in a wide range of sectors, settings and countries. She works with a number of universities on organizational research and applied learning programmes. She has an MA in Management Learning (1991) from Lancaster where she is currently a doctoral candidate and member of the Lancaster MBA team.

María Jose Canel has a PhD in Communication (University of Navarre, Spain), and is Professor with a Chair in Political and Public Sector Communication at Complutense University of Madrid. A leading author in the field (she has published in Spain, USA, UK, Italy, Poland, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina) she has been visiting Scholar of George Washington University (16-17) and is the Founding President of ACOP Asociación de Comunicación Política.

Xabier Barandiaran has a doctorate in Sociology from Deusto University where he teaches in the faculty of Social and Human Sciences. Over the years he has held a number of chief of staff positions in local and regional government, and is currently chief advisor to the Diputado General de Gipuzkoa. His research interests include strategic communication, social innovation and public governance.

Notes

1 We are aware the term ‘society’ has different meanings depending on the cultural context. ‘Society’ was the term frequently used by policy makers participating in this research, and it refers to societal organizations (including companies, citizen associations and NGOs) and end-users of public policies.

2 The English translation for the expression in Euskera is ‘Building the Future Together’

3 The individual reflections and group deliberation were in Spanish, a language spoken by all three members of the research team. The reflections in pairs or threes took place in Basque, which is spoken by all the action learners and one member of the research team.