The Theory and Practice of Critical Action Learning
An Experiential Workshop with Professor Russ Vince.

Action Learning is a popular and enduring approach to management and organisational learning. Two key assumptions inform this approach. First, that people in leadership and management roles can learn from reflecting on their own experiences. Such reflection is active and persistent – what Reg Revans, the inventor of Action Learning, referred to as continuous ‘ordeal by practice’. Second, that learning occurs in the company of others – ‘comrades in adversity’ and ‘by discussion of real issues with colleagues, taking action and reflection on action’. Action Learning links personal and collective processes of reflection to individual’s actions to develop their own practice. The approach aims to move beyond solving immediate problems to focus on addressing persistent and complex organisational issues over time.

Critical Action Learning (CAL) develops the theory and practice of Action Learning through:

A focus on emotions. CAL emphasises the importance of engaging with conscious and unconscious emotional dynamics in Action Learning sets. It highlights how both individual and collective emotions influence the learning process in ways that both promote and prevent learning and change.

A focus on power relations. CAL invites reflection on how learning is supported, avoided, and prevented within sets and organisations through embedded relations of power. This provides opportunities to question organisational ambivalence towards learning and change.

A focus on critical reflection. CAL reveals taken-for-granted assumptions and the ways in which these both promote and prevent learning. Critical reflection can challenge the status quo, but in doing so it often mobilises established power relations against challenge. This contradiction is indispensable to an understanding of the effectiveness of learning and change.

The Theory and Practice of Critical Action Learning: An experiential workshop