Pedler Mike - Facilitating action learning: a practitioners guide

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First published 2013

Copyright Mike Pedler and Christine Abbott, 2013

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ISBN13: 9780335245970 (pb)

ISBN10: 0335245978 (pb)

eISBN: 9780335245987

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Christine Abbott and Mike Pedler are to be congratulated for their exceptional and comprehensive guide to Action Learning facilitation. It will be of great help to those just starting out with Action Learning as well as to those who are seasoned practitioners. I am also certain that the pioneer of Action Learning, the late Reg Revans, would have been pleased to see his principles and practices, and those of his closest collaborators, so clearly conceptualized and articulated. A must read book providing a very practical method and approach for all those interested and passionate about helping people help themselves, and in optimizing Action Learning.

Dr Yury Boshyk, Chairman, The Global Executive Learning Network, and the Annual Global Forum on Executive Development and Business Driven Action Learning, Canada

Packed with useful models and thought provoking explorations of hot topics such as critical action learning, this is a rich and thoughtful companion for the busy practitioner involved in organisational transformation! It tackles head on the thorny issues of facilitation in action learning and presents a helpful framework encompassing a more expansive view, holding together individual and organisational learning. This book best reflects my lived experience of integrating learning and change in a large complex organisation; reading it was like coming home!

Mandy Chivers, Assistant Chief Executive, Mersey Care NHS Trust, UK

This is a superb, well-crafted book. In fewer than 200 pages it manages to cover all the essentials while including many important but often-neglected topics. Because of its simplicity and clarity I would readily endorse it for use by novices. Yet it is sufficiently nuanced that I would have no hesitation recommending it to experienced users.

While remaining true to the values of Reg Revans original approach it addresses new developments. It is non-doctrinaire, intelligently acknowledging the current controversies and the variations in present practice. It integrates theory and practice. The balance it achieves between conveying the spirit of action learning while providing concrete and practical tools is exemplary.

Bob Dick, independent scholar, Australia

With this book, Christine and Mike have brought a significant maturity to the field of action learning. They link theory to practice and vice versa, in an entertaining, challenging and supportive way as you would expect. This book will go some way in helping action learning advisors improve their craft. An important contribution.

Professor Jeff Gold, Leeds Business School, UK

Pedler and Abbott have done a masterful job in presenting and analyzing the wide array of roles and responsibilities that one can undertake in facilitating action learning groups. Their understanding of Reg Revans as well as their insights into the history and principles of action learning provide an amazing fabric for this great book.

Michael Marquardt, President, World Institute for Action Learning, USA

Pedler and Abbot pack lifetimes of experience into this bookwhich shine through in the depth, breadth, and practicality of its coverage. They map the territory and scaffold the journey a facilitator would follow in building proficiency in Revans Action Learning from novice to expert in three roles critical to success. Emphasizing systems learning, they also position Action Learning as a natural learning process for social and organizational change, and for developing leadership, partnerships and networks beyond programs. Reflective tools accompany the reader throughout to help practitioners develop their own thinking and practice of Action Learning. This is a must-have for both practitioner and scholar resource libraries!

Victoria J. Marsick, Professor, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, USA

Christine Abbott and Mike Pedler are partners in the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation (www.c-alf.org) which they founded in 2011. After many years of working with action learning as set advisers and as designers of programmes, they were sparked into this action by some powerful experiences in 2006/7 which raised the question: how can we know when we are doing it right?

Mike Pedler is known for his work with action learning, the learning organization and leadership development. He is Emeritus Professor of Action Learning at Henley Business School at the University of Reading, Visiting Professor at Leeds Metropolitan and Sheffield Hallam Universities and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster. He is Founding Editor of Action Learning: Research & Practice the first international journal for action learning from Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

Christine Abbott is an action learning practitioner and academic. She is an associate of the Open University and Leeds Metropolitan University. Former Chairman, she is a Non Executive Board Member and Trustee of ILM. She co-wrote the qualifications for action learning that are on the OfQual framework. She has worked worldwide as an action learning practitioner and in the development of action learning set advisers.

We would like to acknowledge the many contributions to this work.

Chief amongst these are the people we have worked with as action learners, who have asked brilliant questions and written illuminative accounts of practice. Your enthusiasm and commitment have been central to making this book.

Thanks also to Kath and Roger for support and challenge in equal measure.

We met in 1988 in an action learning set where Chris was a participant about to lose her job, and Mike was the facilitator. Twenty years later we worked together on a leadership programme where some action learning sets blamed their facilitators for not doing the job properly (Pedler and Abbott 2008a; 2008b). We were involved but also intrigued: as action learning advisers, how do we know when we are doing it right?