Learning in action

Junior consultant Elizabeth Atherton reflects on a year of high-level learning

“Every organization is decaying from its core. Whatever product you developed five years ago is becoming less relevant with every minute that goes on. When you understand your rate of decay, you understand the rate of innovation. You need to stay current and present, and boards need to be preoccupied with whether their rate of innovation outweighs their rate of decay.”

These words of wisdom are from Sir George Buckley, former chairman, president and CEO of 3M, the science-based technology company behind brands such as Post-It and Scotch, the latter of which celebrates its 100^th birthday this year.

Not only board members, but all leaders of any kind of organisation, need to heed this message if they are not to be left behind in the constantly evolving and turbulent climate we inhabit.

Technology and AI are moving at a speed that most of us could barely have imagined five or ten years ago and if organisations are to survive, they need to be moving at pace as well. Stand still and it’s game over.

So how, in this volatile environment, with society more divided than ever and organisations struggling to keep afloat amid a global economic state of decline, warring nations, climate panic, and fractious politics, could a senior leader of a public-purpose organisation warrant taking time out from the day job to commit to a year-long programme devoted to ‘action learning’?

Indeed, what is action learning? How is it any different from coaching or training courses? What’s the point of it?

A year of action learning

I’ve worked at GGi for 14 months now and one of the very first things I got my teeth into was helping to organise and manage an action learning set that was about to kick off – and had its final formal session just last week.

It has involved a handful of senior leaders from public purpose organisations coming together regularly in hour-long online sessions, interspersed with in-person awaydays hosted by the participants in their places of work, over the course of a year.

Guest speakers joined us to lead discussions on topics that the group decided for themselves in our first session together. Relationships were built, thorny problems unpicked, current issues mulled over, debate had, agreement often reached, and everyone was gifted a safe space away from their workplaces to vent, to dissect, to listen, and to think.

It has been without doubt the most rewarding part of my work at GGi to date. The group slowly got to know and trust each other and supported one another from the off. No conversations were off limits and the honesty and soul searching that each individual brought to the table was humbling.

But what set this apart from other kinds of leadership development programmes? How could these incredibly high-powered and busy CEOs and senior leaders justify the time away from their day jobs?

No chalk and talk

Action learning is different from traditional, teacher-led, ‘talk and chalk’ programmes, as it is led by the participants themselves and is less about theories and abstract knowledge and more about deep questioning and reflection. There are no right or wrong answers; rather, each member of the group or ‘set’ brings their own individual organisational problems to discuss, and the group then reflects and analyses, employing self-reflection about their own leadership, testing ideas and sparking innovation.

The sense of collaboration and constructive challenge that this approach to learning seeks to develop is palpable. And we hope the connections forged in this network will survive beyond the year-long programme and that long-lasting professional relationships will be built, creating a sense of common purpose and helping to alleviate the isolation that many in senior-level posts feel, confronted by complexities, wicked problems and seemingly impossible dilemmas on a daily basis.

Leaders are encouraged through action learning to cultivate the skills and attributes they most need to navigate the conundrums of their workplaces:

• Resilience and adaptability – participants become more comfortable with ambiguity and learn to welcome it, becoming more curious, flexible and open to experimenting, with a willingness to accept and learn from failures.
• Teamwork and collaboration – the way the sets work demands mutual trust, productive challenge and honest dialogue, essential for leaders navigating a tightrope with diverse teams, government directives, and the expectation of wide and varied stakeholder engagement.
• Strategic thinking – the programme gives leaders space to step away from the routine operations of their own organisation and contemplate the bigger picture, encouraging a growth mindset.
• Communication and the ability to listen – the opportunity for true listening and reflection enables participants to develop their ability to listen with intent, extending their emotional intelligence and empathy, and improving the way they interact with others.

In our final session last week, we reflected on all that has happened in the last year and how, when we sat together in London that first afternoon in September 2024, not one of us could have anticipated where the world or the UK was heading and what we might experience over the year ahead.

Each member of the group enjoyed extreme highs and suffered extreme lows in that time, and each of them had been able to navigate through it all, returning to each subsequent session with a story to tell, a problem to unpick and a goal to strive towards. The sense of camaraderie and allyship was potent, along with a real hope for the future, despite everything being thrown at them on a daily basis and the many plates they are having to keep spinning.

Witnessing the action learning process has been an immense privilege, and its value cannot be underestimated. As the Chinese proverb put it so perfectly, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

GGi has two spaces left on an action learning set programme we are seeking to commence this autumn and we would love to hear from you if you’d like to find out more. Email Elizabeth Atherton for further details.