Action Learning — An Open System Approach to Management Education

Abstract

Organisations develop through a continuous learning process in an open system configuration by a constant interac tion with both external and internal environments. The learning experiences of managers should follow the same pattern — a constant refinement of their perceptions of the world around them by interacting with their peers, superiors, subordinates and the environment.

Action Learning is a method of management education which has been employed for a number of years in Europe and is now gaining acceptance in the United Kingdom and Australia. Managers are placed in unfamiliar situations in host organisations and then "stressed" to diagnose symptoms of complex problems, prescribe the appropriate strategy and implement remedial action. Each manager is placed in a learning system consisting. of four or five other managers, each with a separate complex managerial problem to solve.

After an induction period when participants are briefed in scientific methodology and appropriate techniques, the learning experience is developed by the continuous feedback processes established between both the members of the host organisation and between the managers n each learning system or "set". Managers learn from and with the latent experiences of other managers in the solution of systematic cross functional policy problems.

It is considered that the learning experience derived by exposure to this kind of program is superior to traditional text book and case study methods for the development of managerial talent.