In today's fast-paced, often remote, work environments, leaders need to prove the tangible impact of training on their team and organisation more than ever before - and even more so for public sector and not-for-profit organisations where scrutiny on spending is acute.
Viccy Arnold, Head of Client Organisation Development at People Spark Solutions is here to tell us about one of the most powerful tools for embedding learning and facilitating real impact in your business – Action Learning Sets.
“Action Learning Sets – or ALS – were pioneered in the 1940s at The National Coal Board and based on their proven success, the technique is now used all over the world in a huge range of sectors including health, banking, retail and professional services. They are an unsung hero in the team development toolbox – especially for teams that are time-poor and working remotely – and we at People Spark want to shout about it from the rooftops!”
So what are Action Learning Sets?
Action learning is a powerful problemsolving process that develops leadership, team and organisational capabilities at the same time. It involves small groups of 5 to 7 people, usually peers with similar levels of experience and seniority, committing to work together on a real challenge facing their organisation and taking tangible action to find solutions. It is built on six essential components:
1. Real, urgent challenges: The group tackles significant issues that stretch the participants. When we tackle real world challenges, the stakes are high and there are real consequences for failure. This generates buy-in from participants rather than asking them to work on simulations or scripted scenarios where there are no consequences if a solution isn’t found.
2. Diverse teams: Participants should be from diverse backgrounds – they may be from different departments, organisations or simply a dynamic mix of personalities based on MBTI segmentation. Diversity leads to creativity and this is essential for problemsolving and innovation.
3. Insightful questioning and dialogue: Team members are encouraged to find solutions through a structured process of questioning, supported by a balance of challenge and support from their peers.
4. Action-Oriented Approach: Teams must take action on the challenges they are working on, ensuring that learning is tied directly to practical outcomes.
5. Focused Learning: Over time, as trust builds within the group, they learn together by reviewing both results and processes.
6. Facilitation: An action learning coach ensures that the team adheres to the ground rules and focuses on generating actionable insights.
Viccy continues: “The built-in reflection is what sets ALS apart from other training techniques. This needs to be fostered by the coach, the organisation’s stakeholders and the participants. The group needs the time to step back and reflect on the process and the outcomes because simply taking action is not enough. In order to truly learn as adults, we need to relate the training to our own experience and question how to apply it to our own needs and environment.
“Our top tips for any organisation thinking about implementing ALS are to make sure you work with an experienced facilitator so that the group adheres to the ground rules and can clearly identify learning opportunities in the process, always ensure the participants are a diverse group of peers, and choose a real challenge for them to work on so there are clear benefits and consequences for finding – or not finding – a solution.”
Get in touch with Viccy at viccy@peoplesparksolutions.co.uk for a no-obligation chat about ALS or any of our coaching and learning opportunities.
www.PeopleSparkSolutions.co.uk