While the Action Learning methodology presents significant opportunities for a truly memorable experience, it can also be remembered as painful to all those involved. Having observed and coached a number of teams involved in Action Learning, we have noticed several themes emerge to which sponsors, planners and participants need to pay specific attention.
Wrong team size
An Action Learning team can be too big or too small. Like Goldilocks, designers must determine what size of team is just right. A seven to nine member team that engages in a challenging project runs the risk of having up to a third or more of the team riding on the efforts of others over the course of the experience. This is the reality of a large team being asked to squeeze in a large project while facing a full calendar in their regular work.
A team of three to four members might be overwhelmed by the volume of work required for a quality outcome on a large project. If planners think that more rather than fewer team members are needed to produce successful deliverables on a large project, then that should be a signal that the project itself is probably too big for this purpose. On the other hand, if the project looks as if it might be relatively manageable for three to four team members, then planners should question what the real effort and project outcome is going to be. As we will see below, projects tend to get bigger, expanding scope as the team discovers aspects of the problem they have been asked to address.
An ideal minimum starting point for an Action Learning team is five members. This number can be expanded to seven or eight, depending on the initial description of the project deliverables. Once again, if the project appears to require more effort and therefore more people, it is probably the wrong scope.
Too long until completion
The intense interest and effort of work at the beginning of a project soon diffuses when the routines of meeting, doing research and making decisions about how to proceed take over the calendars of team
members. Team members generally feel challenged at the beginning of the effort, willing to engage intellectually with the topic as a problem to solve. However, even with clear interim deadlines and progress milestones, ennui and project fatigue can creep into the team’s experience. After all, the subject matter is probably not related to what most team members are doing every day; in fact, the topics being addressed may be of marginal interest to some members. After conducting research and discussing insights, the very act of producing a report with recommendations—the expected outcome of most Action Learning projects—eventually becomes an editing, word-smithing, production process, not the most exciting work for dynamic executives. Consequently, an Action Learning project can overstay its welcome.
We suggest that a five-month deadline is definitely too long for a viable Action Learning project. We have seen teams struggle to maintain interest for four months. Once again, depending on the project, 10 weeks to 12 weeks is probably the right duration.
Charge too vague
An Action Learning team is usually asked to investigate a topic for senior management in an organization. For example, senior management may be interested in how a product is being received or what to do about entering a new market. Without a clear sense of what the underlying questions that need to be answered are, a team can go off in a thousand directions. The root cause of this is that the sponsors of the project are not truly clear themselves about what they are looking for. This is natural and should be expected; they’re pursuing something that is of interest, unsettling or not well understood, a strategic issue that needs clarity or insight they don’t currently have. However, there is a difference between an inquiry that is best suited for a consulting engagement and one being handled by an Action Learning team.
While teams we have worked with report that it is beneficial for them to struggle with the project outcome definition, too broad a charge may mean they will provide an unfocused response to the sponsor. We recommend that Action Learning planners brief sponsors about the type of question that can best be managed by a small team working above and beyond their normal work. The project designers should spend some time bringing an additional level of clarity to vague inquiries while not, at the same time, handing the team a checklist assignment.
Too Much Work
Even if a question is clear, the team the right size, the deadlines appropriate, an Action Learning project can run into trouble because of the sheer volume of work needed to develop a recommendation. Most, if not all, Action Learning projects require a fair amount of research—digging for data, compiling information from a number of sources or conducting original research. When the team sets off to search for data, it can become a time sink, especially if the organization is not used to opening its files. For example, finding the right person to talk to, getting through to that person’s manager for permission, explaining the project, gaining access to the right data and repeating that cycle for several different sources can be daunting. One team we worked with had the idea of conducting a survey. The process of writing the survey items, having them approved through several layers of management, installing them on a website, getting respondents to rate it and getting the results literally took the entire time line of the project. In addition, it is axiomatic that a project tends to get bigger in scope as more corners of the problem are illuminated by data. We have seen teams pursuing these new areas of interest without being sensitive to workload implications. At the very least, a team should be advised to keep their data inquiry within reason rather than inflicting themselves with the burden of a significant dive into the corporate or academic stores of information. Once again, while there is definitely a learning point about accessing information in an organization, Action Learning team members also have day jobs that demand attention.
Too Distant From The Sponsor
Probably the biggest pitfall of all is a distant sponsor. A sponsor is the member or members of management who works with the Action Learning team, providing it with the initial charge and receiving the final presentation. A sponsor who is unprepared for the task can make the Action Learning experience quite negative for the team. In effect, the sponsor has the ability to shape the project, from the clarity and crispness of the topic to be addressed, to maintaining the right level of expectations and attitude about the outcome. To be a good sponsor, the Action Learning planners have to work closely with them, recruiting the right executive, explaining the goals and process of Action Learning, clarifying the role of sponsor as mentor-teacher-advisor-client, and designing a process that links the sponsor, formally and informally, with the team’s progress. Without that level of commitment and interactivity, a sponsor can arrive at the final presentation without
understanding what has transpired over the course of the project, what changes have been made to the original charge, and what challenges the team was or wasn’t able to surmount.
Avoidable Problems
Most of the pitfalls mentioned above are avoidable. Avoiding them, however, is not without its own challenges. Many designers of Action Learning experiences become enamored with the methodology, losing sight of its learning and development objectives. Many senior executives view the experience as an opportunity for free consulting, getting the answers to questions they themselves have not been able to address. And finally, many participants view Action Learning as a stage for them to perform upon, viewing the opportunity as an audition for promotion, rather than as a chance to learn how the organization works at a deeper level.
We recommend that planners and designers of Action Learning experiences take to heart these cautions. Done well, Action Learning can provide a refreshing and productive interlude for any level of employee where they can refine their analytic and communication skills, develop new relationships with different levels of management and become invigorated by ideas and innovative thinking.
Wrong team size
An Action Learning team can be too big or too small. Like Goldilocks, designers must determine what size of team is just right. A seven to nine member team that engages in a challenging project runs the risk of having up to a third or more of the team riding on the efforts of others over the course of the experience. This is the reality of a large team being asked to squeeze in a large project while facing a full calendar in their regular work.
A team of three to four members might be overwhelmed by the volume of work required for a quality outcome on a large project. If planners think that more rather than fewer team members are needed to produce successful deliverables on a large project, then that should be a signal that the project itself is probably too big for this purpose. On the other hand, if the project looks as if it might be relatively manageable for three to four team members, then planners should question what the real effort and project outcome is going to be. As we will see below, projects tend to get bigger, expanding scope as the team discovers aspects of the problem they have been asked to address.
An ideal minimum starting point for an Action Learning team is five members. This number can be expanded to seven or eight, depending on the initial description of the project deliverables. Once again, if the project appears to require more effort and therefore more people, it is probably the wrong scope.
Too long until completion
The intense interest and effort of work at the beginning of a project soon diffuses when the routines of meeting, doing research and making decisions about how to proceed take over the calendars of team
members. Team members generally feel challenged at the beginning of the effort, willing to engage intellectually with the topic as a problem to solve. However, even with clear interim deadlines and progress milestones, ennui and project fatigue can creep into the team’s experience. After all, the subject matter is probably not related to what most team members are doing every day; in fact, the topics being addressed may be of marginal interest to some members. After conducting research and discussing insights, the very act of producing a report with recommendations—the expected outcome of most Action Learning projects—eventually becomes an editing, word-smithing, production process, not the most exciting work for dynamic executives. Consequently, an Action Learning project can overstay its welcome.
We suggest that a five-month deadline is definitely too long for a viable Action Learning project. We have seen teams struggle to maintain interest for four months. Once again, depending on the project, 10 weeks to 12 weeks is probably the right duration.
Charge too vague
An Action Learning team is usually asked to investigate a topic for senior management in an organization. For example, senior management may be interested in how a product is being received or what to do about entering a new market. Without a clear sense of what the underlying questions that need to be answered are, a team can go off in a thousand directions. The root cause of this is that the sponsors of the project are not truly clear themselves about what they are looking for. This is natural and should be expected; they’re pursuing something that is of interest, unsettling or not well understood, a strategic issue that needs clarity or insight they don’t currently have. However, there is a difference between an inquiry that is best suited for a consulting engagement and one being handled by an Action Learning team.
While teams we have worked with report that it is beneficial for them to struggle with the project outcome definition, too broad a charge may mean they will provide an unfocused response to the sponsor. We recommend that Action Learning planners brief sponsors about the type of question that can best be managed by a small team working above and beyond their normal work. The project designers should spend some time bringing an additional level of clarity to vague inquiries while not, at the same time, handing the team a checklist assignment.
Too Much Work
Even if a question is clear, the team the right size, the deadlines appropriate, an Action Learning project can run into trouble because of the sheer volume of work needed to develop a recommendation. Most, if not all, Action Learning projects require a fair amount of research—digging for data, compiling information from a number of sources or conducting original research. When the team sets off to search for data, it can become a time sink, especially if the organization is not used to opening its files. For example, finding the right person to talk to, getting through to that person’s manager for permission, explaining the project, gaining access to the right data and repeating that cycle for several different sources can be daunting. One team we worked with had the idea of conducting a survey. The process of writing the survey items, having them approved through several layers of management, installing them on a website, getting respondents to rate it and getting the results literally took the entire time line of the project. In addition, it is axiomatic that a project tends to get bigger in scope as more corners of the problem are illuminated by data. We have seen teams pursuing these new areas of interest without being sensitive to workload implications. At the very least, a team should be advised to keep their data inquiry within reason rather than inflicting themselves with the burden of a significant dive into the corporate or academic stores of information. Once again, while there is definitely a learning point about accessing information in an organization, Action Learning team members also have day jobs that demand attention.
Too Distant From The Sponsor
Probably the biggest pitfall of all is a distant sponsor. A sponsor is the member or members of management who works with the Action Learning team, providing it with the initial charge and receiving the final presentation. A sponsor who is unprepared for the task can make the Action Learning experience quite negative for the team. In effect, the sponsor has the ability to shape the project, from the clarity and crispness of the topic to be addressed, to maintaining the right level of expectations and attitude about the outcome. To be a good sponsor, the Action Learning planners have to work closely with them, recruiting the right executive, explaining the goals and process of Action Learning, clarifying the role of sponsor as mentor-teacher-advisor-client, and designing a process that links the sponsor, formally and informally, with the team’s progress. Without that level of commitment and interactivity, a sponsor can arrive at the final presentation without
understanding what has transpired over the course of the project, what changes have been made to the original charge, and what challenges the team was or wasn’t able to surmount.
Avoidable Problems
Most of the pitfalls mentioned above are avoidable. Avoiding them, however, is not without its own challenges. Many designers of Action Learning experiences become enamored with the methodology, losing sight of its learning and development objectives. Many senior executives view the experience as an opportunity for free consulting, getting the answers to questions they themselves have not been able to address. And finally, many participants view Action Learning as a stage for them to perform upon, viewing the opportunity as an audition for promotion, rather than as a chance to learn how the organization works at a deeper level.
We recommend that planners and designers of Action Learning experiences take to heart these cautions. Done well, Action Learning can provide a refreshing and productive interlude for any level of employee where they can refine their analytic and communication skills, develop new relationships with different levels of management and become invigorated by ideas and innovative thinking.
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