As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
Someone asks the problem presenter – How does this present itself as a problem for you?
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As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A participant asks another participant “why they asked a question”. The first participant is visibly disturbed. Your instinct is that they are reacting to the word “why” in that they feel the value of their question is being questioned.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A participant asks another participant to explain what the intent behind their question was.
A Birthday Party with Meaning
What do you do when you reach a life milestone like your 30th birthday? Splurge on the latest fashion craze? Feast on excessive foods and drinks? Yeye Agorilla decided to celebrate her 30th birthday in a different way. Fueled by events happening in her home country of the Philippines and inspired by Fr. Bienvenido Nebres’s and DILG Usec Austere Panadero’s call to help others at a conference she attended, Yeye decided to make her birthday celebration a meaningful one. Yeye leveraged her competencies and network to make a positive impact on some local government/non-government/non-profit organizations using WIAL Action Learning.
Yeye’s first contact with Action Learning was through a workshop she attended. She immediately realized how useful and powerful a tool Action Learning is. Through listening and asking questions, participants in the workshop helped one another have a better understanding of their problems and think of new ways to solve them. She saw the value of Action Learning as an avenue to help some groups in need, so she reached out to her network of Action Learning coaches to garner their support for her birthday project.
Six WIAL-certified Action Learning Coaches answered the call to be part of this unique birthday bash: Benjie Leogardo, Maita Beltran, Dax Cobarrubias, Bel Pacheco, Joi Natividad and Goody Directo.
Yeye then persuaded and invited six organizations to be the beneficiaries of the event. Two representatives from each of these organizations came in to share their problems. These organizations were City of Malabon, Philippines (Human Resource and Planning Division); Town of Nagcarlan, Laguna, Philippines (through the Office of the Vice Mayor); He Cares Mission (street children NGO); Aleron (non-profit all male choir); Kaya Natin Movement (NGO on good governance); and Jesse Robredo Foundation (NGO on good governance). The problems brought up by these organizations were around the areas of talent acquisition and management, more effective mobilization of resources and volunteers, sustainability of programs and good governance.
Now that Yeye had the key players for her birthday party on board, she then invited the usual birthday party participants: relatives, friends from school, ex-colleagues, teachers and artists. All would become team members to join as participants in the Action Learning sessions. A Facebook event page was also created to explain about the event and about Action Learning.
The birthday party was held on 21 October 2017. In that half-day session, participants and beneficiaries got to experience first hand what Action Learning is all about, and appreciate the power it has. It was an eye-opener for them. The Action Learning sessions allowed all participants to open up their minds to other perspectives and mindsets, bring meaningful insights into and appreciation for issues around the Philippines and … to make new friends.
It was a meaningful and well-spent afternoon for Yeye, her network of Action Learning coaches, her family and friends and the 6 organizations that participated. As the late United States President Ronald Reagan said, “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” Yeye was thankful that she could make a difference to these six organizations through Action Learning, thereby giving more meaning to her 30th birthday celebration.
Action Learning: “The Way Forward” for Cru Leadership
In December 2016, two exceptional non-profit organizations were chosen as recipients of the WIAL Better World Fund. One of these, Cru, provides Christian ministry to college campus students globally. With the Better World Fund grant, 20 nominated leaders from Cru attended a five-day intensive training to become new Action Learning coaches.
Cru originally learned about Action Learning through Michael Marquardt’s book, Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. Using the techniques from this book, emerging leaders were running some six-month action learning projects. After the certification program, Cru have stepped up their use of the technique across the organization. “We can take any team and help them work through obstacles that would normally slow them down. This gives them momentum to move forward faster on the things that matter most,” said DeeDee Rush, one of the organization’s Global EQ Workshop Strategy Coordinators.
More than one year later, Cru has used action learning in a whole variety of ways to better the organization and solve complex challenges. From leadership team meetings, to high potential development programs, action learning has become integral to the organization’s culture.
“I believe Action Learning is THE WAY FORWARD to solve complex problems in Europe,” said Paul Duncan, Western Europe Leadership Development. “Action learning has become an essential learning element in developing the future generation of leadership across Agape’s work across Europe.” “What can I say? It works!! In New York our Leader Development group of six worked on “How do we build a powerful leadership pipeline to increase the number and quality of Hispanic leaders in Cru.” All were fully engaged and at the end of the session, the group helped a very shy Hispanic leader be the Presenter of the findings to the entire group!” – Barry Rush, Global EQ Workshop Strategy Coordinator, Cru
” “I love action learning! One of the great outcomes I’ve experienced from action learning is the way it makes the dynamics of a working group ‘visible’ to everyone so that the group can collectively address them and move forward. People love feeling successful and effective, and you can feel the collective energy rise as issues are surfaced and positively addressed.” – Shelly Gilmore, Western Europe Agape Leadership Development, Cru
A Breakthrough Solution to Reach 10,000 Children
The First Tee is a US-based organization whose mission is to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf. The Denver, Colorado chapter, The First Tee of Denver, currently works with 6,500 children, but has an ambitious goal to expand its reach. By 2020, they want to help 10,000 kids. Tiffany Maurycy, CALC, started to work with First Tee of Denver as a strategy and performance improvement consultant. But when she discovered Action Learning and became certified as an Action Learning coach, she threw out the agenda she had prepared for the first meeting with the team, and decided on using Action Learning instead. And this evolved into a 6-month Single Problem Action Learning program.
By using Action Learning to look at this challenge, the team realized that the solution they had in mind – growing by recruiting more and more staff – was not feasible. A new approach of building partnerships emerged as the most powerful way to move forward. Some of these partnerships will take time to implement. But some, in particular one focusing on disabled children, was successfully implemented within a few weeks to the great satisfaction of all involved.
Action Learning not only delivers breakthrough solutions but helps a team to connect and learn in a powerful way. Tiffany incorporated First Tee’s core values as an integral part of the Action Learning sessions. This enhanced the atmosphere of mutual learning and the team’s willingness to practice these values allowed the team members to work together in a powerful way. Tiffany offered her Action Learning sessions and follow up coaching sessions with the team leader free of charge, for a total of 34 pro-bono hours. This is a great example of how Action Learning can make a difference in the world.
The testimonials from the First Tee of Denver team members speak for themselves …
“I wish all meetings ran like this one. Everyone’s voice was heard and the time factor motivated us to drive to consensus and action.” – Susie, Volunteer
“I saw something new that I didn’t see as an opportunity before coming into this meeting. I also experienced the power of coming to consensus on the opportunity. I realize that we (my team & I) jump to solutions without agreement as to the problem, goal, etc.” – Paula, CEO of the First Tee of Denver
“I found writing down my idea of what I saw the opportunity [to be] as powerful. It helped me with the leadership skill I was working on which was really listening and being bold.” – Debbie, Volunteer
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A participant ‘playfully’ hits another member on the back of the head.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
The team decides it is too beautiful inside to stay indoors and opts to move outside to a picnic table.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A member stands during a session.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A member uses their phone to check the time.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
The team decides to capture some of the information they are discussing on a flip chart. The person that moves to the flip chart flips the leadership skills out of view.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A participant responds to a question with – What inspired that question?
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
A participant asks a question of everyone and after a single answer another question is asked and the team moves on.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
Lots of statements are made in response to a question that was posed to everyone.
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
The problem presenter asks a question.