WIAL Brazil does not want to be indifferent to such important sociological dynamics within the country. Therefore, it decided to start a Scholarship Program for Brazilians of African Descent, opening space to welcome one qualifying participant in each Action Learning Certification class held in Brazil. This initiative dialogues with WIAL’s global objective of promoting greater social equality and income conditions for those who want to use Action Learning to help make the world a better place. WIAL Brazil supports potential black leaders with the purpose of developing a more egalitarian culture within the country. Read More

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The first in a series of articles that looks at each of the five of WIAL’s Solution Spheres: the power of Action Learning to develop breakthrough solutions. Breakthrough ideas don’t come from brainstorming. Forcing the brain to come up with a great idea, just in time for when it’s your turn to speak up, does not work. The brain needs to be triggered, and then given time to relax and reflect. That is the power of questions in the Action Learning session. During the problem discovery phase, open-ended questions allow the team members to look at the problem from different angles. Read More

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Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group) is known as one of the world’s largest conglomerates. CP Group operates across many industries ranging from industrial to service sectors and is organized in 8 Business Lines covering 13 Business Groups. This year, All Coaching Academy –the internal coaching unit in the CP Group – was asked to design and deliver a session around group reflection for the leadership program of CP-All Public Company Limited – the operator of the ubiquitous and famous 7-Eleven convenience stores in Thailand. The leadership program is called “Talo Kae Klang” (Mid-level Entrepreneur). Read More

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As a leadership development consultant, I’m always on the lookout for new tools and techniques to help my clients and their companies to collaborate better. communicate clearer and achieve more. This led me to discover Action Learning in 2014, a tool that I immediately used for our clients with great results. This led us to create WIAL Philippines a year later, today one of the top 10 affiliates in the world in terms of the number of coaches. Just like with Action Learning, I saw the power potential behind Strengths. I decided to become a Strengths Coach and was surprised by how much it resonated for our many clients. Read More

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The importance of developing individual leadership skills is further been emphasized by asking questions about individual leadership skill development before team and organizational development in the post-session debriefing process. A problem with this debriefing practice became obvious to me when I noticed that it took much more time to debrief individual, as compared to team or organization, development because of the time it took to address the develop goals for every member of the team (which usually included feedback from other team members). Read More

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I am a coaching associate with Emerging World. Emerging World delivers immersive experiences for global corporations to bring out the best in their people. It enables people to see the world from different perspectives to shift their businesses and help to shape a better future. I returned to Nairobi for my 3rd time in May as part of program called ‘Go with Maersk’. 56 Maersk new and emerging leaders from 26 countries joined some senior Maersk leaders to spend the week assisting local socially based organizations (partners) and communities around Nairobi to improve the conditions and skills to bring change. Read More

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In August 1979, at the age of 16, I became the coach of a handball team of children aged 7 and 8. That is exactly 40 years ago: 40 years in which team coaching in sports, education, and business has always been my favorite and most successful activity. Almost always I started in practice and afterward only took theoretical training: Action Learning pur sang. I would like to share my reflection on these 40 years with you in this article. During my MBA education, I discovered new models that try to predict success. They provide managers with certainty and are based on linear thinking. . But in the current time this is no longer sufficient. The current challenge for organizations is to have teams deliver results and learn from this. Read More

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We are always looking for effective new ways to market what we do. About 18 months back we came up with idea of the “INDABA” workshop. We believe the meaning of word Indaba captures the heart of Action Learning. An indaba is an important conference held by the izinDuna (principal men) of the Zulu or Xhosa peoples of South Africa to deal with important tribal matters. The term comes from a Zulu language word, meaning ‘business’ or ‘matter.’ Read More

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As action learning coaches, we learn to intervene when we see learning opportunities or to improve the performance of the group. This is easier said than done. Knowing when and how to intervene in a group that is functioning well is hard enough. You have to pick the appropriate moment, ask the right questions, and consider the impact you wish to have through the intervention. When group dynamics are tricky, however, this becomes even harder. And while it requires great courage, I would argue that the trickiest, most courageous interventions can have the greatest effect. During action learning sessions, sometimes challenging dynamics arise – so-called “elephants in the room.” Read More

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Action Learning involves attention for both the upperstream and the undercurrent. It also requires a balance in the roles of leader, coach and manager. The power of Action Learning is that it contributes to the continuous process of achieving consensus on challenges and problems. It begins at an early stage! Let’s take primary school as an example. The great Action Learning question in this case is: “How do I prepare children for their unpredictable future? ”. This is absolutely different from the past, since we have always prepared people for a more predictable future. Read More

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Until six years ago, for many years, the late, great Harry Levinson donated 90 minutes a month for six months every year to coach and advise six Division 13 psychologists who were in the early phases of their development as consulting psychologists. Harry worked virtually, using conventional conference calling technology. He felt an obligation to provide new generations of consulting psychologists with a sort of internship that was not generally available at that time for psychologists that were converting from clinical, counseling, or I/O to consulting psychology. Read More

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WIAL Malaysia completed our first CALC Certification for 2020 on 22 February. On 18 March 2020, less than a month after our event, Malaysia was placed under a Coronavirus lockdown directive. All public gatherings were ordered stopped and almost all the country’s economic activities came to a standstill. This situation was unprecedented and it was a great shock to many. In February 2020 I recalled clearly that we had proposed a three months coaching consultancy work, with an option of extension for another two months for the sales team of a small and medium size (SME) financial services entity. We had little experience on virtual training deliveries as almost all our clients expected us to be physically present during trainings. Read More

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Carl Rogers was an American psychologist who lived between 1902 and 1987. The Person-Centered Approach was developed by him, also considered a pioneer in scientific research in psychotherapy. Reginald “Reg” William Revans was a British academic professor, administrator and management consultant who pioneered the use of Action learning. He is considered the “father “of Action Learning. He lived between 1907 and 2003. Although they lived at the same time being contemporary, they may never have met, or at least I have found no evidence of this meeting. However, their approaches are absolutely complementary and consistent with each other. Read More

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I have never been a fan of presenting a webinar. I always feel like I’m talking to myself. The loss of interaction with the audience I find horrifically deflating. However, give me an audience I can interact with and I am in my element. Especially, if it’s a small audience like the CALC classes. My favorite has become the four-day intensive. In the face to face program, we typically require no prework, other than to contemplate potential problems to work on. Read More

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At the World Institute for Action Learning (WIAL), we frequently talk about the impact we can have on individuals, teams and organizations. When groups experience the WIAL Action Learning method, it has a profound impact at all three of these levels. But have you considered the impact Action Learning can also have on wider society? In 2015, we established the WIAL Better World Fund to provide Action Learning services to community-based organizations around the world. Grant recipients include organizations and individuals that are working to improve communities and lives globally. Read More

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