SEEING WHAT’S INVINCIBLE PART 2
Who knows how life will unfold? The future is always a mystery; however, that’s not a reason not to practice being available to that mystery. In fact, because I have done a lot of practice I now realize it has helped me relax and engage in this natural unfolding Read More
It begins with a simple conversation between Action Learning coach Hou Shaohua and his friend Zhao Shuping about Action Learning. After a serious discussion in April 2021 ,they realized that Action Learning may help Generation Z and young people born after 1995 out of the confusion of life and work. Read More
What is culture? I recently reread Edgar Schein’s seminal book “Organizational Culture and Leadership”1. Schein identifies culture as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Read More
THE PANDEMIC PURSUIT: A POST-GRADUATE CALC’S TIMELY TALE As someone who loves to learn and to take action, you can imagine the immediate curiosity I had when I first heard about Action Learning. My colleagues who have had the chance to participate in Action Learning sessions spoke about it with much enthusiasm, but when asked about the details, all of them said the same thing: “You have to experience it to understand it.” Eventually, I did join one session. Little did I know that a single session would cause a huge ripple effect in my life. It was early 2021 and I was a struggling graduate student stuck without a thesis to pursue to finally complete my master’s degree. I wanted to conduct exploratory research that would not only contribute to the field of Organizational Psychology, but also benefit organizational development practitioners in the Philippines. I took note of possible topics to focus on and read through tons of literature to identify gaps that my study could address. I kept hitting deadends. It seemed like all my topics of interest were already charted territory. Read More
Professional Action Learning Coach Christoph Maria Ravesloot from WIAL Netherlands specializes in working for teams with trauma blocking the team development. The first step is to make the safety in the team negotiable and get it to the attention and care of the team. He wrote a blog on that theme from two action learning perspectives: who reports unsafety in the team and who experiences it? Those two perspectives define the intervening questions an action learning coach can ask the team. Read More
Over the summer I took a month off for vacation. I managed to distance myself from my work quite well. But ignoring sports successes is impossible for me. In 2021, it was TeamNL at the Olympic Games, but in 2022 it was the performance of the Jumbo Visma team during the Tour de France that caught my eye. Jumbo Visma is a Dutch cycling team with cyclists from several countries. After several years of being close to success, where things often went wrong at the last minute, they were very successful that summer of 2022. I went to watch, listen and read. What an Action Learning Team that is! A nice touch is that the environment has already determined that the team consists of eight riders, the ideal number for a team, at least that is step 1. Read More
When these invitations show up to write for the WIAL Newsletter my first sense is that I really have nothing to tell anyone. So, why not use this opportunity for some hard thinking to organize my ideas on how some of my practices may be showing up to help me to see beneath the surface or as I will refer to it “see” the invisible in different situations Read More
Given the current and growing interest in team coaching among a wide range of organizations, it will be increasingly important to highlight action learning as a systemic team coaching approach, in addition to its value as a group coaching and problem-solving methodology. While there are many flavors of Action Learning, the single-problem approach developed by Prof. Marquardt can be regarded as an effective approach to systemic team coaching. It shares the enabling conditions that support effective team coaching as well as Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines that are essential to the success of a sustainable and value-creating team. Read More
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and the ongoing crises and challenges that New Yorkers were experiencing during and after the global pandemic, our frontline library staff were feeling very unsafe, unsupported and confused about policing in the United States in general, in our city, New York, and also in our 92 neighborhood libraries. Read More
Eight Coaches from Thailand have gotten to know each other while pursuing the journey to become Certified Action Learning Coaches with Ms. Peerawan, a Senior Action Learning Coach. Our relationship grew rapidly through the Action Learning process. The group met online frequently to help each other until all members became successfully certified in August 2021. Read More
It’s about shifting or changing the basic underlying assumptions. I recently reread Edgar Schein’s seminal book “Organizational Culture and Leadership”1. Schein identifies culture as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Read More