Scenario: Learning Organization

As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation: You’ve been working with several teams in the same organization for months. As you are walking to one of your sessions you hear an employee say – Hey we could really use a pizza man for this discussion.

Tags: Action Learning, ActionLearning Coach, Team Coach, WIAL, WIAL Action Learning, WIAL Talk

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Comments (10)

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    Lan Anh Nguyen

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    I will start the session as normal by saying hello to everyone and expressing my pleasure to join the team in this session, introducing participants, process of action learning, 2 ground rules, Leadership skill selection.
    Then I will tell the team that I have observed that not everyone really need the support from an action learning coach to support team in this session . I have a question for the team: how do you want me to work with team in this discussion?
    I will continue the session once I have the consensus of the team that they need an action learning coach for the discussion.
    If somebody says that they don’t really need an action learning coach for the discussion, I would ask him about the reasons why I doesn’t think an action learning coach can help, and what I should change to help the team better in this session.

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    ANGELINA ALICEA

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    I would tell the employee they need to bring the suggestion to the group so they can decide whether they need a Pizza Man. If they agree, I would find someone from a different department or outside the company because a Pizza Man should have little to no knowledge of the problem.

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    Lim Patrick

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    The Pizza Man concept of team diversity was well elaborated in Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. I simply love the story and positive outcome of the pizza man’s involvement in an engineering project.

    As a LO practitioner and coach, will definitely explore the suggestion of diversity to be injected into the teams. With consideration that there is team consensus among the existing members. Perhaps try it out with the employee’s team, who made the comment.

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    Pieke Houben

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    I would ask the employee in question to introduce this suggestion to the group in the session. If the group agrees I would try to provide a pizza man. But also it would be a learning experience for the group to question the reasoning behind the felt need for the pizza guy. And for the employee it would be a learning opportunity to formulate his/her rationale for why they think a pizza guy is needed.

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    Marietta Dembek

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    After welcoming the employee, I would ask: What do you need for this session? If the participants pointed to pizza man, I would invite someone from another departament.

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    Elisabete Martins

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    I would ask the employee who made the comment/suggestion if they would like to ask the group about adding a pizza person. I think it’s important to listen to the group and understand their opinion. If there was consensus, I would align with the project sponsor and provide a pizza person, from another area of ​​the company or from outside the company, for the next section.

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  • Avatar

    Joanna Płaskonka

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    For me that would be a great opportunity to ask the group at the beginning of the session:
    – What do you need to make this session as effective as possible?
    – Who is missing in our session?
    – If you could invite anyone, who would it be?
    Then, I would observe the group and (if needed) ask more questions, for example “What can we do to fulfill this need of having pizza man in our group?”

    I would refrain from acting for the group, I would support them in taking action themselves (i.e. someone from the group calls someone, invites a pizza man).

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  • Avatar

    Tomasz Tawkin

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    I might bring up the comment indirectly by asking the team:
    – Before we begin, I overheard an interesting comment about needing a pizza man for this discussion. What do you think this means for our team dynamics and the way we approach our problem-solving sessions?

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    Nga Khuat

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    My intervention is as below:
    Hello Team, how are we working together now?
    According to the Team, how does “pizza man” help our AL session?
    Please give your opinion on inviting “pizza man”, agree or disagree?
    If agree, who could be invited as a “pizza man”?
    If not agree, the AL session is conducted afterward

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Agnieszka Sybicka

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    I would ask the group: What could a pizza man bring? What is missing in the group that a pizza man could bring? what can we do to look at the problem like a pizza man?

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