Scenario: Too Deep
As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:
In exploring deeper roots as to what the real problem is the team gets to the point that the real problem is “world hunger”.
Tags: Action Learning Coach, WIAL Action Learning
Trackback from your site.
Comments (6)
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Bel Villavicencio
| #
Problems presented in Action Learning must be “workable” at their level or within the authority or responsibility of the team members. World Hunger is too big a problem and beyond one’s reach. Also, since action learning necessitates action and implementation of strategies after each session, what could the team do? My assumption here is that the team is not part of any global organisation (e.g. UN, UNICEF, WHO) that addresses World Hunger. And if they are not (part of these global organizations), team members can however still contribute by collaborating, coordinating, supporting these world organisations. Thus, I would ask the team how they can address World Hunger to the degree that they are capable of.
Reply
Yang Liu
| #
My assumption for this situation is that this set is really dig deep for the root reason at some points they will dig out a very wide social or word root cause or problem. This is good because the set will have good opportunity to learn deeper and reflect deeper. As a action Learning coach i will ask my set What could we do at our level for this deep cause and the second question would be what could we do if we want other levels to engage in?
Reply
marinamazi
| #
I would suppose that the solution to this problem is out of control of the participants. However, I would adopt the following actions:
– I would do the consensus phase, asking them to write the problem and to read it. If there was no consensus, I would continue with the session and would do another round of consensus. If there was consensus and the focus on world hunger remained, I would make some questions in order to introduce them a reflection, such as:
– How do the actions to this problem are within your scope ? or, how the actions of each of you or this group as a whole could influence the solution of this problem?
Reply
Carol Kam
| #
When the team go too deep to a problem sometimes it also reflect the complexity of this probem that require more thinking and perhaps some hidden agendas that will benefit to the final solutions. While as an action learning coach we need to balance the Action and Learning so i will let them go for a while and observe if they have realized the situation, then I will do a standard health check and in addition asking the team: 1) Is this problem matching the 4 criteria of action learning? [Real/Important/Urgent/The team had some sort of control] 2) Do we have consensus on the expected accomplishments for this session? It will allow the team to realize the issue and work on a focused area.
Reply
DrBea
| #
Great responses. Yes this is deeper than the team I would bring them back up to a level that they could take action on. As others have said I would ask them to write down the part of the problem we can take action on.
Happy Coaching
Bea
Reply
Leonor Deborah G. Velasquez
| #
I would ask the team to write down their own understanding of the problem and then ask if this is a problem that the team can take action on. I would then ask the team, how they plan to move forward and focus on a problem (or parts of the problem) that they actually have control over and take action on?
Reply