making better decisions - 19. Action-Learning Cycle
Dealing with Difficult People
This email is one in a series on decision-making. The first one is an introduction to the series.
19. Action-Learning Cycle
I had to look this one up. Action Learning was a technique created by the late Reg Revans, a British professor. As far as I can tell from my reading, it is a little out of scope for the way we have been talking about decisions so far.
It is more a process of deliberate reflection and improvement once a decision has been made. You build a team of four to eight people to work deliberately on the process.
You act, then reflect, then generalise, then plan what you're going to do next time, and repeat. So it's a combination of experiential learning, and deliberate practice and improvement.
Part of the process that I read (Kolb's experiential learning) helped with a further reflection on the kind of quadrant diagrams or two-by-two matrices that are popular in documenting MBA concepts.
The horizontal axis is about the level of processing, from doing to watching. The vertical access is about the level of perception, from feeling to thinking.
The Kolb diagram is two axes, four related quadrants, and so moving up and down through two different states, well explained through the coloured text added below:
Starting with the top left quadrant, with its emphasis on active experimentation and concrete experience, the team then moves to the top right quadrant - into observing and reflecting. Having made initial observations, these are then brought into the abstract in the lower right quadrant, assimilating the ideas by thinking and reflecting. It's then time to move to the bottom left quadrant where the team combine the abstract ideas into practical steps for action, and then the cycle continues again, with this revised practice.
The goal is to implement a decision in conjunction with these deliberate steps of reflective practice.
Further reading:
Have you heard of active learning before? Where could you apply it to your decision making process?