ACTION LEARNING, ACTION SCIENCE AND LEARNING NEW SKILLS

Managers frequently experience difficulty in implementing skills they learn in management development courses owing to two obstacles; (1) the conflict between the skills being taught in the course and the manager′s current skills which may be so well learned as to be automatic; and (2) the conflict between the skills being taught and the manager′s assumptions about self, others and the organisation which may not support the new skills. The combination of Action Science (Argyris) and Action Learning (Revans) provides a powerful methodology to surmount these two obstacles. The processes involved are: critical reflection, re‐framing, and unlearning/relearning. These processes are practised in heterogeneous small groups which meet over several months to resolve real organisational problems.