Thoughts on Action Learning

Abstract

One of the gravest disabilities from which training suffers is that, of all the important fields of human activity, few have a smaller corpus of significant literature. Most of the millions of words which have gushed forth about training have been ephemeral, repetitious or pretentious. It is sad that after decades of bustle and effort Bruce Nixon should, in the September 1982 issue of ICT, have had to write in such simplistic terms about a LAST CHANCE FOR MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT. Though there are some sectors to which they do not apply, few will quarrel with his general charges. The packaged course, the remote academic, the fluttering fashions and the lowly, disregarded trainer should all have vanished long ago, but they are, it appears, still with us. The basic reason for this intellectual poverty is surely that trainers have concerned themselves with means rather than ends. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Phoenix series, the journals are filled with techniques and descriptions, and those aspects of analysis which are covered are apt to be so swathed in jargon as to be frighteningly obscure. Seen from the trainer's eye‐view this preoccupation with means may seem inevitable. As Nixon points out, the ends of training are concerned with the survival, the effectiveness and the financial viability of an enterprise. How can a trainer, way down the hierarchy, presume to deal with these high matters? Their proper consideration demands that the trainer should peer into the future and, if Jacques' theory of the time span is correct, he should be paid more than his Managing Director. His problem is that if he dons the mantle of a futurologist, he may not only be denied a rise, but also be told sharply to get back to training the foremen. There are ways of squaring this circle, but there seems no doubt that the low status of most trainers and the limited horizons that have been imposed upon them have been a prime cause of the intellectual deserts which cover much of the training world.