International Conference: Action Learning, 7th – 9th April 2025, University of Manchester, Alliance Manchester Business School

Blog piece from Jane Garnham (IFAL Member) and Chandana Sanyal (Conference contributor)

The International Action Learning Conference took place in the late spring in the UK at the University of Manchester, Alliance Manchester Business School and was attended by over 70 people from all over the world. This biannual conference brings together academics and practitioners to share research stories from practise and to connect to explore and discuss how action learning is being used across the globe.

Jane Garnham attended as an IFAL member and Chandana Sanyal attended as a conference contributor, presenting on the topic of Action Learning as an agent in planning and implementing Quality Improvement Projects in an organisational context.

There was a packed conference programme including:

• Keynote Speaker – Naomi Chambers, University of Manchester
• Drawing on her 25 years of experience of facilitating, researching and evaluating action learning, Naomi identified the critical ingredients. She went on to explore both the difficulty and the importance of striking a good balance between the processes of learning, reflecting, and taking action.
• Keynote Speaker – Mike Pedler, ‘Manchester and Action Learning’
• Mike shared his experience and knowledge of the development of action learning and the many links between Manchester and Action Learning.
• Symposium - Being an Action Learning Scholar-Practitioner
• David Coghlan, Trinity Business School, Dublin
• This symposium was a panel session in which four experienced action learning scholar-practitioners (Mike Pedler, Christine Abbott, Lesley Wood and Bernhard Hauser) were interviewed and shared their reflections as action learning scholar-practitioners. Delegates then had the opportunity o share their stories about how they came across action learning and how they are using it.

Reflections: Jane Garnham

I enjoyed my time at the conference meeting both new people and familiar faces. Whilst not attending in an official IFAL capacity, I did get agreement from the conference organisers to say a few words about IFAL. A big thank you to Helen Baxter who led the planning and organising of this three-day event.

It was great to be able to share the story that almost 50 years ago, eight people signed the Memorandum & Articles of Association to form the Action Learning Trust. They included a previous Principal at the Manchester University Institute of Science & Technology, the principle of Sheffield poly, a past president of the Royal College of Physicians, the former chairman of the Manpower Services Commission, the general secretary of a trade union and …….Reg Revans.

The M & A state that the company’s key objects are;

“to advance the education of the public with particular reference to education by Action Learning, a system of learning by which the participants are personally and directly involved in the identification and analysis of practical problems and in the diagnosis and responsible treatment of such problems.”

In 1984 the Action Learning Trust became known as the International Foundation for Action Learning or IFAL and it is a charity registered in the UK with the Charity Commission. 

I was able to talk about IFAL’s pride in being connected to the Action Learning Research & Practice Journal – if you become an IFAL member you can subscribe to the journal and receive all annual editions as hard copy delivered to your door for £36 saving £160 on the standard subscription. The journal is a key read, providing accounts of practice, articles about research along with book reviews and editorial opinion.

As a conference delegate I attended as many sessions as possible and learnt lots from those I went to.  They included:

• Towards an International AL Archive and Research Centre which was facilitated by George Boak, John Edmonstone and Mike Pedler.  The session began to explore how a centre might be established to house all the historic documents about AL
• Action Learning as an Enabler of Equity: Redistributing power in Leadership Development - Ruby Ubhi
•  Using psychogeography to get movement into the leadership development journey - Leigh Morland
• Shadow Facilitation: Creating Conditions for Practitioner Reflection and Action in Critical Action Learning - Russ Vince & Bernhard Hauser, University of Bath and University of St Andrews BHCG Impact Network, Germany
• Codevelopment Action Learning as a supervisory tool to support graduate students' academic persistence and leadership - Nesrine Fazez, Nathalie Lafranchise, Léane Larose & Maxime Paquet, University de Montréal, Canada, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
• Bridging Theory and Practice: Action Learning in Long-Term Mentorship of Young Entrepreneurs - Paul Argyle
• Comparing in-person and virtual action learning - George Boak York St John University
• Where is the action learning in health & care to address system-wide challenges? A provocation. Simon Moralee University of Manchester.

Reflections: Chandana Sanyal

I was able to attend only a couple of sessions at the conference this year. One of the sessions was an application of action learning to develop the capacity within West Yorkshire Police using action modes of research related to the significant issue of anger within and between communities. This was an excellent example of building ‘actionable knowledge’ through the cycles of collective reflection and learning within an action learning group.  The second session was an account of practice showcasing action learning as a strength-based and inclusive approach to leadership development and problem solving.  Here, action learning was positioned as an ‘enabler of equity’ within an international leadership development programme; this example of practice highlighted that action learning can uplift and recognise leaders from all backgrounds by helping them to build the confidence to think with criticality, challenge the status quo productively and see value in their contribution and perspective when innovating and problem solving.  I also attended the Keynote by Mike Pedler on ‘Manchester and Action Learning’; it was fascinating to learn more about Reg Ravans’ work on Action Learning in Manchester.
My overall reflection from the conference is that action learning continues to be used in leadership and management development to create a space for collaborative learning and reflections to support individual management and leadership capabilities and as well as impact organisational objectives and values.

Thanks for reading!

Leadership in Motion and Action Reflection Learning with Ernie Turner

Ernie Turner has spent the last 50 years coaching individuals and teams all over the world both in the private, public and not for profit sectors. Ernie will share principles of Leadership in Motion and the Action Reflection Learning model, inviting questions from the audience, and providing opportunities for small group reflection.

Ernie's special interests include shared leadership, team coaching, merger integration, organizational change, peer learning, employee engagement, fighting bullies of any kind, making peace, promoting a sustainability mindset, composing and playing the piano, writing, exploring roads less traveled all over the world, tennis, golf and scuba. As an educator by training and a life-long learner, Ernie has lived and worked on 5 continents and considers himself a global citizen.

Ernie is a story-teller and keynote speaker on Shared Leadership Disciplines, Action Reflection Learning Principles and Developing Higher Performing Teams. He  is co-author of Action Reflection Learning (TM): Solving Real Business Problems by Connecting Learning with Earning, and author of Gentle Interventions , a book of stories and practical concepts and tools that can make any team a little better.

Further reading

IFAL Symposium Chat 11.26.22.pdf

Turner_Leadership in Motion.pdf

Invitation to a unique sustainability webinar.docx

Celebrating 70 years of action learning and the
45th year of the International Foundation for Action learning

Critical action learning – facilitation when complex emotions and power dynamics shape learning in organizations by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hauser

Download related documents

CAL Bernhard Hauser 220627.pdf

As Founder of bhcg.impact.network, Bernhard Houser has been operating for 30 years as consultant, facilitator and coach in organisations.

In order to initiate sustainable development and change processes in an agile way, he successfully implemented Critical Action Learning in numerous organizations. His long-term experience as in-house consultant at Siemens –before he started his own business as consultant and facilitator –adds tremendously to his competency to understand his customers' complex organizational and micro-political worlds. Involved in an international network of experts, the professor for change management is committed to the constant further development of Critical Action Learning and reflection-oriented leadership and has published numerous articles and books.

Celebrating 70 years of action learning and
the 45th year of the International Foundation for Action learning

INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ACTION LEARNING
is proud to present the first event in our series
'International Varieties of Action Learning: Origins and Practices'

Co-development Action Learning and
Its Impact in and Beyond the Francophone World

by Maxime Paquet, Ph.D; Nathalie Sabourin, M.Sc, CHRP; Nathalie Lafranchise; Ph.D, and Ron Cheshire, MBA, ACC

Watch online now

This interactive session is aimed at Managers, Leaders, Business Entrepreneurs and Talent/Learning experts who want to discover a pragmatic and proven approach developed in Quebec, Canada and used in the Francophone world, called Codevelopment Action-Learning.

You will be presented with the scientifically measured impacts of Codevelopment Action Learning as well as benefits from deployments in various economic and social sectors.

Celebrating 70 years of action learning and
the 45th year of the International Foundation for Action Learning

As new members of the IFAL Executive, Genevieve Cother and Yury Boshyk had an online conversation about their aspirations for IFAL. Following is a transcript of that conversation. 

Gen:

Hi, I'm Genevieve Cother. I'm the Business Development Manager at The Action Learning Institute. We claim to be the first education institution in the world to deliver nationally recognized qualifications entirely through action learning. And this is made possible because of our software platform that we've designed and implemented called myLearningMap.

I'm here today with Yury Boshyk, and Yury is not only a legend in the action learning community, he's an advisor, educator, author, founder, and Chairman of Global Executive Learning, the global forum on strategic transformations, leadership and learning, and founder of a unique approach to organizational and leadership development, called Business Driven Action Learning.

Yury and I are both new additions to the executive committee for IFAL. At our first meeting, we were asked, what were our aspirations for IFAL? I also volunteered to become the editor of the newsletter and we thought it might be a nice idea for Yury and I to share with you our aspirations for IFAL. I'm going to let Yury go first.

Yury:

Well, that was a change in the schedule, but I'm perfectly happy to do so. Yes, it's a great pleasure to have you as a co-new member, newbie, to the executive committee. You bring to it a freshness and an educational learning context, which is both technology-based and also design-based. And it's almost, to my mind, it's almost as if you are the next generation of implant action learning, where you say that all workplaces are a place for learning, including the factory floor, including the highest levels of an organization, so to speak, as well.

Gen:

Yeah!

Yury:

And the vision, that's the vision that you have, so, I'm very pleased by that too, and the energy that you bring too.

I've always considered IFAL to be a premium - an organization with great potential. In 1977, when Reg Revans founded it, the approach for the business community at that time, he called it the Trust, the Action Learning Trust. And that was supposed to be for business and for industries. But at the same time, in 1977, the same time practically, IFAL was founded to service the social sector, the not for profit, for charity. And that was, in fact, they were supposed to fall in Revans's principals and so on, but you see, they divided it into two: industry and then, of course, for non-profits. And what I've seen is that over the years, in 1982, when he decided to put this all together in a way, and he called it the Revans, to be actually correct here, the Revans' Action Learning International. And it was supposed to serve all action learning, be it in the public sector, private sector, social sector. And like you, and your Institute, it's also community-focused as well. So, I saw the evolution of action learning and I saw IFAL as a place of ecumenical, as you say it, adaptation, but also inclusion.

Gen:

I like that, yeah.

Yury:

There are very few organizations like that in the world. In fact, there are none. Where action learning and its 40 different varieties now, it can be actually a place for collaboration and cooperation to move that forward, experiential learning as well. So, my aspiration, therefore, is to see this collaboration. To see the inclusion of all kinds of action learning varieties for the benefit of community and also for the benefit of learners around the world. So, that was one of my major aspirations. So, I will stop there and let you have a chance to speak.

Gen:

Thanks, Yury. And that's really attractive to me and, I'm sure, to many other people that understand that action learning does take so many different forms and it's so unstructured, and it's there to be used in any way or as a vehicle for any kind of change really. And I guess my aspiration for IFAL is to be both, that, I guess, custodian of the history, but also a place where people can get creative with action learning and really push it, and test it in all its different varieties, and in many different contexts. And I think that it's a safe place to do that. And also, it offers opportunities to meet with other people who understand action learning, have deep knowledge and experience of action learning to be able to test those theories.

And my aspiration, I guess, is to really bring that community together from all the places around the world where action learning is being used, and is maybe not recognized, or people who are struggling alone to build something using action learning, to come together and talk about their experiences, and share those. So that we can not only understand the existing knowledge that we have, but also create that new knowledge about action learning, which is part of the ethos of action learning. Yeah. So, that's what I think.

Yury:

I agree with you fully. I also too, I believe, like you do, that action learning is the future.

Gen:

Absolutely.

Yury:

That in the 21st century, it is completely, completely relevant, both in terms of small group learning and organizational change, and transformation. The thing is, to bring it together somehow and that's what we've been discovering, that you and I are doing in a way. Both the organizational side and the kind of individual small set approach as well. And they're not mutually exclusive, they're actually aligned quite nicely.

Gen:

Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

Yury:

That all the 21st century... that need for change, thinking of how we learn. The emphasis by organizations on learning, finally, and societies, like in Singapore, continuous learning. So, I think, if we go back to that famous Scottish philosopher that Reg Revans very much appreciated. "All meaningful knowledge for the sake of action, all meaningful action for the sake of community."

Gen:

Yes, yes. I like that. Yeah. See? This is what I like is that, you know, I get exposure to information like that, which then inspires me to go and learn more. And that's what I love about IFAL. Yeah. And I agree with you completely. I mean, I think that some of the greatest challenges that we have as, as a human race require us to act quickly, but in a sober and informed manner, which lends itself very well to action learning. So, I guess my aspiration is that IFAL and action learning will eventually save the world.

Yury:

Yes. And I hope it becomes a resource, a place for people that if they want to learn about action learning, experiential learning, they can come and learn about the different varieties, and learn about the past and the history, and some tools that would be very useful for them in their work. I'm hoping we can do that as well. And I'm looking forward to working with you and the team, of course.

Gen:

Likewise.

Yury:

I'll look forward to your first issue of the newsletter too.

Gen:

Thanks, Yury.

Want to join the conversation? Tell us your aspirations for IFAL by posting a comment.

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