Page 275 - The extraordinary leader

252 • The Extraordinary Leader

Emphasize Action Learning Projects—
or Work on Projects That Matter

The preceding section described how learning methods can make a big dif-
ference. In addition to the methodology, there is a way to focus the develop-
ment process around honest-to-goodness issues the organization faces. Rather
than spending time analyzing a company in a totally different industry, why
not focus the development process on the most important, thorniest, chal-
lenging issues the organization actually has? This idea, dubbed “action learn-
ing,” was pioneered by Reginald Revans, a management professor at Oxford
13
University in England. The idea met with such success that it has become
widely used in the most sophisticated leadership development programs all
over the world.
The Siemens organization gave teams of participants in its leadership devel-
opment process the problems that in times past it would have given to a high-
profile consulting company such as McKinsey, Bain, or BCG. Siemens
estimated that the recommendations coming from the action learning teams
saved the corporation between $3 million and $4 million in consulting costs
and reaped recommendations that produced $11 million in savings in one
year. Thus, Siemens’ leadership development process moved from being a
huge expenditure and cash drain to being a vehicle to improve performance.
Take the savings from the team’s recommendations and then add the fees
Siemens would have paid the external firms, and the payoff was handsome. 14
The other compelling argument in favor of action learning, however, is
the highly engaging nature of it. People generally find these activities to be
more involving. Action learning projects meet nearly all of the criteria we
described. They are eminently practical, because they have been selected
with those criteria in mind. They are very job-related because they spring
from within the organization. They lend themselves to rapid implementa-
tion. The projects are extremely concrete. Typically, the groups spend sev-
eral weeks to several months working on the project, so that it becomes a
long-term learning experience rather than an event. Nothing could be more
job-related. Very often, the teams doing the analysis of an issue or problem
are then asked to be involved in planning for, and actually implementing,
their recommendations.
Our view is that the great power of action learning is the fact that it so com-
pletely meets the criteria for effective learning methods. It is a perfect way to
tap into the enormous wellspring of talent, innovation, and knowledge that