ARL in practice
Action Reflection Learning
Our philosophy of learning – Action Reflection Learning®
People learn from practical, real life situations more than in any other way. There is nothing more effective for personal learning than oneself getting to grips with and being responsible for sorting out a concrete dilemma. We learn infinitely more from putting our own words on what we do than from what we hear others talk about. The point with ARL, Action Reflection Learning, is to acquire an attitude towards and method for “thinking and cogitating” upon your own concrete experiences and attempt to draw conclusions that can be carried forward into new situations. ARL is to experience, reflect upon and generalise from, that is to say three phases of one common process...
Innovative methods for learning and development
Mil Institute has over 30 years experience in developing new methods and concepts within Action Reflection Learning. We have concluded that learning processes are most effective when they are integrated with the organisation’s most important questions and processes. The contracting part gets involved and engaged in a natural way, which is crucial for the result. Therefore we are constantly looking for organizations that together with us can go beyond the traditional leadership programs and break new ground.
Leadership development as a side effect of change
In MiL Institute we don’t see learning as a goal in itself but as a consequence of doing the right things together with the right people. The goal is to contribute to reaching results, to get the job done with quality, efficiency and in an innovative way. As a consequence of our way to contribute, at the same time we create space for learning about leadership, change and strategy, etc. The difference is that we let the task, the work that has to be done, come to the fore. Not as a motor or as an arena for learning, but as the goal for the operation. One can say that leadership development becomes a side effect of a job that has to be done anyway.Using the organisation’s natural change processes as a platform for leadership development and learning is efficient. Many of the companies we work with have a need to force change and find quicker ways to integrate systems and activities.
Example: Company X will during two years carry out a major change. The motive is to accomplish shorter lead times and general resource efficiency. The company management want to carry out a leadership development programme that will equip the managers to lead the change, through present methods and tools for change leadership, etc. A classic approach is to design a programme with a number of themed modules and let the participants work with their individual projects from everyday life in the programme in order to tie the programme closer to the questions and problems of the establishment.
An alternative can instead be to create several, but cohesive processes around the important subprojects in change and let the people who are needed to solve the task, be in the same room. Within the frame of this process the work is designed in a way so that creativity enhances and thus the probability to raise the quality and the innovation content in the solution. During the work, the participants have the possibility to stop the process to reflect. Short theory sessions with relevant research and theory are connected to these reflections. Then the knowledge enhancement will be ”just-in-time” rather than ”just-in-case”.
This way the learning happens at the same time and in parallel with the change process instead of being a preparatory and more secluded activity alongside the change work.
The Completion workshop
The completion workshop offers a solution to this kind of complex questions that are dependent of a coordinated operation of different competences and parallel businesses. Questions that often risk suffering and being dragged out due to permanent interruptions and colliding priorities. In the completion workshop we gather the key persons that are needed to answer the question under the same roof and give them conditions to get the job done.The method is built on an innovative cooperation between IKEA and MiL. During one week we brought together 25 chosen experts to come to a closure regarding 11 burning questions. MiL assisted by helping the group to clarify and concretise goals, and to design a work flow that lead to closure within the set time limit. Besides the satisfaction of concrete results, the completion workshop gave the participants insight about themselves, about communications and about working in groups, as well as new methods and tools to use in their own operational activities.
Download (PDF)Catch Management
Catch management is the result of a cooperation between MiL and Volvo Cars and an example of how ARL is a living practise that takes shape at meetings between MiL and the unique needs and possibilities of the organisation. The design developed as a tailored solution to a situation where a more customised leadership programme would not have been realizable due to time pressure.Catch management builds on capturing and utilizing learning opportunities when they occur.
”We integrated development and training directly in the work where the decisions are taken. The S80-project is used as a leadership development program, where we created learning opportunities in the middle of reality in the project based on the requirements and challenges that the project leaders had at the time.” Lars-Göran Järvung
In Catch management, the internal HR consultant takes an active role and works with supporting and challenging natural teams in their natural environment, mainly in questions regarding communication, relations and conflict management. These business affiliated interventions are complemented when needed with shorter ”off site” work in those cases when a specific question needs special focus.
The result shows a time effective development on individual, group, organisational and business level.
Wickelgren, M. Järvung, L-G. & Lindberg, A. (2002). Catch management - ARL in action. In L. Rohlin, K. Billing, A. Lindberg & M. Wickelgren (Red.), Earning while Learning in Global Leadership - The Volvo MiL Partnership. (pp.241-272). Lund: MiL Publishers.
Download (PDF)Leadership development through business projects
Within the frame of MiL’s tailored leadership development programmes we have designed and carried out several different real and strategic business projects. The starting point is that the most effective way to learn about leadership will come from working with an important issue for a real customer where the participants themselves are responsible for analysis, strategic decisions and implementation.MiL’s business projects use the strategic needs of the organisation as a basis for individual leader development and has over the years generated considerable educational revenues – earnings or savings, alternatively, which often exceed widely the costs of the actual development investment.
Starting from strategically important projects gives both business development and individual leader development in the form of increased strategic ability, widened perspectives and enhanced action repertoire. MiL’s business projects also ensure that the content in the specific leader development programme is of the highest relevance and actuality, and that newfound lessons and competencies are anchored and stay with key persons in the organisation.
Swedish version. Rohlin, L. (2003a) Project work in MiL programs. In L. Rohlin m.fl. Leadership and learning. (pp.223-242). Lund: MiL Publishers.
Download (PDF)Out of the box
Which thoughts are possible to think, which alternatives reveals themselves, when one for a time leaves the contact and the environment that usually frames one’s work tasks and workday?”Out of the box” is a learning experience beyond the usual, designed to inspire considering a given phenomenon from new perspectives. Whether in the form of a physical challenge, an organisational laboratory or a journey, the experience is always attached to what is relevant to the development of the participant. With the help of experiences that put the participants and their work tasks in a different context, the participants are given the possibility to develop the understanding and their approach, not only to the unknown, but also to the very familiar.
Over the years we have travelled around the world and learnt from other cultures, from history, from the fine arts and from what is actually possible to achieve in a foreign environment.
Cederholm, L. & Sewerin, T. (1996). Out of the box - MiL Partner Program in New York City. MiL Concept 2/1996
Download (PDF)Learning trips
Travelling out in the world to see how others create a revitalizing draft in the development work. However, you don’t have to travel to foreign counties to get new perspectives to your own business. Depending on the underlying purpose, the journey can either go to something familiar, which means a deepening of what you already know or to something unknown, which gives new perspectives.As part of seeing learning possibilities in all situations and making use of them when they appear in everyday life, MiL’s learning travels start in some cases as soon as you step on the plane or the train. MiL uses the trip to more than transport and different mini projects can sometimes begin already during the journey or in direct connection to it.
Example – Learning from history – Vietnam
As part of understanding change, the participants visited a MiL programme in Vietnam and the 250 kilometre long Cho Chi tunnels at the north Vietnamese base outside Saigon. The tunnels, which were built by Vietnamese families in an attempt to escape bombs during the war.
During ten years, thousands of people lived there underground. ”Why did they not give up, at least after a couple of years?” was one of the many questions that the participants discussed. Another central theme during the trip was the importance of the meaning to overcome obstacles and adversities.
Example – Learning from history – Florence
In order to create a greater understanding for innovation and what is the base for an innovative culture, the participants in a MiL programme visited the city of Florence in Italy.
How is it that art, culture and philosophy, through Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Machiavelli took such a quantum leap during such a short time period? How were the conditions created for this innovative break-through?
During a day in Florence the participants were given the possibility to create a theory of what was behind this era of innovation. In smaller groups interviews were made with professors, businessmen and regular Florentines to explore what history can teach us about the conditions for innovation today.
A day's work
A day’s work is an exercise where the participants during a day performed real assignments in reality. The assignments are tailored after the specific development needs of the participants. Characteristic for a day’s work is that the leader reaches important development area, through a relatively simple and cost effective design. She expands her comfort zone and becomes more aware of her untapped potential to develop actorship/entrepreneurship as well as her potential to design learning processes for others.
Shadowing
Shadowing builds on that you shadow another person in their work on one or several occasions. Doing it from a structure that secures the learning through preparation, perspective and reflection. In the choice of the person to shadow, it is only your own imagination and ambition that sets the limits for what is possible.Following another manager in his everyday life can generate new energy but also give distance to your own leadership. With a change of perspective there is the opportunity to deepen ones understanding for the complexity of leadership.
A successful shadowing builds however on prepared reflections, research and a clear agreement with the person you are to shadow regarding for example learning objectives and feedback.
Shadowing has many different areas of use in addition to leadership development programmes and individual coaching:
• The coach shadows the coachee
• The protégé shadows the mentor and vice versa.
• The manager shadows another manager within/outside the organisation
• The coach shadows the CEO in connection with leadership groups development.
• A new employee shadows an experienced colleague in the organisation.
In a conflict situation the different parties can shadow each other for enhanced understanding of each other’s context.
Download (PDF)MiL Rally
MiL-Rally is an exercise that is implemented mainly outdoors during approx. 4-5 hours, where reality (the terrain) meets the personally perceived reality of the participants (the map). This exercise is not physically challenging, but builds on the fact that everyone independently of the physical conditions can contribute to the group successfully solving their task.MiL-Rally is an exercise that creates awareness about how your own assumptions, interpretations and action tendencies affects the group dynamics and work results. It also gives an increased understanding of the weight of a joint vision and a functioning teamwork. The exercise is suitable for an introductory kick-off with strategy work for instance, before a development process or at a cooperation exercise for the team/management group.
I will never forget when I turn around and am about to say something to the others, thinking they are right behind me, and there is nobody there because I am so far ahead of them.
I also try to do this: being really clear and wait, even if it is hard for me. I have slowed down a little. I am not keeping a 100 metre pace anymore. Not a marathon pace either, but maybe as in a 1500 metre race.
Participant in Walking Rally
Mini-projects
Developing your leadership through taking responsibility for a real and urgent business project has from the start been a powerful and effective tool for the way MiL works with leadership development. During the years we have also developed a shorter, daylong version under the name of mini-project.The pressure to deliver a useful result by the end of the day, highlights the important leadership challenge of getting the job done without risking the group’s integrity through prioritizing and simplifying.
The group processes during the mini-projects often reflect different challenging situations in real life where communication, reflection and relationships often suffer in the chase for results. Under pressure it is easy to ignore respect, participation, and the possibilities that exist within the tasks and the group. The MiL coaches have therefore an important task that after a completed assignment, together with participants and with help of feedback and reflection, put into words the experience and promote a different approach in future situations. You can also benefit from this learning in projects that are not under tight deadlines.
Swedish version. Steen J (2010). Future Leader – an investment on leadership that concerns the whole organisation. MiL Concepts 8/2010.
Download (PDF)Experiment workshop
The Experiment workshop stimulates us to a mental breakthrough, as the exercise forces the participants to communicate in other way than with words. It is surprising how much that is expressed in a vision that is materialized as an (art) installation. The installation encourages association and interpretations that regularly says more than what the creator meant, but that still has great importance for him/her. The Experiment workshop is a forgiving environment where the participants are both supported and challenged to break new grounds.The Cake Factory – an organisational lab
In the Cake Factory the participants are challenged to start, run and develop a factory. This suits larger groups that want to move quickly in a short time in a specific issue. The Cake Factory is an experience based organisational game where the participants are challenged together to start, run and develop a cake factory, so that it becomes efficient, competent, quality aware, responsive and creative. All of this takes place in a demanding environment with realistic pressure from competitors, suppliers, clients and owners.The basic concept for the factory is a drama that is driven by the participants’ actions and the game leadership’s interventions. Restructuring happens as organisations merge, new products are developed and the market reacts. Lack of time... demand for results and change work... The action can be tweaked towards specific phenomena as business development, diversity and product development. Other phenomena as leadership, communication, team, limits and change processes are constantly present.
Action Learning in MiL is as much a way of thinking, feeling and being in the world as it is a “methodology” or program design. For me, MiL brings to mind terms like: challenging the status quo, deep questioning, play acting to get at real life dilemmas, going against the grain in order to always offer a fresh way of looking at the world, being aware of the fact that we are first and fundamentally human, and as such, we have a responsibility to bring out the best in ourselves, our families and friends, our colleagues, our companies, and even the world!
Victoria J. Marsick
Professor of Adult and Organizational Learning, Columbia University
Victoria J. Marsick
Professor of Adult and Organizational Learning, Columbia University
WORTH READING
Rimanoczy, I. & Turner, E. (2008). Action Reflection Learning - Solving real business problems by connecting learning with earning. Mountain View California: Davis - Black Publishing
READING LIST
List of texts on ARL from academic databases
"The mindset of MiL involves using all senses to interrupt mental
models that prevent managers from seeing the world, and their
problems, with fresh eyes and innovative solutions."
Victoria J. Marsick
Ph.D., Professor of Adult and Organizational Learning, Columbia University.
Victoria J. Marsick
Ph.D., Professor of Adult and Organizational Learning, Columbia University.