Action Learning (many-to-one coaching)

Group Coaching Training

Action Learning is the opposite of a one size fits all learning programme as it is tailored to the individual’s needs. Adults learn best when they decide what they want to learn, and the learning is closely linked to issues or problems of immediate concern.  Learning in an action learning set is directly linked to change and action, and therefore business performance.

Action Learning uses many-to-one coaching. Action learning moves people, and cultures, towards using a coach approach.

How action learning sets can support a culture of coaching in organisations

Leaders need to keep ahead of the way the world is changing, and they are being called on to lead with energy that they’ve never had to tap into before.   Leaders are moving away from the traditional command and control style towards something different, but they don’t always know what that new behaviour looks like.  Within that context, every leader is unique – and so are their leadership development needs.  Try putting in place a one size fits all leadership development programme, and you fail to support these leaders to create momentum in tomorrow’s world.

Coaching and action learning both provide more individualised support and challenge, and enable leaders to adopt a coach approach themselves.   Action Learning is not just a good way to learn; it’s also a great way to build a coaching culture.

What is action learning?

Adults learn best when they decide what they want to learn, and the learning is closely linked to issues or problems of immediate concern. (Knowles 1968). Hence the use of an action learning approach to provide individualised leadership development.   With support from a facilitator, participants choose a goal, and then learn from each stage of the learning cycle: reflecting, planning for action, taking action, repeat.

Asking the right questions is important to learning and to future success on the job. Participants in an action learning set learn to coach and give feedback, which are skills they can utilise in their daily work.

How does action learning work?

Action learning has the advantage of rotating the leader into different roles within the set.  In a group of up to six people, each leader gets time to think about their own issue, with coaching from their peers; and they then provide that coaching to the other participants in the group when it is their thinking time.  The role of the facilitator is to help them to stick to coaching, rather than straying into giving advice, which seems so helpful, but is not as useful as using a coach approach to develop the independent, critical thinking of the thinker.

Developing coaching skills

Of course, they don’t come with coaching skills already, but generally, they have had enough training on active listening and open questions to start the process with no more than a 30-minute reminder. They know in their heads what active listening is, they know theoretically what open questions are, but it’s in the practice that they really learn and embrace these skills.  They also pick up the skills of establishing the coaching agreement, coaching presence, direct communication, and facilitating learning.

What enables them to develop these skills?  It’s partly the in-the-moment interventions that the facilitator makes early on, to ask someone, for example, to rephrase their question that was “advice disguised as a question” into one that is more open.  It’s partly the facilitator stopping the process with a time out, to ask the group what they are sensing, which enables them to become more attuned with what is not being said by the individual or the group members; or as they get more experienced, asking them to sense their somatic feelings to be able to offer those to the individual as a piece of data.

It’s also due to the process debrief that happens after every round of action learning.  This is what makes action learning truly unique.  The facilitator asks the thinker first what the group did that helped them to move forward, and what the group did that got in the way of their newest thinking.   Then the group members each identify one thing they did well, and one thing they would like to do differently the next time.  They might observe the power of silence for example, or the kind of questions that seem to work or not.  Last, but not least, the facilitator offers any extra feedback that they notice, all in service of improving the coaching process for the next round.

In each round, their coaching gets subsequently better, as the participants put into practice the feedback they just discussed.   Their feedback skills get better each time too, as they start to become more observant; and more succinct in the way that they offer the feedback.  And of course, the participants can start using these newfound coaching and feedback skills back at work.   Their mindset has shifted as they experience the power of coaching themselves; and their skillset has shifted as they practice coaching with feedback.

Implementing an action learning programme is not without its difficulties, but you can see how it builds coaching skills across an organisation.

In summary, I’d encourage you to use action learning to help individuals to:

  • address their own unique leadership development needs
  • become independent, critical thinkers
  • learn how to coach and self-coach

Along the way, they’ll also make great contacts and experience learning as they have never experienced it before.


If you would like to talk to us about action learning facilitation – either for us to facilitate it or us to teach you how to facilitate it, get in touch.


Here, we’ve shared three of our real examples of Action Learning, click the link to read our case studies.