Effective Change Management Using Action Learning and Action Research

Shankar Sankaran, Bob Dick, Ron Passfield, Pam Swepson (Eds); Southern Cross University Press; Lismore, Australia; 2001

Action Learning and Action Research are increasingly applied in organizations, academia and the community to help understand, implement and effectively manage change.

This book explains the relevant concepts, frameworks and processes involved in Action Research and Action Learning, and enhances the theoretical approach with actual case studies from the Asia-Pacific region.

The challenges and appropriate responses for business, education, social and cross-cultural contexts are outlined, enabling practical application in a variety of real-life situations.

Earning While Learning™ In Global Leadership - The Volvo - MiL Partnership

This book builds on the experiences of Volvo and MiL Institute from twelve years of close cooperation around leadership development based on the leadership and learning philosophy Action Reflection Learning (ARL).

This book invites you to take a glance behind the curtains, to get as close to the real processes of change and development, strategic choices and practical applications, as the discretion of all the concerned individuals allows.

Business Driven Action Learning: Global Best Practices

Business-driven action learning addresses the need for more creative and accountable approaches to learning and earning demanded by the pace of change in business life. This volume shows how it is accomplished through detailed descriptions of how businesses have designed, facilitated and implemented the method. (source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Action Learning: How the World's Top Companies Are Re-Creating Their Leaders and Themselves

This straightforward book begins with the solid premise that the only way that organizations will be able to evolve to meet the challenges of today's business environment is for the people who run them to change as well. Dotlich, a consultant, and Noel, vice-president of human resources at Citicorp, are both clear about how that change should happen through "action learning," their term for learning that takes place in a controlled environment where theory is combined with the knowledge that managers already have. They lay out 12 steps to follow for that learning to occur. At this point the book starts to falter. Instead of giving managers a broad prescription for change, Dotlich and Noel should have provided a how-to action plan to follow, which would have been more useful than the generalizations and anecdotes gleaned from their consulting work and personal experiences. Although they do a good job of setting up the rationale for change, the authors might have gone further in showing us how to effect it. (Source: Publisher's Weekly, Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
 

Action Learning in Action: Transforming Problems and People for World-Class Organizational Learning

Used by companies as diverse as Exxon, General Electric, Arthur Andersen, and British Airways, action learning is a proven problem-solving strategy for individual, team, and organization development. In a unique blend of global examples and the personal voices of front-line managers, Marquardt provides field-tested tools to solve problems, develop individuals, and create organizational learning and success.
(Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Work-Based Learning: The New Frontier of Management Development

This guide introduces the unique but very practical approach to "work-based learning" that recognizes worksites as acceptable locations for learning. It offers managers, faced with the relentless pace of pervasive change, an opportunity to overcome time pressures by reflecting upon and learning from the artistry of their own action. Downsizing, transient workforce, and competitive, fast-paced environments make quick response and adjustment to organizational change a necessity. This book aims to bring organizational learning out of the classroom and back into the most natural place for it to occur: at work. Integrating a vast array of action and reflection strategies, this comprehensive approach covers topics of reflective practices, collective learning, and the facilitation, management, and evaluation of work-based learning. This trade reference would be of interest to any executive educators, whatever function they may occupy in their organization, who are concerned about promoting and delivering training and development services within their organizations. Secondly, the book would be of general value to any manager who wants and need to learn while doing. It can also be used as a supplement in training programs or reading resources for any professional who wishes to consider making a transition into management and needs a practical way to learn the related skills and leadership.  (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)

Action Learning: A Practical Guide for Managers

Our daily experiences at work provide us with endless opportunities to learn - which is the principle underlying action learning. If you want to understand the benefits of being part of an AL programme, or would like to set one up but need to know more, then this popular guide is an ideal place to start. It is both a manifesto for a key approach to management development, and a very personal and practical guide for anyone looking for a reliable introduction. (Source: qualitycoach.net)

Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change

Text explains in detail how successful organizational change takes place when employees have a purpose, a mental picture, a plan for, and a part to play in that change. Updated and expanded edition provides step-by-step strategies for reaching this goal and minimizing the disruptions caused by workplace change. Previous edition: c1991. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)

 Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army

Drawing from their military experiences in downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering, retired general Sullivan (army chief of staff from 1991 to 1995), now a consultant, professor, and lecturer, and retired colonel Harper (director of the army's Strategic Planning Group from 1991 to 1995), now an executive and consultant, explain their practical approach to the process of planning, thinking, leading, and acting strategically. Their work makes use of the changes the U.S. Army has weathered since the end of the Cold War and transforms the insightful lessons into experiences useful for leaders and executives in all kinds of organizations as they prepare for the next century. In ten chapters, the authors address people-oriented topics such as change, leadership, vision, human behavior, thinking and doing, creating, team building, campaigning, organizational transformation, success, learning, training, and the future. Their well-written book is recommended not only for upper-level business executives and professionals but also for students and aspiring leaders.  (Source: Library Journal, Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio )
 

Learning As a Way of Being: Strategies for Survival in a World of Permanent White Water 

Offers a thoughtful critique of the roots of management education and argues that institutions of higher learning must teach managers how to integrate the discipline of learning into their very being. Such learning must be marked by strong self-direction, willingness to take risks, and integration of the learning that life teaches outside the classroom. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Becoming a Learning Organization: Beyond the Learning Curve 

On Dialogue

On Dialogue is the most comprehensive documentation to date of best-selling author David Bohm's dialogical world view. Bohm explores the purpose, methods and meanings of the multi-faceted process he referred to simply as "dialogue", suggesting that dialogue offers the possibility of an entirely new order of communication and relationship with ourselves, our fellows, and the world around us. Bohm's basic message is: if your views are correct, they do not need an aggressive defense; if they are incorrect they do not deserve it and realizing that is the beginning of dialogue. His book offers tools that facilitate a true exchange of ideas between people. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Open Space Technology: A User's Guide

Open Space Technology: A User's Guide is just what the name implies: a hands-on, detailed description of facilitating Open Space Technology (OST). Written by the originator of the method-an effective, economical, fast, and easily-repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of between 5 and 1,000 participants-this is the first book to document the rationale, procedures, and requirements of OST. OST enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time. This practical, step-by-step user's guide details what needs to be done before, during, and after an Open Space event.

Owen begins by detailing all the practical considerations necessary to create Open Space. He begins with the most important question-should you do Open Space at all-and examines what types of situations are appropriate for Open Space Technology and what types are not. He goes on to look at nuts-and-bolts issues such as supplies, logistics, and who should come and how you should go about getting them there.  (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Advances in Developing Human Resources: Action Learning: Successful Strategies for Individual, Team and Organizational Development

Action learning can be a powerful tool for inspiring creative problem-solving and producing lasting change in individuals, teams and organizations. But for action learning to succeed, HRD professionals must understand the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to action learning and how to facilitate each step of the process, from implementation to outcome. This volume compares the various schools of action learning, looks at different approaches to program design, and shows how to ensure effective learning outcomes at the individual, organizational and team levels. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Action Learning: How the World's Top Companies Are Re-Creating Their Leaders and Themselves

This book presents successful programs, techniques, and strategies for helping adult learners tap into their rich and diverse life experiences as a basis for growth and lifelong learning. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Action Coaching: How to Leverage Individual Performance for Company Success

Chances are, if you're a manager in most any organization today, coaching has become an integral part of your responsibilities. And there's no more effective approach to coaching than Action Coaching. Developed by the authors through their work with Levi-Strauss, Colgate, Bank of America, Arthur Andersen and other leading companies, Action Coaching is the only coaching process that dramatically increases an individual's personal performance in direct correlation with established organizational goals. Here, Dotlich and Cairo share the same advice, techniques, and tools they've used to transform hundreds of managers and executives into first-rate coaches. Moreover, they clearly demonstrate how Action Coaching can be used as a strategy for achieving organizational goals by aligning personal improvement with a company's vision for the future. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

First published in Brazil in 1988 as Turning the Tables , this book was the all-time best-selling nonfiction book in Brazil's history. Semler, the 34-year-old CEO, or "counselor," of Semco, a Brazilian manufacturing firm, describes how he turned his successful company into a "natural business" in which employees hire and evaluate their bosses, dress however they want, participate in major decisions, and share in 22 percent of the profits. Semler believes that Semco is different from most companies that have participatory management because employees are given the power to make decisions--even ones, with which the CEO wouldn't normally agree. Semler claims, "This is not a business book. It is a book about work, and how it can be changed for the better." (Source: Mark McCullough, Heterick Lib., Ohio Northern Univ., Ada. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
 

Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work

Most managers today understand the value of building a learning organization. Yet practically speaking, in the business world the push for learning can be overwhelmed by the need for action. At the same time, those who see knowledge as a key corporate asset often lack the perspective and tools to transform abstract theory into hands-on implementation. For the first time in Learning in Action, David Garvin helps managers make the leap from theoretical ideal to actual practice. Garvin argues that at the heart of organizational learning lies a set of processes that can be designed, orchestrated, and led. In addition to describing the basic steps in any learning cycle, he examines the critical challenges facing managers at each of these stages. Drawing on decades of scholarship from a wide range of fields, Garvin also delineates three modes of learning-intelligence gathering, experience, and experimentation-and shows how each mode can take different forms. These forms are brought to life in complete, richly detailed case studies of organizations including Xerox, L. L. Bean, the U. S. Army, and GE. The book concludes with a discussion of the leadership role that senior executives must play to turn the learning organization into a reality. (Source: Editorial  Review - Amazon.com)
 

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most

Bringing together the insights of such diverse disciplines as law, organizational behavior, cognitive, family and social psychology and "dialogue" studies, Stone, Patton and Heen, who teach at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Negotiation Project, illustrate how to handle the challenges involved in effectively resolving "difficult conversations," whether in an interpersonal, business or political context. While many of their points are simplistic - don't ignore your feelings, consider the other person's intentions, take a break from the situation -  they're often overlooked in stressful moments. Most useful are the strategies for disarming the impulse to lay blame and for exploring one's own contribution to a tense situation. Also of value are specific recommendations for bringing emotions directly into a difficult discussion by talking about them and paying attention to the way they can subtly inform judgments and accusations. If these recommendations aren't followed, the authors contend, emotions will seep into the discussion in other, usually damaging, ways. Stone, Patton and Heen illustrate their points with anecdotes, scripted conversations and familiar examples in a clear, easy-to-browse format. While "difficult conversations" may not have the intrinsic appeal of the Harvard Negotiation Project's previous bestseller, Getting to Yes, this book is a cogent resource for those who see the sense in preparing for tough talks in advance. Agent, Esther Newberg. Ad/promo; author tour. (Apr.) FYI: Patton is the co-author of Getting to Yes.
(Source: Publishers Weekly, Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. )