In the late '70s, the MiL Institute, was founded in Sweden as a kind of 'protest movement' against the dominant traditional perspectives, both of management (mainly functional) and teaching (mainly lectures and cases). The idea was to focus on leadership rather than management, and learning, rather than teaching. Based on the pioneering work of Reg Revans on action learning in England, the simple premise adopted was that the learning would emerge from taking action on actual business problems and then from reflecting on the action taken. MiL proposed that managers develop new concepts and use new behaviors and techniques by working on a current business problem linked to the organization's business strategy. Programs were established, together with the Ashridge Management College, the London Business School, INSEAD, IMI and IMEDE (now IMD).

In 1986 LIM LLC. was founded in the USA, and further developed the concepts and refined the technology. In 1996, LIM expanded to South America, with offices in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Over the past 20 years, over 600 programs have been run internationally with the ARL methodology.

What Is ARL?

Working on reality In the classic teaching situations, an 'expert' transmits his/her knowledge, while the attendees memorize the contents and try to apply it some day, under similar circumstances.

We all have attended this kind of teaching; we know there is little we remember, and that even this decreases as time goes by. At the end of a seminar or course, it is very common to hear participants saying: 'Well, and now back to real life...' This emphasizes the gap that exists between the training and the real daily work.

This is the reason why ARL programs are built around real business problems. Project teams are selected to solve these actual strategic problems, because their solution is considered essential to the future viability of the organization. Members of the team confront the challenge, learn to think critically, take action to address it, and then reflect on their experience.

People learn from doing, and by drawing lessons through reflecting on their actions. To act without stopping to reflect on what has been done, means to miss the opportunity for learning. A mistake can be corrected through an action. But if there is no reflection on why that mistake happened, and what the effects were, the potential learning is missed. And the probability of repeating the same mistake will increase.

Something similar happens with success. We rarely stop to think why something went wrong; even less frequently do we reflect on why something went right.

Thus, we are missing an invaluable chance to learn from the experience. If we don't acknowledge why something was a success, we will hardly be able to do it again the same way. This means, that the success will have been merely 'by chance'. Considering the above, reflection is a key factor in Action Reflection Learning Programs.

Learning 'Just- in-Time'  

While the team works on a project, several situations emerge that can be better understood or solved with conceptual or methodological tools. These are the opportunities for the team to do its 'Just-in-Time' learning, and the Learning Coach is the person providing these tools.

The Learning Coach  

The Learning Coach is an 'observer' especially trained to help the team in its development. He/she acts as an external 'support', who encourages the team to reflect on its own performance: how they communicate, organize themselves, make decisions, distribute roles, manage time, etc.

The Learning Coach contracts his/her role with the team from the very beginning. An essential part of this contract is that the LC will, on occasions, stop the project work and introduce questions about how they are working as a team.

A Learning Coach is not a 'moderator' or a 'facilitator': he/she does not give answers nor interpret what is happening: his function is rather to find the best questions to be asked at the right moment, and help the team discover its own answers and meaning.

Another role of the Learning Coach is to provide tools and concepts which may help the team to be more efficient in its task, and which may provide a methodology to better achieve the objectives.

A Learning Coach supports the team in achieving autonomy, in taking ownership of the process, accountability for the outcomes, and completion of the common task. This means that the Learning Coach focuses on selecting the appropriate time to intervene in order to increase the team's development. His or her aim is to get the team to make its own decisions.

One of the key characteristics of a Learning Coach is his/her flexibility to respond in an effective way to the needs of the team's process. The Learning Coach is also responsible for providing feedback to the team, in a positive and motivating way. Feedback is also provided individually, in personal conversations the participants have with the Learning Coach, to receive support on their personal development processes.

Sequenced Learning

A key characteristic of the ARL programs is the sequenced learning.

In leadership and executive development programs the key focus is on behaviors, which need to be changed. However, the transformation of behaviors requires time, and nothing immediate should be expected. The participants have to go through their own internal processes: discovering their mental models, analyzing whether they are adequate for the situations they face or not, considering new responses, 'unlearning' behaviors, assimilating and adapting new models. This is not something that can happen in one day.

Therefore, the LIM leadership development programs are carefully designed, and the meetings of the team are planned to occur over a period of time. Each meeting has a different content, a different focus, and is aimed at supporting the team in the different stages of project work. Importantly, the sequenced meetings allow the individuals to try out new behavior 'back on the job'.

In these intermediate times of 'back on the job' each team member applies, tries out and implements the concepts, tools or new learning acquired during the last meeting session. Therefore, when meeting again with the learning team, everyone exchanges experiences about how easy or difficult it was to implement the learnings. The team with the help of the Learning Coach analyzes the obstacles and seeks alternate ways to overcome them.

Conclusions

The ARL methodology is a new dimension in executive development. In the theoretical frame of the 'learning organizations', ARL focuses on implementation of the learnings, connecting the development program with the resolution of current strategic problems, important for the business and the organization. The outcomes are observed on four levels:

• Business level The strategic projects chosen as arenas for the ARL programs have a high financial impact, and their solution means either important savings or an increase in profits and/or productivity.

• Organizational level ARL programs aim at the progressive implementation of 'learning organizations', as they develop internal 'cells' of program graduates which spread principles and concepts, new behaviors and challenge mental models throughout the organization.

• Team level The work on the project enables participants to learn to work in a team, promoting the exchange of experiences and mutual enrichment. It offers new models of a synergetic work among different departments and cultures, shows how to capitalize upon the differences and develops a real 'teamwork culture'.

• Individual level Each participant has the chance to develop both on a personal and a professional level. The activities are especially designed to consider the task, the team's process and the individual expectations. The Learning Coach provides focused support, feedback and individual coaching to the participants.

To act... reflect... and learn. By reflecting on our actions we learn how to learn.

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