ABSTRACT
Action learning at GEC occupied many senior people from a large number of different organizations in a programme that was complex, used new learning philosophies, and must be described with a new set of technical terms. Three main organizations cooperated to make the programme a success — GEC, Action Learning Projects International and Dunchurch Industrial Staff College. Twenty-one participants were the nominal 'students' on this programme, organized in four sets geographically. When the sets came together we referred to the 'learning community' as the sum of the participants plus those organizing the programme. But of course there were many other learners, particularly in the client companies, where the projects were carried out. Without question the most powerful learning arenas were the client companies and the project sets. The fulltime work was done, with four days each week spent in the client company and the remaining day in the project set.
