ABSTRACT
This chapter examines action learning and group analytic thinking as it relates to working with groups and teams in organisational settings. Action learning was most useful when participants and facilitators kept to the principle of asking the presenter questions to open up their thinking in order to help them to consider different perspectives and alternative understandings of their day-to-day experience. One of the attractions of the Reflective Practice in Organisations programme was the emphasis on organisations. Instead they were encouraged to deliberate together without the pressure of an immediate requirement for action and to engage more intensively in conversations about the way they were working. In comparing and contrasting the complexity approach taken on the Doctorate in Management programme with the group analytic method, Chris Mowles argues that one of the key differences is that 'faculty members are just as likely to make personal disclosures as are research students.
