ABSTRACT
At General Electric, teams chosen from the top 3,500 executives, are engaging in a nontraditional executive education program referred to as “action learning.” At Harvard University, Michael Porter is using action learning to teach teams competitive strategy. The University of Michigan is enrolling companies in its international executive education action learning program. Action learning represents a new and revolutionary type of organizational learning that is erupting in U.S. companies today, as they seek to both teach and learn from their managers. Although this concept is new to the United States, globally speaking action learning is not new. It was introduced by Reg Revans and first referenced as early as October, 1945, in a report on the British coal mining industry. In the report Revans recommended the establishment of a staff college for the industry in which field managers would be encouraged to learn with and from each other using group review to find solutions to their immediate problems.
