ABSTRACT
It might seem somewhat curious to devote a chapter to separate the idea of action in a handbook on action learning. After all, one of Reg Revans' (1984: 51) most famous and oft-quoted principles, 'there can be no learning without action, and no action without learning', clearly points to the inseparability of learning and action. However, if we also include the preceding line to this quotation, we can see that Revans was making a separation of some kind. He states: 'By talking about things one may claim to "know" them, but only by actually doing them can one demonstrate, alike and to oneself and others, that one does, in truth, "know" them'. So, it would seem that action is doing something in contrast to talking, which presumably is understood as something less than action. In another quotation, Revans (1983) adds a clear qualification to what is done, he wrote, 'There can be no learning without action and no (sober and deliberate) action without learning' (1983: 54). Action therefore has to be intentional, based on careful consideration and this is the purpose of the set. However, as we will suggest in this chapter, while action-taking on a task in some place other than the set is surely the accepted purpose of action learning, the support and challenge process that provides the stimulus for the intent to take action, which occurs most usually within a set, is no less an action and just as much an accepted purpose of action learning. We might suggest that the blend between action and learning that is sought can also be understood as action to make action and action to take action, with learning as a process or outcome entirely possible in both actions. However, as we will also consider, learning can also be prevented in any action. Indeed, we can consider how deliberate action can also become blocked or subverted so that paradoxically the action of inaction, needs to be added to the blend, albeit more critically (Vince 2008).
