Action learning webinar program
     
3,10,17,24 September 2024


Building leadership and resilience through action learning

A program for those seeking community or organisation change, especially in culture, leadership style, or team performance


An action learning team is a small project team that works, for a time, on worthwhile projects that improve organisation culture and performance.  It is very well suited to uncertain times such as the present.

It is also well suited to community and educational settings.

An action learning program allows organisations and communities to implement valuable projects.  At the same time they increase the skills of their people at facilitative and collaborative leadership, improving change management, decision making and planning.

Increasingly, these are the skills that a more volatile and less predictable future requires -- of its people generally, and of its leaders.

Action learning participants achieve real change and develop real skills by working in project teams on real projects in real time.  Each action learning project team becomes a seed bed in which a new culture and new skills and attitudes can be nourished.

In a well designed program:

  • skills and understanding transfer to normal work because the skills and understanding are learned in a natural work setting
     
  • participants learn teamwork, problem-solving, decision-making and facilitation by doing it
     
  • if enough project teams are set up, the action learning program can be used to support more team-based ways of working and more initiative throughout the organisation
     
  • the skills learned can be those that improve organisational resilience and distribute more leadership and initiative throughout the organisation
     
  • cultural change can be achieved; action learning team members develop the required skills and attitudes as they work together collaboratively on their projects
     
  • in addition, the organisation achieves the completion of important projects; the participants learn skills that aid their personal and professional development.

Though mostly used in organisations, action learning is also valuable in other settings.  It has yielded good outcomes in secondary and tertiary classrooms, and in community settings for community development, capacity building and the like.

Who is it for?

This workshop is designed for people who wish to improve their own leadership, practice and performance while they achieve good outcomes for their team and organisation.  People who will benefit include:

  • managers who would like to involve their team more directly in team and organisational improvement
     
  • managers who are looking for ways of improving their own leadership and team facilitation practices
     
  • facilitators who wish to add action learning methods and processes to their repertoire of facilitation applications
     
  • learning and development managers, and senior executives, who are attracted to the thought of adopting more effective learning and development practices that also bring about team and organisational improvement and enhance leadership development
     
  • community development practitioners interested in processes that can achieve high community engagement in practical programs for community change and capacity building
     
  • project managers and change managers would would like to enhance the collaborative and people aspects of their project and change management
     
  • educators striving to develop both skills and understanding for their learners, and are looking for more effective and more relevant group-based approaches in their classrooms.

When is it?

Four Tuesday evening webinar sessions:
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard (Brisbane) time
3,10,17,24 September 2024

Where?

From the convenience and comfort of your own workplace, office or home.



What?

Webinar content will be modified in consultation with participants.  It is likely to include skills, concepts, processes and techniques for

designing a program to develop leadership and resilience and to initiate the associated changes

creating an action learning infrastructure -- setting up the action learning program, determining roles, and recruiting participants, mentors, sponsors and facilitators

negotiating mutually-beneficial projects with participants

setting up the action learning groups

facilitating the action learning groups.

Both traditional action learning (where participants work on different individual projects) and current approaches (where project teams work together on projects) are likely to be addressed.  Participants will experience working in a (virtual) action learning group during the workshop, as they help each other identify how to make best use of their new learning back in their own community or organisation.

How?

Participants will help to determine the process and content of the webinar program.  Subject to this negotiation they can anticipate an involving process that provides a mix of theory, discussion and practice.  There will be small group work to help participants consolidate the skills, techniques and concepts.  Participants will have first-hand experience of being in an action learning project team.

There will be appropriate handouts that you will be free to copy and use in your own action learning implementations.

Facilitator?

The program facilitator is Bob Dick, an independent Brisbane-based educator,facilitator and consultant.  His reputation in these fields is based on five decades of experience in a variety of settings.  His experience includes the effective use of action learning in organisational, community and educational settings, and in thesis and dissertation supervision.

Those of you who are familiar with his work will know that his style is casual and participative, his processes are robust and learnable, and his documentation is clear, readable and practical.  His workshops are characterised by an integration of theory and practice.  He gives equal emphasis to the development of skills and understanding.  The processes and models he helps others learn are those which he makes use of in his own work, refined through his many decades of experience.

Fees?

The fee for the full program of four webinars is $550.00 ($500 + GST) payable in advance.  An early bird rate of $440 is available for fees received 21 days before the first webinar.  All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST.  For participants attending in a team, the fee is $440 per person ($330 early bird).

Cancellations will result in a 90 per cent refund if received at least 7 days before the first webinar, and a 50 per cent refund if received at least 48 hours before the first webinar.  Alternatively, participants who are unable to attend are welcome to substitute someone else (for individual webinars or for the program as a whole).

A limited number of half-price bursaries may be available for those genuinely unable to pay the full fee, or other arrangements may be possible.

We are keen to encourage attendance of more than one person from an organisation.  It enhances learning and application.  In addition to team discounts we may also offer free team coaching sessions for teams of two or more participants attending from the same organisation.  Ring Bob on 0418 759 496 to discuss possibilities.

To register

Print out and complete the subscription form, and mail or email it to Interchange.  You will find bank details for direct cash transfer (and contact details for Interchange) on the form.

Or telephone Camilla at (07) 3378 5365 and charge your attendance to your Visa or MasterCard.


Negotiate your own in-house workshop or webinar program

If you wish to have a workshop or webinar program specifically designed to meet your particular needs, and run for you in your organisation or community, Interchange would be pleased to do that.  If you would like help in setting up your own action learning program for cultural change, resilience and leadership development, we can do that too.

Important advantages of in-house and in-community workshops include their relevance (we fine-tune them to your needs), and their greater ease of application to real local issues.


Interchange   37 Burbong Street  Chapel Hill  Queensland  4069    Australia
Telephone +617 3378 5365  
email camilla@bigpond.net.au or bd@bigpond.net.au


Maintained by Bob Dick.  This page last revised 2023 10 27.

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