Enacting change through action learning: mobilizing and managing power and emotion

This paper reports on a study of how action learning facilitates the movement of knowledge between social contexts. The study involved a community organization that provides educational services related to aphasia and members of a complex continuing care (CCC) practice that received training from the agency. People with aphasia (PWA) (a disability often caused by stroke) retain inherent cognitive competence but have difficulty communicating (speaking, writing, and understanding). The agency has developed a communication technique that improves the ability of PWA to communicate. This project used action learning to introduce a reflective learning cycle into two groups: the agency project team responsible for providing the training and the CCC practice members who received the training. Research participants at both the agency and the CCC facility focused on issues of skill and capacity, and both groups credit the action learning process with introducing a helpful problem-solving cycle into the workplace. CCC participants found that the action learning set provided an emotional container for the anxieties experienced in their workplace. Agency participants found that they were able to use power differences as a way of bringing about beneficial changes.