The Action Learning Process is a results-centered development experience designed to dramatically improve the leadership development, career pathing, and future promotional potential of existing, emerging, and newly identified leaders. The aim of this work is to quickly develop a pipeline of highly capable and prepared leaders who are both strong improvers of process and excellent, inspiring leaders of people.
In this highly experiential platform, participants learn in real-time while working on projects that result in revenue generation or cost savings for the enterprise. In rapid developmental cycles within the context of their identified work product, participants identify, practice, and apply the foundational elements of compelling leadership:
Move from primarily transactional (order-taking) to a full range of transactional, strategic, and transformational set of leader behaviors
Strengthen leadership presence through improved presentation skills, effective execution, working at the right level (knowing when to get in and out of the weeds), and the integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion into all elements of how the work gets done and how leaders hold themselves and their teams accountable.
Deepen the role clarity, engagement, and sense of organizational fit needed for people to truly adopt an agile mindset
Broaden the leadership bandwidth of technically-oriented people to raise the morale and positive experience of their teams
The Action Learning Process Accelerates Performance:
Traditional classroom “training” gives us a limited view on the dynamics of leadership. We hear strategies for how we should be, how we could model ourselves as leaders if we agreed to follow these tenets and those values. However, the classroom doesn’t require us to wrestle with the harder stuff of leadership: modeling engagement, leading inclusively, being a voice of continuous improvement in every moment—of becoming a leader over doing leaderly things. It lets us off the hook when the program is over—no stakes, no impact. We check the box and check out.
Any leader can ace “managing differences,” “working through conflict,” or “being a strategic thinker” in a scenario-based classroom environment, then check the box and move on. They might do better for a while—but the traditional classroom environment teaches people to do leader-like things. Action Learning teaches people to become leaders of human beings. The ability to work through these skills in real-time, with critical work, and shoulder to shoulder with other human beings doing the same hard work? That requires a level of acumen and depth that builds the breadth and strength of a leadership pipeline beyond measure.
The real-time developmental work of the Action Learning Process development sticks and sustains through the ups and downs of complex, dynamic environments. Results-centered development works with our neurophysiology to help us retain and adapt what we learn to changing scenarios. It helps us leverage the power of experience and rapid developmental cycles to improve without the risk of falling back into older, more comfortable mindsets and behaviors.
How It Works:
Twenty-eight to thirty-five participants are divided into four to five Action Learning Groups and assigned a real business problem for which a solution would generate revenue or save costs. Each Action Learning Group is made up of people who represent a wide range of differences including, for example, roles, functional area, geographical area, background experience, race, and gender. Participants learn critical leadership skills and then immediately put them into action in the small group work on their problem.
Each Action Learning Group spends 90 days working on their project. During this time, the group engages in real-time (in “action”) leadership development experiences that are generated in the natural progression of the team working together and by planned learning inputs led by a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator. The facilitator is available between meetings to the group, and to each member as an individual for coaching on, for example, decision making, group dynamics, and conflict.
Large group-level development is provided at planned intervals over the course of the 90 days. During these sessions, Action Learning Groups share challenges, learnings, and best practices with other groups and call on each other for help, thinking, and resources.
At the conclusion of the process, the groups deliver a formal presentation of their findings, learnings, and recommendations to a panel of executives who would be impacted by the outcomes of their work. They also construct and deliver an evaluation of their own process and outcomes to the organization’s leadership.
Now, more than ever, developing your organization’s next cohort of great leaders requires a strategy and process that integrates core values, leadership competencies, and business strategy.
Sample Action Learning Process Time Frame
The Action Learning Process is typically completed in 90 days, but can be done in 60, 100, or 120 days.
For the purposes of this outline, we are using a 90-day timeframe:
Prelaunch Discovery and Strategy Development
Planning, scoping, and preparation of process
Design, Implementation, and Management of Participant Application Process
Selection of Action Learning Process participants
Action Learning Project Identification, Scoping, Selection of Executive Sponsors, and Assignment to Action Learning Groups
Action Learning Process Days 1-30
Action Learning Launch Day and Initial Experiential Cycle/Education
Action Learning Group Insight Interviews and Project Discovery
Action Learning Group Working Session
Unlimited access to a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator for individual and group coaching
Action Learning Process Days 31-60
Mid-point check-in and Working Session
4-6 phone/video conference Action Learning Group check-ins with a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator
Unlimited access to a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator for individual and group coaching
Action Learning Process Days 61-90
Action Learning Group Working Session
4-6 phone/video conference Action Learning Group check-ins with a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator
Unlimited access to a Corey Jamison Consulting facilitator for individual and group coaching
Action-Learning Team Working Session and Results-Centered Presentation Day
Process Review, Evaluation, and Recommendations for Relaunch
Interested in how to implement the Action Learning Process in your organization? Contact us to learn more.
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