Doing Better Things Together.
At the Centre For Action Learning, we believe that organisations and individuals work better and can achieve better things when working together. Our focus is to develop strong, appropriate and effective leadership, which we see as a deeply personal endeavour that requires system oversight – the ability to ‘see’ patterns, themes and connections between the parts of the whole organisation and its environment.
Our underpinning approach is that leadership, culture and strategy need to work in service of each other and also flex and change together. We believe the most effective way to do better things together is through the ideas and methods of action learning.
We have successfully used this approach with a large variety of organisations to provide a wide range of sustainable programmes of leadership, coaching, facilitation, research & evaluation.
Our History
Christine Abbott and Mike Pedler founded the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation in 2011 as two independent practitioners, in response to organisations requesting a credible way to prepare action learning facilitators to practice. From humble beginnings and aspirations, co-directing we have grown into an international consultancy and accredited training provider of action learning facilitator, leadership and coaching and mentoring training and organisational development consultancy. Mike co-directing the consultancy in 2017. By this time the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation had grown, because of demand for high quality credible training for facilitators and as the only consultancy offering qualifications as well as endorsed awards in action learning. This growth was without commercial advertising or competitive tendering, our research, published books and reputation provided us with the work we needed to sustain ourselves, and those projects we could not manage we passed on to trusted associates.
About our logo
We see effective leadership as originating from our ability to critically reflect on our own motivations and behaviours to improve our self-leadership in order to better relate to the people around us and to our outside world.
In this way our leadership development is a continuous learning and evolutionary loop between our internal and external engagement. In other words, this learning loop takes our increased self awareness to better relate to our outside world, and conversely our engagement with the outside world to better understand ourselves.
… and now
Some of those associates have now joined us as partners Mike Bloodworth, Tom Boydell and Carol Wells under the banner ‘Better Together’ – a form that reflects our individual expertise and the belief that organisations and individuals work better together – often creating new ways of organising.
Together we work with a wide range of private and public organisations with the aim of providing a wide range of sustainable programmes drawing together our collective expertise and experience of leadership, coaching, research, evaluation and facilitation using action learning methodologies. We aim to share insights from our programmes to support wider professional, community and organisational learning and innovation and therefore publish papers and books, and speak at conferences.
Action Learning is an exciting and powerful tool in working in areas of social justice and an area we are all passionate about, so we were humbled to be described at the prestigious Global Forum for Action Learning and Leadership in Stockholm as the founders of Socially Driven Action Learning.
We work with organisations as partners in an open and transparent relationship. We want to leave a sustainable legacy so co- designing a programme of activity that best suits your needs and budget is important to us.
From the founders
Christine Abbott and Mike Pedler first met in 1986 when Mike was an independent consultant hired by the NHS to introduce Action Learning to the Yorkshire region to HR senior Managers and Directors . They met again the following year when Christine was a participant in a Doctors and managers programme, the following year Christine became on the facilitator team and they have worked together ever since
Christine Abbott – Director
Mike Pedler – Retired Director and ongoing Associate
From the moment I was introduced to action learning I was intrigued if somewhat bewildered by it power to change organisations and individuals.
I made action learning and the links to organization learning a subject of my Masters dissertation and was privileged to meet Reg Revans and watch him at work.
As a participant in an action learning set I experienced insightful questions that supports taking bold steps into the future and I am continually reminded of its power when I work with organisations and individuals. Thirty years later I am still intrigued by the possibilities of action learning and what makes it such a powerful process when it works – and crucially what happens when it doesn’t.
I met Reg Revans – the founder of action learning when he came to give a talk on action learning on the polytechnic were I was working at the time. As a practitioner I am interested in how we can learn to organise better in the businesses and services on which we all depend. When I worked with projects on management and leadership learning, on network development and the learning organisation, I usually approached these from an action learning perspective.
Reflecting on and writing still are important aspects of my practice, I as an author and researcher.
Both Christine and Mike are available for speaking events and conferences. For more details email ask@centreforactionlearning.com