Action Learning Groups – ALGs
Action Learning Groups (ALGs) for Not-For-Profit Chief Executives and Senior Leaders are facilitated, structured, and confidential peer-learning environments that provide opportunities for participants to broaden and deepen approaches, mind-sets, strategies and skills with specific current work-related challenges. They also help to mitigate some of the unique experiences of isolation and pressure that come with the position of senior leadership.
Aims of the ALG
- Provide a reflective, confidential space to share priority concerns.
- Broaden and deepen participants’ skills to engage with strategic, governance, and other sector-related challenges.
- Enhance participants’ confidence to trust their judgment and values, to grow their organisation’s vision.
ALGs cover “a range of topics from quality governance through to performance reviews and personnel management”;
are “great for reinforcing what I was doing well but also created a good ‘stop and think’ about areas for improvement”;
provide “a sense of belonging to a group of people who are prepared to be vulnerable and challenge each other”;
and facilitation “gets you to articulate what you are actually looking for so the advice you get is on point.”
“Challenge and support in equal measure.”
Benefits
A professional development opportunity for you to:
- Create a professional learning community for yourself
- Learn from diverse peers and perspectives
- Enhance confidence in your own judgement and values to achieve work objectives
- Broaden your repertoire of approaches, mindsets, tools, and strategies to address challenges and opportunities
- Access respected exprience-based perspectives, knowledge and wisdom both on what works, and on the sleep-disturbing challenges of leadership in a multilayered disruptive world
- Become a more reflective, thoughtful leader through a well-facilitated ‘space’ to consider shared challenges, issues and opportunities
- Develop shared initiatives
- Gain additional tools, models, and articles
“Honest and constructive feedback from peers.”
FAQ
Q: How can I make time for this? I simply don’t have any.
“I would like to spend more time on the topic of leadership and the characteristics of a good leader”.
The Action Learning Groups are made up of senior leaders just like you, who face multiple, competing, and complex priorities that are all time hungry. They recognise that by making time to confer with their peers they are more likely to think more broadly, clearly, and carefully, and make better decisions. They, therefore, believe that 12 hours (plus travel time) per year is an excellent investment of their (and their organisation’s) time.
Q. How can I be sure that what we talk about will be relevant to my world?
“The wide variety of ideas and challenges. I like people challenging me and the opportunity to have feedback from people who understand”.
Whilst the groups have a sufficiently diverse membership, participants are often pleasantly surprised by the level of mutual understanding. It is not infrequent that your peers – from their outsider’s perspective – better verbalise your context than you do!
Q. New Zealand/Aotearoa is a small place. How confidential are these meetings?
“The way the meetings have been run has created a mutual level of trust and confidence where everyone can contribute or benefit”.
Before being invited to the group, each new person is asked about any possible conflicts of interest with current group members. Similarly, current members are asked if there may be potential conflicts of interest with prospective members or concerns relating to trust and psychological safety. At the start of, and regularly throughout, the year, participants remind each other about confidentiality and communication.
Q. What about the diversity of the group?
“Diversity of members really helps … 6 or 7 minds looking at a problem gives us enough breadth to help us see alternatives”.
The range of demographic diversity varies between each group and changes over time. The more heterogeneity, the deeper and richer the discussion. The range of NGO sectors represented enhances the diversity of discussion.
Q. I’m new to the role. What if they’re more experienced than me?
“I am not alone!!” “A sense of belonging to a group of people who are prepared to be vulnerable and challenge each other in perception and thought”.
One of the most frequent comments made by participants is about feeling supported when they share their stresses, challenges, and successes with people like themselves.
Q. I’ve been in the game a long time. What can I learn that I don’t already know?
“The ALG … created a good ‘stop and think’ about areas for improvement … and as always that is ongoing!”
If you don’t think you have anything to learn as a leader, then the ALG is probably not for you. However, participants often report their appreciation about the ALG being a “sounding board … tempered with lots of sage advice and expertise” for them, which challenges them to “drive through actions I’d framed”.
BREAKGLASS COACHING 