Facilitating Management Learning

TLDR

Critical reflection differs from individual reflection and is essential for collective action and organizational learning, yet most managers do not naturally engage in it and often require facilitation. The article aims to explore how critical reflection within management learning can be facilitated using reflective processes and tools. The authors discuss tools such as storytelling, reflective conversations, metaphors, critical incident analysis, journals, repertory grids, and concept mapping to help groups or clients develop a more critically reflective understanding.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how the practice of critical reflection within a management learning process can be facilitated through the application of reflective processes and tools. A distinction is drawn between reflection as a form of individual development (of, say, the reflective practitioner) and critical reflection as a route to collective action and a component of organizational learning and change. Critical reflection, however, is not a process that comes naturally to many managers and may have to be learned or facilitated, either in formal classroom contexts, or through learning processes such as coaching, mentoring and action learning. The article discusses some of the tools available to learning facilitators, in helping a group or client towards a more critically reflective understanding of their situation and organization. These include processes such as storytelling, and reflective and reflexive conversations, and the use of tools such as reflective metaphors, critical incident analysis, reflective journals, repertory grids and concept mapping. Such tools provide an aid to critical reflection, which is seen as one process that mediates between experience, knowledge and action.