What's the problem

24/1/2026

‘Defining the problem is half of the solution.’ (Dilafkor Mirdjalilov)

I flew back from Tbilisi yesterday after co-leading an Action Learning Associates workshop this week for the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention regional team. It was great to work with experts from Georgia, Uzbekistan and the United States. All demonstrated a keen desire to learn Action Learning facilitation to address the complex array of strategic and cultural opportunities and challenges they face.

We started by introducing a classic approach to Action Learning facilitation on day 1, then a peer-consultancy variation on day 2, then a team or project-based approach on day 3. This provided a grounding in core Action Learning principles and techniques and a variety of ways to apply them. We integrated structured practice opportunities to enhance the team’s confidence and competence.

One challenge in the midst of pressing contextual demands was to create sufficient space in small groups to clarify and reach agreement on which pivotal core issues to address before diving in to address them. A next phase, particularly in the project-based approach, was to identify key questions: ‘What are the questions that, if we were to answer them, would enable us to reach effective solutions?’

It demonstrated that, in such situations, slowing down to engage in critical reflection is, paradoxically, a useful way to speed up important decision-making. It can enable wisdom and growth and avoid the need to undo leadership decisions made in undue haste. I was impressed by the team’s willingness to try, test and apply Action Learning facilitation. I was also grateful for their warmth and enthusiasm throughout.

19 Comments

Maya Reynolds

27/1/2026 02:31:52 pm

Slowing down to think is still the hardest leadership skill to learn.

Giorgi Lomidze

27/1/2026 02:33:07 pm

Hi Nick. I hope you liked our country! The pressure to act fast in public health can drown out sense-making. Action Learning offers a culturally respectful way to surface unspoken assumptions before decisions are locked in. I’m glad to see CDC teams engaging with this seriously in our region.

Rashid Akhmedov

27/1/2026 02:36:34 pm

As someone who has worked with multi-country health initiatives in Uzbekistan, this reflection captures a persistent challenge: whose problem are we actually solving? Action Learning, when facilitated carefully, can surface this without confrontation. When done poorly, it can reinforce existing hierarchies under the guise of process. I appreciated your attention to creating space for small-group sense-making. In our region, deference to authority often accelerates premature agreement. The pressure to move quickly (especially in CDC-affiliated projects) can silence necessary dissent. The emphasis on identifying pivotal issues before solutions feels not just methodological but culturally adaptive.

What’s encouraging is the willingness you describe among participants to test and apply facilitation techniques. That signals psychological safety which is not guaranteed in cross-cultural professional settings. For me, this reinforces that Action Learning is less about the method and more about the conditions it creates for thinking together honestly.

Thank you for sharing.

Nino Beridze

27/1/2026 02:37:08 pm

In Georgia, slowing down is radical.

Alexei Morozov

27/1/2026 02:37:55 pm

Fast action without clear framing is just movement, not progress.

Mark Feldman

27/1/2026 02:39:34 pm

Reading this, Nick, I was struck by how often Action Learning is misunderstood as a soft skill rather than a strategic discipline. The CDC context makes this especially relevant. When resources are constrained and accountability is high, leaders often default to expert-driven solutions. What gets lost is collective intelligence. Your emphasis on defining the core issue resonates strongly with my experience facilitating in the US public sector. Teams are often very good at problem-solving but only after the problem has already been misframed. Action Learning intervenes earlier, asking participants to sit with ambiguity longer than feels comfortable. The progression through different Action Learning formats is noteworthy. It recognises that learning facilitation is developmental. You don’t become comfortable holding silence or inquiry overnight. The fact that participants from such diverse national contexts engaged with this suggests strong facilitation and genuine appetite for change.
Your post reinforces a simple but difficult truth that good decisions are rarely rushed, even when time is short.

Dilshod Tursunov

27/1/2026 02:40:12 pm

Good facilitation is invisible until it’s missing.

Karen Alvarez

27/1/2026 02:41:49 pm

Hi Nick. What I value here is the humility embedded in the approach. Action Learning is not positioned as a magic solution but as a discipline that requires patience, trust and practice. In CDC environments where expertise is highly valued, creating space for not-knowing can feel uncomfortable and even threatening.

The focus on identifying “questions that matter” is particularly relevant in today’s public health landscape. We are saturated with data, dashboards and metrics yet often unclear about what we’re truly trying to change. Action Learning cuts through this by privileging inquiry over activity. I also appreciate the acknowledgement of warmth and enthusiasm. Too many professional reflections overlook the emotional dimension of learning. In cross-cultural settings, relational trust is not a by-product, it’s foundational. Without it, no amount of facilitation technique will surface the real issues.

Helena Morris PhD

27/1/2026 02:43:52 pm

Nick, what’s encouraging here is the insistence on problem definition. What’s missing, however, is a deeper acknowledgement of power. When US-based experts sit in a room with colleagues from Georgia or Uzbekistan, whose definition of the “core issue” ultimately prevails? Action Learning does not automatically level the field. It can just as easily legitimise dominant voices under the banner of participation. The real test of this work, Nick, is not enthusiasm in the room but what decisions get slowed down afterward and who feels authorised to challenge them. Reflection without redistribution of voice risks becoming a comfort exercise. Still, this piece suggests facilitation that at least gestures toward restraint, which in today’s results-obsessed public health machinery is quietly radical.

Bekzod Saidov

27/1/2026 02:45:30 pm

I respect your intention here but I want to name a tension. In Uzbekistan, Action Learning is often introduced by international partners as a “neutral” method. It is not. It carries assumptions about voice, inquiry and safety that are deeply cultural. Slowing down to reflect is only helpful if people believe disagreement will not be punished later. That said, the focus on identifying the right questions rather than fast answers is precisely what our systems lack. Too many initiatives fail because they are designed around donor timelines not local realities. When facilitation creates space to redefine the problem, it can expose uncomfortable misalignments between what CDC teams want to achieve and what is actually feasible on the ground.

Bold facilitation means allowing those misalignments to surface, even when it delays action. If this workshop genuinely did that, then it mattered. If it didn’t, then it risks becoming another well-run intervention that changes very little.

Patrick O'Neill

27/1/2026 02:45:57 pm

Most leadership failures start with a badly framed problem and a leader too impatient to notice.

Amina Yusuf

27/1/2026 02:46:46 pm

Reflection isn’t slow. Poor framing is.

Timur Rakhimov

27/1/2026 02:54:20 pm

Yes Amina. Fast decisions feel brave. Slow thinking actually is.

Michael Grant

27/1/2026 02:49:02 pm

Hey Nick. There’s a quiet indictment running through your post, that most organisations move too fast because they don’t trust thinking.

In the CDC ecosystem, speed is valorised, metrics are king and reflection is tolerated only if it produces immediate outputs. Action Learning sits awkwardly in that environment, which is precisely why it’s needed. Your emphasis on defining the problem before solving it sounds obvious, yet it’s routinely ignored. Why? Because problem definition exposes disagreement, uncertainty and power dynamics that leaders would rather keep hidden. It’s far easier to act than to negotiate meaning.

I’m encouraged by the progression through multiple Action Learning formats, but I remain sceptical. Workshops often create insight without authority. Participants return to systems that reward decisiveness, not discernment. Without senior sponsorship that explicitly protects reflective practice, Action Learning risks being remembered as 'a great workshop' rather than a way of working.

Still, any intervention that slows down premature certainty in public health is worth defending. The cost of haste is rarely paid by decision-makers. It’s paid by communities.

Rustam Akbarov

27/1/2026 02:49:46 pm

Thank you for your work Nick. Action without clarity is just organised anxiety!

Samuel Brookes

27/1/2026 02:51:27 pm

Hi Nick. In my experience, slowing down threatens hierarchies that rely on decisiveness to maintain authority.

Action Learning is often sold as a facilitation technique, but its real function is disruptive. It exposes whose questions count, whose uncertainty is tolerated and whose voice gets overridden for the sake of "progress.”

Levan Chikvaidze

27/1/2026 02:52:35 pm

From a Georgian standpoint, the promise of Action Learning is also its danger. We are invited to reflect, to question and to co-create but we are rarely invited to decide. Slowing down feels safe only when authority is genuinely shared.

David Rosen

27/1/2026 02:53:27 pm

Interesting blog, Nick. The real measure is whether someone later said, “We need to pause” and wasn’t sidelined for it.

Dr. Smita Singh

30/1/2026 04:45:12 pm

Two rock solid trainers and facilitators 👏👏👏👏

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