Shifts in focus

​Wright, N. (2025), 'Shifts in Focus in Action Learning', Action Learning Associates, 18 November.

‘Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.’ (John C. Maxwell)

In his short book, Coach the Person Not the Problem, Chad Hall offers useful insights that can be applied in Action Learning conversations too. In new sets, I’ve often noticed that participants focus, along with the presenter, on the issue or problem the presenter hopes to address and resolve. In doing so, they enter into something like an alliance, seeking to solve the challenge together. They do risk, however, falling into diagnostic problem-solving mode or getting lost with the presenter in the presenter’s own perspective on and experience of the issue at hand.

Hall contrasts this consulting-type approach with that of a more experienced coach who holds their attention on the client, while the client focuses on their issue. In Action Learning, this could involve peers aiming to enable a presenter to explore, make sense of and resolve a challenge for themselves, with the peers acting as facilitators of this process. The peers may pose questions that enable the presenter to explore their issue more deeply or broadly, perhaps by focusing on goals, realities, what their options are and what they will choose to do.

Hall contrasts this reflective-type approach with that of a psychologically-oriented coach who may invite the client to focus on themselves, with the issue they are raising acting like a mirror. In Action Learning, this same type of reflexive approach can move a presenter beyond immediate problem-solving to personal transformation. The peers may invite the presenter to notice, for instance, what they are focusing on (and not), to reflect on how they are framing an issue or situation, or to explore what that reveals in terms of personal beliefs and values.

I would add 2 further dimensions to Hall’s: the 1st of which could entail at times focusing on the dynamic between the peers and presenter and exploring, tentatively, if that could represent a ‘parallel process’; that is, a relational re-enactment of what is taking place between the presenter and key persons with whom they are dealing in their situation. The 2nd could be to focus critically on what, potentially, the presenter’s perspectives, feelings and responses could reveal about wider cultural, contextual or systemic influences that may be impacting on them.