Reflective Learning in Practice

The key purpose of this handbook is to unlock the learning process that can lead to and support improvements in organisational performance and facilitate change, a phenomenon that is often elusive or happens serendipitously, or not at all.

This book gathers together details of seventeen case studies of learning in practice, after having set the issue of reflective learning in a theoretical context. The cases are drawn from a wide range of situations and discuss both apparent successes and failures. The cases are used as a basis to develop general findings. These general findings are expressed as themes and questions so that, as readers come across new circumstances, they are not limited by prescriptive recipes. Instead they are empowered by having both an open and focused approach: open because the starting point is questions rather than answers, and focused because the questions direct attention to factors that have been found to be influential for effective, reflective learning. The crucial factor is the ability of managers and others to extract quality learning from experience. Reflective Learning in Practice develops an approach that will help this to happen.