On April 18th, the 7th WIAL-East China Action Learning Experience Seminar in 2013 was successfully held at the Royalton Hotel in Shanghai. Many well-known companies in the pharmaceutical, chemical and other industries were invited to participate in the seminar. At the beginning, Jason Zheng, AMA’s Action Learning Director and Certified Action Learning Coach, made an introduction on Action Learning. Then Vicky Wang, the Action Learning Project Coach, acted as the ALC of the Demo.

The Problem Presenter (PP) of this Seminar was a direct sales manager from a well-known company, who proposed the topic: After three–year sales training, both junior and senior sales staffs do not think it very helpful. Then how shall we enhance sales staffs’ performance through the training? Focused on this topic, the team had a 1-hour Action Learning workshop.

During the workshop, we learned that in the past the direct sales manager (as PP) ordered courses on sales from coaches without establishing a direct connection between the training and performance improvement. Then, the team members with some training experience of different industries started to provide suggestions. Interestingly however, when the AL coach intervened and required the team members to reach a consensus on the "real problem", the team did not have a unanimous answer. "Searching for a solution" before "identifying the problem" would lead the entire team to the wrong direction. Although experience share among team members is very valuable, if the problem has not been clearly defined yet, the available "solution" might not be appropriate for the scenario. Thanks for the coach’s timely intervention, the team members were aware of the problem and began to re-clarify the problem.

In the subsequent Q&A section, the two coaches answered the questions of all participants in detail. Many participants wanted to know: what is the biggest challenge of the AL coach in the Action Learning process? In fact, for the coach, the biggest challenge is to determine the time and the degree to intervene in the project. The AL coach needs to pay full attention to team members’ learning and development opportunities, so the coach shall focus on practice and reflection.