The FCNow blog pointed me to a resource on the Fast Company site that is about action learning. According to a survey of Chief Learning Officers in corporations, the three learning methods they are stressing right now (in addition to bringing in an outside instructor to teach) are: executive coaching, using your own leaders to teach, and action learning.
I did an article on action learning for Executive Update a few years ago. Instead of learning about something by looking at a hypothetical or simulated case, you actually solve a real problem in your organization and then learn from it. This is the basis of much of my consulting, and it is why I argue that the best way to do “teambuilding” is to have the team actually solve some real problems.
But I admit that sometimes I get too focused on the action and not enough on the learning.