Action learning: a “highbrow smash and grab” activity?

Between 1993‐5, a small team of university researchers organised an action learning programme for management teams in a laboratory medical service within the National Health Service. The purpose of the programme was to introduce medical consultants to a different form of learning, namely participatory action learning facilitated by the researchers. A cyclic programme, of problem identification, planning, action and review, was agreed. In this article the author utilises the completed project to clarify the interrelated concepts of action learning and action research which are increasingly being utilised for management education in the National Health Service.