A Personal Philosophy of Anticipatory Action-Learning*

While thinking about traditional action-learning, I began to wonder what philosophy Reg Revans espoused back in the 40's in the coal mines of Wales and England. Perhaps "those who do the job are the best people to solve the problems" would have been his catch-cry. Interested in action-learning's recent progeny, anticipatory action-learning (AAL), I began to explore my own philosophy and values in relation to this work using the PATOP model (Whiteley 2001) as a guide to ensuring my philosophy, values, assumptions, theory, organising principles and practice were in alignment. This is important to me as my business values are "integrity, creativity and foresight". I need to check from time to time that I am walking my talk. PATOP stands for Philosophy (and values), Assumptions, Theory, Organising, and Practice. (Whiteley 2001) The discussion in this essay has been structured around the PATOP model.