BMA eBook - Manual / Resource - Page 57
Intervention and Leadership
we help people to learn how and when to intervene and how to respond to the
inevitable consequences of their intervention?
2.2 A Framework for Intervention
A hallmark of effective experiential learning is that people have sufficient guidance
to be able to participate fully, to see themselves in action, reflect, consider and try
again.
So we provide a framework and some guidelines to support their
experimentation.
However, we equally want them to experience sufficient
ambiguity and uncertainty in the learning environment so that they have to deal
with circumstances that are analogous with their workplace.
The framework summarised diagrammatically in Figure 1 focuses on four main
elements: observation, interpretation, questions and action or intervention2. Each of
these four components will be discussed, with an emphasis on observation and
interpretation because, we suggest, these reflective and strategic skills are the
hardest to develop and they also form the basis for making more informed and
purposeful interventions. They are the preparatory work for intervention and forms
of intervention themselves.
In addition, as Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky (2009) describe, it is useful to orient
practitioners to think about observation using a different mindset than usual, one
that distinguishes adaptive from technical issues; is systemic rather than individual
education”, Adaptive Leadership working Paper ‘ Art and Practice of Leadership Development, Kennedy
School of Government, May 2010 and Sharon Daloz Parks (2005) Leadership can be Taught.
Copyright Vantage Point Consulting Pty Ltd 2010
Not to be reproduced without the author’s permission
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