Learning Alliances

Citation

Mumford, A. (1999), "Learning Alliances", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 31 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.1999.03731gad.003

Learning Alliances

Learning Alliances

David ClutterbuckIPD1998160 pp.ISBN 085292 7495 (Paperback)£18.95

Keywords Learning, Employee development

As would be expected by anyone familiar with the written work of David Clutterbuck, this book would be a useful addition to the library of most people with a specialist responsibility for development. He describes in his first and major chapter the different roles people play in helping with the development of others. He gives some useful emphasis to the view that the concept of "managers as coaches" has been far too limited. "Sheer practicality demands that they become facilitators of learning - creating an environment where helping to learn is a task shared amongst many heads, both within and outside the team." The environment, in his view, should provide "reflective space" in which the team reviews learning, providing a counterbalance to the instinct to focus entirely on getting things done. In this environment, constructive dissent would be encouraged, but it would also have a window on the world outside.

Clutterbuck goes on to describe four roles:

1. 1.

   coach;

2. 2.

   guardian;

3. 3.

   counsellor;

4. 4.

   networker or facilitator.

He provides details of each of these roles and within each describes styles. For example, he sees four styles for the Guardian - adviser, sponsor, meister and role model. In fact, he finds four different styles for each of the four roles.

Perhaps not surprisingly in terms of his own major work in the field of mentoring, this is described as an integrating role. (Slightly confusingly, this was not mentioned in his original list of four roles in the first chapter.) He regards this as requiring a higher level of skill than, for example, coaching or counselling, without actually providing detailed justification for this. Nor in fact does he talk about integration, so this is rather a disappointing chapter.

The confusion about whether there are four roles or five continues in his last chapter "Learning alliances within the development framework".

I occasionally test people attending my workshops to identify for me a breakdown of managerial roles or styles expressed other than in four or five. The author is absolutely in the domain of four - all of his original four roles can be broken down apparently into four styles but not five. Perhaps this is where the confusion over whether there are actually four roles in the learning alliance or five occurs. This is one example of several areas in which I think he could have been well served by an effective editor. There are good and useful statements under each role which, however, applied not solely to that role but really to any helping role; for example, the process of acquiring or giving feedback. Similarly, there is a useful list of potential blockages for an individual under the Counsellor role, but surely this list is appropriate to all four roles?

There are some excellent insights, but the book is rather light on processes for implementing those insights. For example, Clutterbuck is good at describing the need for group or team learning but there are no indications of how this might be brought about. The emphasis on learning at work is entirely right for such a book, but there is no substantial list of the kind of opportunities that exist. Nor is the learning process something which he has found it necessary to emphasize - one-third of a page on a version of the Kolb Learning Cycle is surely insufficient.

Alan Mumford