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In an interview, an adult learner with the Canadian School of Management discusses her research proposal aimed at strengthening the capability of the facility where she works to deal with clients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other forms of dementia. The learner describes her motivation for this kind of work. She describes how she will apply some of the action learning principles recently learned to bring a mix of people together to discuss and work through issues relating to the care of clients residing in the Alzheimer unit. Canadian statistics suggest that at this time, one in three adults over the age of 85 and 1 in 13 over the age of 65 is affected with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. These numbers are expected to grow significantly as the population ages. The learner explains how, through her initiative, the facility will be more equipped to both meet the needs of current clients and those in the future.

This article examines a leadership development program based on action learning principles, in a quasi government health insurance organization, undergoing transformation to a more private and entrepreneurial format and attempting to shake some of the more bureaucratic shackles of the past. The purpose of the program was to develop leadership and build business literacy by bringing managers and supervisors together from across the organization to work on real business projects through an in house action learning program. Using reflective essays written by participants and material provided from interviews some two years after the program ended, the paper examines some of the key leadership themes that emerged. These include an important distinction between leadership of organizations and leadership in organizations and the relationship between the two; the need for managers to understand emergent strategy; the value of a marketing approach for building support around strategic issues, the importance of critical thinking through the interplay of theory and practice; and a different paradigm for understanding learning.

Provides a learner perspective on the processes and values attributed to learning at work. Relating to the challenges of senior managerial work and the possibilities for effecting improvements via the process of researching, exploring and writing a practitioner doctorate. The opportunities for “strategizing at work” are related to the author’s experiences of global doctoral set study.

Sue Vollbrecht worked as a laboratory technician for many years before being promoted to her present position as laboratory manager. She was promoted because of her interest in change management and her desire to have an impact on the future of her organization. This interview has as its foundation a school paper that she wrote as a means of assessing her managerial learning. The interview provides insight into the vast amount of change in the medical laboratory world, and some of the learning experiences that have been instrumental in helping her to develop the skills necessary to manage and successfully work with change. Using key events as pivotal points for reflection, she deduces the basic theories that she considers necessary for successful change management, and then considers them in the light of some of the management literature in the field. Major themes discussed are career development for people interested in working with organizational change, learning at work using an action learning approach, trust building through communication, and working with stakeholders effectively to bring about change.

Coaching networks have been implemented in some Canadian companies as a way of building personal innovation and creativity. The authors describe how such a network can be developed using just‐in‐time adult education principles, within an interpretive paradigm. Dialogue and conversation through coaching are used as a potential vehicle to bring about both individual and organizational transformation. Program participants value the network in terms of the opportunity both to learn new and useful skills for the workplace, and the opportunity to build self‐confidence through relationships with others in the organization. Key issues for the authors include the need to build in‐house expertise, ownership of the program, and the amount of structure necessary to maintain program integrity yet still permit maximum creativity on the part of participants.