Reflections on “Behind and Beyond Kolb’s Learning Cycle”

Abstract

“Behind and Beyond Kolb’s Learning Cycle” first saw the light of day as a conference paper. It was presented at the “New Directions in Management Education” conference at Leeds University, UK in January 1995. I still have a strong visual image in my mind of my presentation. The room was full of people. Laptops and PowerPoint were not widely used at this time, so in the previous week I had prepared a transparency of Figure 1 to use on the Overhead Projector in the classroom. (An Overhead Projector or “OHP” and associated transparencies were standard classroom equipment at that time.) When the presentation was over, I was surprised at how many people wanted to talk with me about the paper. The ideas that informed the paper emerged from my use of experiential learning with public sector middle managers in two UK County Councils between 1989 and 1993. Kolb’s Learning Cycle helped me to explain my approach to the participants in my module. Working through various interlinked experiential exercises showed me that managers’ opportunities for development mobilized strong emotions, particularly anxieties, that had the potential to both promote and prevent learning. Breaking free from the constraints of existing knowledge meant letting go of secure, tried, and tested ways of thinking and behaving. Anxiety (the expectation that things would go wrong and reflect badly on the person) was an integral part of managers’ attempts to do things differently. It was also what inhibited managers’ learning because it underpinned their reluctance to