Action Design Theory Essays

An essay on the theoretical foundation for what we do


An essay on Robert Kegan's developmental perspective and what it implies for learning our approach


Applying the ideas of Chris Argyris: An HR.com interview with Robert Putnam, (download Word document)

Articles by Action Design Partners

McArthur, Philip, Robert Putnam, and Diana McLain Smith. "Climbing out of the muck" and "The Muck Stops Here." In Peter Senge, et al., The Dance of Change. New York: Doubleday, 1999. A story of the Action Design partners in the early days.

Putnam, Robert. "Unlocking Organizational Routines that Prevent Learning."  The Systems Thinker, August 1993, pp. 1-4.

Putnam, Robert. "Recipes and Reflective Learning:  What Would Prevent You From Saying It That Way?"  In Donald Schön, ed., The Reflective Turn.  New York:  Teachers College Press, 1991.

Smith, Diana McLain. "Keeping a Strategic Dialogue Moving."

Action Design co-founder Diana McLain Smith and Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School have published an article, "Too Hot To Handle? How To Manage Relationship Conflict" in the Fall 2006 issue of California Management Review. Edmondson and Smith reassess the traditional advice that management teams should discuss their differences on substantive issues but avoid relationship conflict. They point out that task and relationship conflict often cannot be kept separate because disagreements on substantive matters trigger attributions about motives. Using case examples, they describe practices for building team resilience by engaging relationship conflict directly.

Video

"Reflective Conversation: Art and Possibility," a talk by Robert Putnam in 1996, has been reissued on DVD as a Classic Presentation from the Pegasus Conference. Description: "Major learning opportunities often come in the guise of intergroup conflicts and clashing priorities. In order to create intentional learning from these situations, we must be able to talk productively about difficult issues. The ways people usually deal with conflict, however, actually prevent--rather than encourage--learning. In this presentation, Bob Putnam discusses how "undiscussable" topics hinder team and organizational learning and offers possibilities for creating reflecive conversation." The DVD can be ordered from Pegasus Communications, order number V9623D.

Action Science Research and Practice

Argyris, Chris. "Double-Loop Learning, Teaching, and Research", published in the December 2002 issue of the journal "Learning and Education."

Noonan, William. Discussing the Undiscussable: A Guide to Overcoming Defensive Routines in the Workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Available on Amazon.

Rudolph, J. W., Taylor, S.S., & Foldy, E. "Collaborative Off-Line Reflection: A Way to Develop Skill in Action Science and Action Inquiry." In Handbook of Action Research, pp405-412, Sage Publications, 2001. Reproduced by permission of Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi.

Taylor, S.S. "Presentational Form in First Person Research: Off-Line Collaborative Reflection Using Art." In Action Research, Vol. 2, #1, pp71-88, Sage Publications, 2004. Reproduced by permission of Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi.