Twenty-five years: a self-managed action learning set

Abstract

ABSTRACT What is it about an Action Learning set that has survived and thrived for a quarter of a century? Although now with only one of the original set members, nevertheless this self-managing set can claim to have ‘lived’ from 1997 to 2022, still going strong. And, as Socrates said, since the unexamined life is not worth living, this article inspects the value of that set’s existence. Such a length of time for an unmanaged set to survive is unusual. What has enabled a non-managed set to survive for such an unusually long time? The answers we hope will provide interest, even inspiration, for other sets that function unfacilitated, independent of an organisation.