California Action Learning Leadership Forum
Founded in 2016, helping leaders work through real challenges using the action learning discipline.
Upcoming Forum
Friday, April 3 · 12:00 PM · San Mateo
Expanding soon: New York and Washington, DC
Leadership for a Time of Relentless Complexity
Even the strongest leaders are feeling the strain right now.
Many thoughtful leaders are struggling—not because they lack experience or judgment, but because the problems arriving are more complex, more ambiguous, and more consequential than at any point in their careers. They are also arriving faster than most teams have the capacity to process.
Leaders who have long prided themselves on thoughtful, inquiry-based leadership are finding themselves pulled into a constant cycle of urgency—making decisions quickly, carrying more responsibility personally, and trying to hold steady for teams who are also under significant strain. And many leaders quietly feel that they are expected to carry this burden largely on their own.
You may recognize some version of these tensions:
“My leadership team is aligned publicly but fragmented privately.”
“Our company is scaling faster than our leadership capacity.”
“We need to transform a culture that resists accountability.”
“AI is disrupting our strategy and the leadership team is divided.”
“We’re solving problems quickly, but not always the right problems.”
These are not problems that yield to experience alone—no matter how capable the leader.
They require leaders and teams who can pause long enough to think deeply together—challenging assumptions, exploring different perspectives, and generating insight that no single person could produce alone.
And yet, in environments of sustained pressure, even experienced leaders can begin to drift toward the familiar patterns of expertise and control. Not because they believe those approaches are best—but because the pressure to respond quickly leaves little space for the deeper inquiry that complex problems actually require.
This is where many leadership teams quietly enter a danger zone.
When complexity rises and reflection diminishes, leaders can become the bottleneck for generative thinking and problem solving. Teams become more reactive, psychological safety narrows, and the leader quietly carries more of the burden.
Action learning offers a disciplined way to step out of that pattern. For decades, organizations such as GE, Boeing, Siemens, Samsung, and Novartis have used action learning to address complex strategic challenges while simultaneously developing stronger leaders and teams.
Through a structured process of inquiry, leaders create space for deeper thinking—helping teams slow down just enough to challenge assumptions, explore different perspectives, and uncover insights that might otherwise remain invisible.
In this process, the leader’s role shifts. Instead of carrying the responsibility for solving the problem alone, the leader becomes the architect of better thinking in the room—creating the conditions where teams think more deeply together and share accountability for navigating difficult challenges.
The California Action Learning Leadership Forum was founded to support leaders in doing the work that matters.
Since 2016, it has convened small groups of senior leaders to explore real leadership challenges through disciplined inquiry—strengthening both the leader and the team’s capacity to tackle complex problems together.
Participation is intentionally limited to preserve the trust, candor, and thoughtful discretion that complex leadership challenges require.
What is Action Learning?
Action learning is a leadership and problem-solving methodology designed for complex challenges—situations where expertise alone is insufficient and the best path forward is not immediately clear.
The approach was originally developed by physicist and organizational scientist Reg Revans, and later advanced by leadership scholar Dr. Michael Marquardt, founder of the World Institute for Action Learning along with a global community of action learning practitioners and scholars. It has since been used around the world by organizations such as GE, Boeing, Siemens, Samsung, and many others to address critical business challenges while simultaneously developing stronger leaders and teams.
At its core, action learning brings together a small and diverse group of leaders to work on a real challenge that one participant—the problem sponsor—is responsible for addressing.
Rather than offering advice or opinions, participants explore the challenge through disciplined inquiry. They ask thoughtful questions designed to clarify the problem, surface assumptions, and expand the range of possible perspectives.
This process slows the conversation just enough to allow deeper thinking to emerge. Questions often reveal patterns, constraints, and opportunities that might otherwise remain invisible in traditional problem-solving discussions.
Over time, something even more important happens.
Participants begin to strengthen leadership capabilities that are difficult to develop through traditional training: listening deeply, framing better questions, thinking systemically, and working productively with diverse perspectives.
As leaders practice these capabilities, they learn how to create teams that think more effectively together—teams where accountability, insight, and responsibility for solving complex challenges are shared rather than concentrated in the leader alone.
That is why action learning is valued not only as a method for solving difficult problems, but as a way to develop leaders who can build high-performing teams capable of navigating complexity together.
Why This Matters Now
Leaders today are navigating extraordinary complexity.
Many are operating in sustained crisis conditions—responding to constant change, uncertainty, and pressure to move quickly. In these environments, even experienced leaders can find themselves defaulting to the comfort of expertise and command-and-control decision making.
While sometimes necessary, those habits can unintentionally narrow the thinking of the team and place too much problem-solving responsibility on the leader.
Action learning provides an alternative.
By modeling inquiry rather than answers, leaders learn how to develop teams that:
Think together more effectively
Surface diverse perspectives
Challenge assumptions productively
Share ownership of complex problems
Over time, accountability shifts from the leader carrying the burden alone to the team taking shared responsibility for outcomes.
This ripple effect is what makes action learning such a powerful leadership practice. Leaders develop teams that become increasingly capable of navigating complex challenges together.
About the Forum
The California Action Learning Leadership Forum was founded in 2016 to create a peer learning space where senior leaders could explore complex leadership challenges together using the action learning methodology.
Over the years, the forum has intentionally remained small and invitation-based. The structure is designed to create the conditions that meaningful inquiry requires: trust, psychological safety, and the freedom for leaders to wrestle openly with difficult challenges.
Each session brings together a small group of peers who are actively responsible for significant decisions within their organizations. Participants explore real leadership challenges through disciplined questioning, reflection, and shared learning. Leaders are encouraged to explore challenges candidly while exercising their own judgment about what information is appropriate to share.
To preserve the integrity of the experience, the forum operates with several guiding principles:
Psychological safety and candor
Thoughtful dialogue and disciplined inquiry
Meaningful peer learning
Freedom from solicitation or commercial agendas
The goal is not networking or advice-giving.
The goal is deeper thinking, stronger leadership practice, and meaningful support among leaders navigating complex challenges.
What Happens in a Forum Session
Each forum session brings together a small group of senior leaders for a structured action learning experience.
The process includes:
1. Framing the Leadership Challenge
One participant introduces a real leadership or organizational challenge they are responsible for addressing.
2. Action Learning Dialogue
A small team explores the challenge through disciplined inquiry. Participants ask questions designed to clarify the problem, surface assumptions, and expand the range of possible solutions.
3. Learning Reflection
The Learning Coach periodically pauses the discussion to help participants reflect on how they are listening, questioning, and collaborating.
4. Observer Insights
Additional participants observe the dialogue and share reflections on group dynamics, leadership behaviors, and patterns that emerged.
5. Problem Sponsor Reflection
The problem sponsor reflects on new insights gained and identifies potential next steps.
The two-hour forum session includes lunch and typically focuses on one leadership challenge (occasionally two, depending on group size).
Participants consistently report that the experience deepens their thinking, expands their perspective on complex challenges, and strengthens their ability to lead through inquiry rather than positional influence alone.
Learning Coach
The forum is guided by Kristina Martin, founding Learning Coach, while participants rotate into the Learning Coach role during sessions to build facilitation and learning leadership capabilities.
Kristina has practiced and applied action learning methodologies in leadership development and organizational transformation work for more than two decades.
In 2016, she hosted Dr. Michael J. Marquardt for two days of senior leadership programming at Infinera, where leaders from across the Americas and India participated in workshops on inquiry-based leadership and action learning.
Following that experience, she founded the California Action Learning Leadership Forum to create an ongoing peer community where leaders could continue practicing and strengthening inquiry-based leadership.
In the action learning process, the Learning Coach does not solve the problem or offer advice.
Instead, the coach helps the group reflect on how they are thinking, questioning, listening, and working together — the capabilities leaders need to develop teams that can solve complex challenges without relying solely on the leader for answers.
Learn More About Action Learning
Case Examples
Action Learning in Practice — World Institute for Action Learning
Books
Leading with Questions — Michael J. Marquardt
Optimizing the Power of Action Learning — Michael J. Marquardt
The Action Learning Handbook — Reg Revans
Organizations
World Institute for Action Learning
Association for Talent Development (Action Learning Research)
Articles
“Harnessing the Power of Action Learning” — Michael J. Marquardt