Two years on: The utility of critical action learning in the leadership development of Doctors

Previously we have explored how critical action learning (CAL) as part of a leadership development programme may help senior doctors and groups deliver business change in uncertain conditions in the National Health Service (NHS). We achieved this through portraying the research participants views of what constitutes CAL and what it might accomplish six months post development programme using the methodologies of narrative inquiry, ( McCray et al, 2016 ) and case study (Warwick et al, 2017). We sought to develop our understanding and practical (phronetic) wisdom (Flyvberg, 2001) as researcher/ facilitators guided by a collaborative autoethnography; a fusion of collaborative ethnography and autoethnography (Walker & Taylor, 2014). Here we present our findings from an additional set of nine interviews with the original NHS research participants two years on, the aim being to advance further understanding (Flyvbjerg, 2001) of what CAL may offer over time. Within the complex NHS environment, any form of evaluation is not only a patchwork of insights, but a patchwork of approaches, some of which make awkward companions (Watkins et al., 2011). We share both our research findings and our reflections on their usefulness as a form of evaluation within the NHS context. We document our own experience as researchers as we move further away from a natural sciences position of evaluation and act as collaborative researchers participating in a larger social science project (Flyvbjerg et al., 2012, 122–36). An emerging contribution is that a form of CAL or action learning (AL) is being sustained and applied in organisational practice by senior doctors as they facilitate change. We discuss our perceptions on the nature of these findings and what they bring to the evaluation of leadership programmes in the NHS, sharing our research reflections and further intentions and actions post study.