I have just finished providing 3 very successful days of Action Learning training in Shanghai and would like to share some of my experiences and perceptions of Action Learning in China with you. First, I'm happy to say that Action Learning works just as well in China as in the USA, Europe or anywhere else! The problem-solving process of identifying what is working, what can be improved, and what will be done differently going forward works equally well everywhere in the world.

When the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) outgrew the office accommodation at its 140-acre Gigiri compound in Nairobi, Kenya, it was clear that any new building had to meet several challenges head-on. It neededto be energy and water efficient, to reduce and recycle, and to maximize sustainability without compromising the quality of the working environment. Achieving energy neutrality required producing as much power as the building consumes over the course of the year. In designing the building, UNEP discovered that the IT component of their operations was consuming the most energy and was the largest inhibitor to becoming energy neutral. Relying on traditional IT policies would consume so much energy that the goal of energy neutrality would be unreachable.

Solving complex problems requires diversity of experiences and authentic courage among group members. As a matter of fact, the more difficult a problem, the less valuable is expertise and familiarity and the more valuable is deversity and freshness of perspective.

For the past 60 years, one of the most widely used methodologies for creativity has been brainstorming. First proposed by Alex Osborn in 1953 in his book, Applied Imagination, the technique is based on a single premise: Criticism is bad for the imagination. Brainstorming focuses on quantity; everybody can contribute; it's a feel-good productivity technique.

After 25 years as a trainer and consultant working in over 50 countries around the world, I became a professor at George Washington University in 1994 for its global executive doctoral program. Among the courses I was asked to teach was a course called "Action Learning." I did not know what it was, but the professor who had taught the course had retired, and being the new professor, this was the course given me. In a few months I would have 25 senior executives in this course who had paid $50,000 for this doctoral degree, and I knew I had to be sure my course was "top quality."

• Organizations want to be assured that resource allocations are based upon value rather than what is currently popular.

Just recently, I returned from Nigeria where I participated in the inaugural meeting of the Governance Council for the Corporate University for the First Bank of Nigeria, the First Academy. This was an exciting event with many top leaders from the bank as well as representatives from the Nigerian press.

Be sure to get your hotel reservations before the dates below to ensure that you get the discounts negotiated for the 2012 WIAL Action Learning Conference on June 12.

Debriefing an experience is a way to begin a discussion with participants to help them understand it. Debriefing is a process to help them think about what has just happened, what they have learned, and how they felt. One process that can be used to elicit participants’ thoughts and feelings is the What, So What, Now What sequence of questions from a coach. It is a way of sequencing questions to help participants make the transition from understanding what happened to what it means to them. The sequence is explained below.