Training International Managers

Chapter 14 Organizing Participants to Learn from Each Other

The trend over the last 30 years in the training of managers is towards increasingly participative forms of learning. The most common training mechanism used is that of getting participants to work together in small groups or teams or, as they are commonly termed, breakout groups. This trend is more marked in the western world than it is in the east, but the progression globally is towards a greater proportion of each training event involving participants in doing rather than listening.

This should be seen as good news for trainers and participants alike. For participants it means that those who have a preference for Activist forms of learning (see Chapter 3), there is a greater part ...