- Reg Revans
Professor Reginald William Revans (
May 14 1907 -January 8 2003 ) was anacademic ,administrator andmanagement consultant who pioneered the use ofAction learning . He was also a formerlong-jumper who represented Britain at the1928 Summer Olympics inAmsterdam and won twosilver medal s (for long jump andtriple jump ) at the first British Empire Games in 1930.Early life
He was born at
Portsmouth , where his father was a marine surveyor. As a boy he saw his father receive a visit from seaman’s representatives after the wreck of the "RMS Titanic ". He recollected attending the funeral ofFlorence Nightingale with his mother.In the late 1920s he was a doctoral student in
astrophysics at theUniversity of Cambridge . A Commonwealth Scholarship in 1930 took him to study astrophysics andastronomy at Michigan, and on his return to Cambridge as a fellow to Emmanuel he worked at theCavendish Laboratories underLord Rutherford and SirJ. J. Thomson . There were five Nobel prizewinners in the department, but Revans found them humble enough to share their puzzlements and to listen, rather than claiming to know and be able to instruct. Revans always rememberedAlbert Einstein saying to him: "If you think you understand a problem, make sure you are not deceiving yourself." [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article884986.ece "Times" obituary] It was here that Revans began to develop his thinking on the role of 'non-expert' in problem solving, distinguishing betweenknowledge andwisdom in so doing.He moved into education to become assistant education officer for
Essex (1935–1945) and then director of education for theNational Coal Board from 1945 to 1950.Action Learning
:"Main article -
Action learning "It was at the Coal Board that Revans did much of the early work on developing action learning, working alongsideE. F. Schumacher (author of "Small is Beautiful") andEric Trist , whose theories about socio-technical systems have also had an important influence on organisation development. Revans then became the first professor of industrial management at theUniversity of Manchester (1955–1965) but left to develop the inter-university action learning programme inBelgium .Revans strongly held that the key to improving performance lay not with 'experts' but with practitioners themselves. Hence he devised Action Learning as a process whereby the participant studies his own actions and experience in conjunction with others in small groups called action learning sets.
On his return to the UK at the age of 68, he continued his global mission to spread the word of action learning. During the 1970s and 1980s he travelled round the world several times and wrote his most famous books: "Developing Effective Managers" (1971); "The Origins and Growth of Action Learning" (1982) and "ABC of Action Learning" (1983).
Later life
Revans made furniture as a hobby, played the trumpet and painted — even illustrating small books for his children. He was knighted by the
King of Belgium , and in 1997 he was awarded the freedom of theCity of London . Revans died inWem ,Shropshire on 8 January 2003.Legacy
Revans is not remembered as one of the best known gurus of management education or organisational development, not least because of his scorn for experts and his championing of ordinary people. However The Revans Centre for Learning and Research at
Salford University and management schools around the world now teach his ideas, and they are applied in many organisations. His techniques have been applied by many management consultants and academics includingMike Pedler and Alan Mumford in the UK and Michael Marquardt and Joe Raelin in the USA.Recently the Revans Centre for Action Learning has moved to
Manchester_Business_School References and External Links
* [http://www.isd.salford.ac.uk/library/resources/special/revans.pdf Biography and resources at the University of Salford]
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