Using action learning to develop senior leadership reserves in a VUCA environment: an account of practice from the new oriental elite training camp

This account of practice describes the Elite Training Camp, an action learning-based programme run by New Oriental Education and Technology Group to develop its senior management reserves – the ‘first leaders’ who take overall responsibility for a city's business. Against a business environment shifting from investment-driven expansion to innovation-driven growth, and a decade of experience with successive senior talent programmes, the organisation designed a six-month annual programme combining four residential workshops, three developmental phases, project-based action learning and internal catalysis by HR professionals certified by ISFAL. Over three years, 51 participants have been selected, of whom 23 have been appointed as first leaders, 5 have taken charge of innovative businesses, and 17 have been transferred to new roles in transformation, change or crisis contexts. This account describes the programme's context, design and implementation, offers worked examples of the catalytic process and an honest account of what did not work, and reflects on the lessons learned for talent selection and development in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous conditions.