Drawing from the reflective teaching and learning practices recommended in influential publications on learning styles, experiential learning, deep learning, and dialogue, the authors tested the concept of "learning teams" in the framework of a leadership program implemented for the first time in a top French management school (Grande Ecole). Qualitative feedback and personal observations on the implementation and outcomes of using this new learning paradigm reveal that although the steps from teaching to learning initially tested for MBA students in the United States are widely accepted, there were unexpected obstacles and opportunities in setting up the model in France. Some of these differences can be attributed to culture, particularly to immensely different educational philosophies that shape attitudes and norms within French classrooms and to the notion of learning itself, which is normalized by the social expectations of careers in management forged in French history. This article provides the theoretical basis of the particular learning model tested, describes the conditions

This paper presents and discusses the contribution of ‘mentoring’ relationships to organisational learning and knowledge creation in the early stages of research and development (R&D) projects. Our study considers the characteristics of a scientific leader, the nature of the context he creates, and how dialogue contributes to scientific breakthrough. Our study is unusual in as much as research on knowledge creation has developed separately, yet in parallel, with that of mentoring. It is rare to combine these disciplines and yet our research shows there is much to learn from examining the two as a process. We conducted our research at TECHNO, a high‐tech‐based European company producing advanced equipment dedicated to particles acceleration. Interviews were carried out in 2002–2003 with the founder of the company, the head of the R&D and engineering department, and team members involved in the low energy cyclotron project. Our exploratory research enabled us to identify differences in actors' perceptions about the nature and characteristics of these relationships. Our study also suggests that not all sets of relationships can tolerate the degree of intensity provided by the ‘mentor’. TECHNO has other ‘mentors’ who do not manage to generate the same creative context. Complementary mentoring styles based on premises and process reflection allow to support and enhance ‘upper levels’ learning by junior team members. We examine the nature of the leaders as mentors and catalysts within the learning process and briefly discuss implications for setting up and maintaining learning teams.

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The objective of the final plenary session of the 8th European Mentoring Conference was to establish a new understanding of mentoring through a collaborative approach to creating patterns of meaning about the subject. We wanted to use participants’ insights from the sessions they attended. Each insight could then be seen as an “ingredient” or as a “particle”, “cell” or “molecule” of meaning that, when seen in relation to other such “molecules”, would evoke a deeper insight into what we already recognise as a complex mentoring process. Clearly phrases such as “molecules of meaning” are relevant to approaching the science of making patterns of meaning and chosen because such expressions are not part of our everyday vocabulary. They have us stretch our attention and imagination, and are helpful in the stages of a methodology suggested to participants. This paper is an account of what participants did leading up to the final plenary, what we as facilitators did in preparation for this session, what happened during the plenary and what emerged as a result of collaborative sense making.

This article explains the process and results of distilling meaning from the book Mentoring Executives and Directors by David Clutterbuck and David Megginson, published by Butterworth Heinemann in 1999. Capturing meaning requires a method that suits the context of study. In this case the context is book that contains a number of illustrative accounts of being mentor and mentee within the private, public and voluntary sectors of business. The method permitted capturing ideas contained in the contexts described, and then associating these ideas in order to gain insights into the very nature of mentoring.