Transformative Learning Theory describes how people change their beliefs, assumptions, and worldview by moving through four stages — disorienting dilemma, critical self‑reflection, rational discourse, and personal agency — and thereby become more resilient, adaptable, and creative in the workplace.
When managing employees, it can be useful to understand Transformative Learning Theory because it’s a useful concept for understanding how to build a culture of resilience in the workplace.
Change in the workplace is often fluid in that things often change so quickly (such as technology and job roles), and stress levels rise as the demands to adapt continually occur.
For employees to succeed in the workplace, having strong resilience skills is extremely useful, and transformative learning can help build these skills.
What Is Transformative Learning Theory in the Workplace?
Transformative Learning Theory was developed by Jack Mezirow and describes how individuals undergo big personal change by critically reflecting on their beliefs, assumptions, and experiences — a process often referred to as a shift in mental models or a paradigm shift.
It remains one of the most influential adult learning theories in education and workplace training, alongside Knowles’ Adult Learning Theory and heutagogy.
What Are the 4 Stages of Transformative Learning?
The 4 Stages of Transformative Learning Are:
- Disorienting Dilemma – A challenge disrupts your current beliefs
- Critical Self-Reflection – You re-examine your assumptions
- Rational Discourse – You discuss the issue with others to gain insight
- Personal Agency – You act on your new understanding
What Are the Benefits of Using Transformative Learning at Work?
Transformative learning is certainly a theory worth using for workplace training because it can help us improve adaptability, creativity, and resilience skills for employees and managers alike.
Key Workplace Benefits:
- Help create open conversations that strengthen workplace culture
- Useful for helping employees become more adaptable to change
- Great for helping staff build resilience through personal growth through reflection
- Helps employees learn from setbacks rather than fearing them
- Inspires new ideas by challenging old assumptions
Adaptability
As touched on earlier, change in the workplace these days happens so quickly, such as with new IT systems being used, processes changing, etc.
In a work environment of constant change, the ability to adapt well is essential for employees to thrive. Approaches such as Heutagogy, or self-directed learning, complement transformative learning by giving staff more autonomy to adapt in real time.”
Transformative learning helps employees move beyond fear or resistance to change by encouraging them to view it as an opportunity for growth.
>> See the adaptability teaching materials if you’re interested in learning more about teaching adaptability skills.
Innovation and Creativity
Transformative Learning also enables employees and managers to question long-held workplace assumptions and think more creatively.
By reflecting on established beliefs, individuals are more likely to generate new, innovative solutions and approaches.
Resilience
Resilience is our ability in the workplace to deal with setbacks and stressful and difficult situations while remaining in control, strong, and able to thrive.
Transformative learning is a handy tool for helping employees to develop this resilience, as you will see from the 4 stages of the transformative learning theory, as detailed below.
This process is especially evident in the four stages of the theory, particularly through reflection and agency.
What Are the 4 Stages of Transformative Learning Theory?
The 4 stages of Transformative Learning Theory involve us experiencing a dilemma that is challenging and that we need to work through using reflection and discussion, before finding a new positive perspective. This process is similar to Knowles’ Adult Learning Theory, which also emphasizes reflection and experience in adult workplace learning. The stages are explained below:
1. Disorienting Dilemma
An individual experiences a significant challenge (dilemma), and this situation leads us to challenge our own beliefs and/or assumptions.
Referred to as the “disorienting dilemma” stage, the situation in question might be some kind of work crisis, something you see as a big failure, or some moment of confusion that forces you to question and confront your own way of seeing the world.
2. Critical Reflection
Once the dilemma has taken place, the person involved will then critically self-reflect.
In other words, they are likely to consider and re-examine their own beliefs, values, and their own assumptions, because of this new experience.
This reflection involves asking why they held certain views and whether those views are still valid. and this is a form of metacognition (i.e., where we think about our thinking).
3. Rational Discourse
The idea in this stage is for individuals (employees in this case) to openly discuss the challenge/dilemma with others and to try and elicit new ideas and understanding through sharing experiences and critically discussing the situation with others, i.e., colleagues. Here, psychological safety is important in that you need to create a safe space for this sharing.
This aligns closely with Social Learning in the Workplace, which shows how peer mentoring and group reflection drive deeper understanding.
Part of this outreach in the rational discourse stage can include seeking extra training to try to relearn things to understand why you got things wrong in the first place.
Overall, the intention is to build a deeper understanding and perspective that will serve you better moving forward.
4. Personal Agency
Having openly discussed the dilemma in stage 3, in this stage, it is about turning this new perspective into new behavior, work attitudes, and using this new worldview for personal growth.
You take control and move forward!
Together, these four steps help the individual develop into a more resilient and adaptable individual as they become empowered through taking personal agency in their own learning and development.
Transformative Learning Examples
To give you two examples of transformative learning theory in practice, here are two real-world examples:
Example Number 1
Petra works for an airline in an Australian international airport, and she is a customer service agent who keeps facing a disorienting dilemma whereby she is repeatedly encountering frustrated passengers due to flight delays.
Initially, she felt overwhelmed, overstressed, and was getting very defensive, but she engaged in critical self-reflection and focused on her own communication style and how she would always react during stressful situations.
After attending conflict resolution training and discussing various strategies with her peers and a training manager, Petra developed a new perspective on how best to manage passenger issues without taking it personally and becoming stressed herself.
Petra integrated the new way of thinking and the skills she learned in the conflict resolution training to transform her way of dealing with customers.
She now remains empathetic and focuses on trying to help the customer find the best solution. She is now happy in her work and has actually become the best-performing customer service agent according to passenger feedback scorecards.
Example Number 2
Imagine that Bob is a marketing manager and he has spent a large budget on paid advertising, which has proven to be a failure, in that it has generated very few leads and used up much-needed budget.
Despite the self-doubt, Bob used resilience and transformative learning by focusing on what went wrong and reflecting on his decisions and the outcomes.
He was also willing to open up to others and ask for their advice.
He also, of his own choosing, went on a 2-day training course for advanced training, and it helped him understand some of the reasons why he was going wrong.
Bob rethought his whole approach and emerged with a new strategy that the next time did actually prove successful.
Bob took a problem-solving approach to the initial failure and acted with resilience rather than allowing the initial issue to affect future performance. He wasn’t afraid to self-reflect, seek others’ help, and focus on the solution and way forward.
In this workplace example, what might otherwise be considered a negative situation, Bob turned into a positive outcome and continued striving forward.
How Can You Implement Transformative Learning in Your Workplace?
Integrating transformative learning into the workplace really does not have to be difficult. Here are some practical strategies to use if you are an HR department, training facilitator, or team manager:
- Workshops and Reflective Practices: If you are a manager or training facilitator, make use of training activities that encourage critical reflection, such as by using journaling exercises. This will give the employees you are training the chance to process their experiences and develop new perspectives.
- Mentorship and Coaching: Mentorship and transformative learning work well together, as the mentors can help employees reflect on the challenges they are experiencing, and can encourage the employee to start thinking critically about their career goals.
- Encourage a Growth Mindset: Encourage employees to develop a growth mindset (a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck). Help employees see that challenges are also opportunities and develop new skills, and this is aided by using transformative learning. Using feedback loops and showing recognition when employees show adaptability and growth also helps.
FAQs
What is a disorienting dilemma in transformative learning?
This is when a difficult or challenging situation forces an employee to really think and question their own assumptions and beliefs. Their belief that a major new IT system would never work perhaps proves to be highly effective, so the employee changes their belief.
It usually involves a major change taking place, such as a conflict or a difficult project setback that prompts deeper reflection.
How long does transformative learning take in a workplace setting?
It’s not possible to give an exact timeframe because it depends on the person and situation. Some of us can change our mindset quite quickly, while others will need more time to reflect, discuss, and get support before they change or adapt their thinking.
What if employees resist critical reflection or rational discourse?
Resistance is normal when it comes to change, especially when employees feel that they are being judged or when they feel unsafe. As a leader or manager, creating an environment of psychological safety is important. This makes open discussion easier for staff to engage in these stages.
Final Thoughts
Key Takeaways: Using Transformative Learning at Work
- Challenges at work don’t have to be setbacks — they can be stepping stones for growth if employees are encouraged to reframe the setback.
- Reflection and open discussion should be built into training sessions, and not treated as optional extras.
- Each of the four stages matters. Employees need time to reflect and talk before meaningful behavioural change can realistically take place.
- Linking transformative learning to practical skills such as resilience, adaptability, and creativity makes it immediately more useful for both staff and managers.
Transformative learning is an extremely useful theory and tool that can be applied to the workplace to help employees develop resilience, adaptability, and innovation-related skills and work practices.
As a leader, make sure to encourage employees to be open to critical reflection, embrace challenges as opportunities for growth, and try to empower employees to take control of their own development.
As a leader, though, you might want to consider offering workshops on how to build resilience, and to make it easy for you, you can download the teaching and training materials and easily run a short workshop on resilience – see the materials below:
View the Resilience PowerPoint Slides for Trainers
