One question, two connected mechanisms
Management systems are often designed as if visibility and knowledge were the same thing: if a fact is important, it should appear in a report; if it does not appear, leaders assume it is not known. Two studies by Sid Ahmed El Hebri Harid challenge that assumption from different but connected directions.
The first examines what happens to questioning and reflection when hierarchy makes upward challenge difficult. The second examines what happens to operational truth when formal information systems demand visibility without offering equivalent protection. Together, Silent Action Learning and the Visibility–Protection Gap show that knowledge may remain active while moving away from the channels leaders expect to see.
Silent Action Learning: when inquiry moves sideways
In Silent Action Learning Under Hierarchy: Lateral Questioning in a High-Power-Distance Organisation — An Exploratory Case Study, published in Action Learning: Research and Practice, Harid examines a difficult condition for Action Learning. The method depends on real problems, disciplined questioning, reflection and action, yet many accounts implicitly assume that questions and learning can travel towards the people who possess formal authority.
Under high power distance, direct upward questioning may be constrained, but inquiry does not necessarily disappear. Participants can continue testing interpretations, challenging assumptions and refining responses through trusted peer relationships. Learning remains active while its vertical visibility is restricted. Harid gives this pattern a name: Silent Action Learning.
The phrase should not be read as a celebration of silence. Its value lies in exposing a split that conventional learning metrics can miss. A group may learn locally while the organisation fails to learn institutionally. The absence of visible challenge at the top does not prove an absence of reflection below; it may indicate that reflection has moved into safer lateral channels.
The Visibility–Protection Gap: when operational truth moves outside the system
The Journal of Enterprise Information Management article The Visibility–Protection Gap in Enterprise Resource Planning Governance: Shadow Systems and Information Quality Degradation extends the question from voice and learning to formal information systems. Drawing on a three-year action research study across 80 sites, 47 facilitated Action Learning sessions, 1,120 documented governance decisions and seven measured interventions, the study asks why operational knowledge migrates from a mandated ERP system into parallel records trusted by practitioners.
The proposed mechanism is the Visibility–Protection Gap. Organisations often demand accurate entries, rapid escalation, auditable records and standardised reporting. But they do not always provide equivalent protection to people who disclose exceptions, failures or politically difficult facts. When visibility requirements exceed reporting protection, knowledge does not simply vanish. It can move towards spreadsheets, notebooks, messages or informal exchanges that actors trust more than the official platform.
The ERP may remain the formally authoritative system while a parallel record becomes the place where operationally credible knowledge accumulates. A shadow system is therefore not automatically evidence of resistance to technology or failed implementation. It may be a governance signal. Removing it without repairing the conditions that produced it can eliminate access to knowledge without restoring that knowledge to the formal system.
How SAL and the VPG fit together
The two mechanisms operate at different levels. Silent Action Learning describes a route through which questioning and adaptation can continue among trusted peers. The Visibility–Protection Gap describes a governance condition under which difficult operational information migrates away from the formal system. In both cases, hierarchy changes the cost of making knowledge visible.
Read together, the studies reveal the same organisational risk: local learning can continue while institutional knowing weakens. Leaders may see little challenge in formal meetings and clean data in official systems, yet neither observation proves that problems are absent. Questions and records may simply have moved to channels that offer greater practical safety.
For facilitators and leaders, this changes the unit of attention. The quality of an Action Learning set cannot be judged only by the conversation inside the session, and the quality of information cannot be judged only by the formal authority of its system. We must examine who can hear a question, who can act on it, what consequences follow disclosure and why practitioners trust one record more than another.
Boundaries and future research
These are emerging mechanisms, not universal laws. Silent Action Learning is presented through an exploratory case in a high-power-distance setting. The Visibility–Protection Gap is supported by detailed longitudinal evidence, but that evidence comes from one organisational population. Both require comparative studies and independent replication across different sectors, cultures, technologies and accountability systems.
Future work should test when lateral learning eventually reaches authority, which forms of protection bring operational knowledge back into formal systems, and how the relationship between visibility and protection changes across organisational settings.
Why the connection matters
The practical message is demanding but useful: silence is not always an absence of learning, and a clean formal system is not always a complete account of operational reality. Before asking people to speak more, leaders should examine whether truth can travel without disproportionate cost. Before deleting a workaround, they should understand what knowledge it protects and why the official channel was not trusted.
SAL and the VPG offer a focused diagnostic lens. They invite organisations to ask not only what their people know, but where that knowledge can travel safely enough to become visible, actionable and retained.
About the subject
Sid Ahmed El Hebri Harid
Sid Ahmed El Hebri Harid is a doctoral researcher in management at Golden Gate University and a senior executive. The two studies discussed here connect Action Learning, organisational silence, information governance and the movement of operational knowledge. They are published in Action Learning: Research and Practice and the Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
Sources
Official publication links
- Harid, S. A. E. H. (2026). “Silent action learning under hierarchy: lateral questioning in a high power-distance organisation — an exploratory case study.” Action Learning: Research and Practice. DOI 10.1080/14767333.2026.2719603
- Harid, S. A. E. H. (2026). “The visibility-protection gap in enterprise resource planning governance: shadow systems and information quality degradation.” Journal of Enterprise Information Management. DOI 10.1108/JEIM-04-2026-0555
About the author
Dr Mohamed Yacine
Dr Mohamed Yacine is the Founder and Managing Associate of AL Insights Ltd and the Founder of WIAL Algeria. He works across practice and research, facilitating Action Learning in organisations, teaching and supervising at postgraduate level, and examining how learning travels from a set into the wider organisation.
Editorial status: Adapted from material reviewed and approved for publication by Dr Mohamed Yacine on 3 September 2026.