People learn naturally and in context by engaging the whole human mind, body, and soul. Experiential learning takes advantage of this opportunity by being learner-centered, innovative, social, and noncompetitive. It uses a variety of learning styles, human senses, and multiple intelligences.

Experiential Learning is more than mere "learning by doing." However, this common definition is more applicable to experience-based learning where one "does learning." Experience-based becomes truly EXPERIENTIAL with the addition of reflection and other steps after the action.

Cyclic experiential learning incorporates reflection, transfer, and sustain steps along with action.

• ACTION: The learners are given a challenging experience to enact, a task to perform, a project to complete, or a problem to solve.

• REFLECTION: They "look back on" their past experience, extract the present lessons, and prepare to transfer this as future learning.

• TRANSFER: Learners integrate lessons from their experience into (feeling, thinking, behaving, or resisting) change in the workplace.

• SUSTAIN: The organization and learners provide the continuing support and ongoing resources to maintain learning and change at work.