The present article describes the use of action learning by a group of 30 franchisees to organise themselves and work through a period of upheaval and uncertainty when their parent company faced liquidation. Written from the perspective of one of the franchisees who found herself adopting action learning principles to facilitate the group, it describes the value of this way of organising until a point where the context became both clearer and more time-pressured, for which the group adopted a project management approach to organising.