informal coalitions

Facilitating change #11 – Pursuing organizational objectives

This marks the end of the series of posts themed around the topic of facilitating change. It focuses on the final phrase in the definition of specialist planning that prompted the series (see footnote). This suggested, uncontroversially perhaps, that the aim of planning is to help bring about results that are “in line with the organisation’s objectives.” 

The phrase was meant to underline the normative purpose of planning, which I saw to be to “contribute purposefully” to the management of the organization by “increas[ing] the probability” that the desired objectives would be achieved.  In a footnote, “objectives” were described as “the desired future conditions which the organisation strives to achieve”. To offer further clarification, these future conditions were said to include “mission, purpose, ethos, strategy, charter, goal, policy, target, quota, programme, deadline, etc.” 

Today, I would try to avoid any implication which might suggest that an imaginary construct (“the organisation”) can in some way “strive to achieve” things. But that apart, how (if at all) does this focus on organizational objectives stack up with my current, informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics?  And what pointers might it offer to the facilitation of change? 

Facilitating change #8 - Affecting the future

Planners in organizations set out with the intention of affecting the future in ways that are organizationally beneficial.  The same can be said about those leading and facilitating change. And it is the comments on "affecting the future" in my 1980 paper on organizational planning that I want to focus on here -comparing and contrasting these with my current thinking on the dynamics and facilitation of organizational change (see footnote).

On many occasions in this blog I have referred to the writing of Peter Drucker, much of it stretching back to the 1950s and 1960s. Many of his remarks still resonate strongly today. And Drucker's insights feature prominently in what is a relatively short chapter in the 1980 dissertation.  Interestingly, I used Drucker to illustrate my current thinking on 'time' and change - and its relationship to Ralph Stacey's notion of the "living present", in a mid-2008 post on this blog (The time machine of organizational decision making).

Pleasingly, then, there were few surprises when I re-acquainted myself with this section of the earlier paper.

Facilitating change #6 – Dealing with uncertainty and complexity

As we arrive at the latest stop on our ‘back to the future’ journey to the land of organizational planning, we come face-to-face with the issues of uncertainty and complexity (see Footnote).

These topics were dealt with in separate chapters in the 1980 paper.  But the two are so intimately interwoven in my present-day understanding of organizational dynamics that I’ve chosen to wrap them together for the purposes of this post.

In his latest treatise on organizational dynamics, Complexity and Organizational Reality, Ralph Stacey discusses these concepts in some depth. There he argues that analogies drawn from the sciences of uncertainty and complexity offer a more resonant view of organisational reality than that offered by the science of certainty that underpins the dominant management discourse.

He later goes on to suggest that it’s perhaps best not to think of management and leadership as sciences at all but rather to recognize that these are social phenomena. Despite this, uncertainty and complexity feature heavily in his particular take on organizational dynamics and in the social complexity perspective embodied in informal coalitions. 

Facilitating change #5 – Who’s in control?

This chapter of my 1980 paper on the planning task in organizations looks at the issue of control.  The question here is to what extent – if at all – the view of organizational dynamics embodied in the paper reflects that contained in Informal Coalitions. And, if so, what inferences we might draw from it in relation to the 'parallel' task of facilitating organizational change (see Footnote).

This chapter repeated one of the primary themes of the original paper; that is, that planning and control are the responsibility of line managers, not of the planner.  In this respect, as reflected in extracts from the paper in earlier posts, it echoes the point made in the book that change leadership is a line management task.

However, when looking at an organization as a complex social process, the issue of control is seen to be paradoxical. That is, managers are both ‘in control’ and ‘not in control’ at the same time.  In Informal Coalitions, I call this “the leadership paradox”.  Philip Streatfield describes this same notion as “the paradox of control”, in his book of the same title.  So, when the original paper talks of managers as being in control of the organization’s resources, this is only partially the case. 

Facilitating change #4 – Expanding the view of organizational resources

On setting out on this quest, to compare my 1980 thoughts on specialist planning with the dynamics of informal coalitions (see Footnote), I suggested that it would be a voyage of discovery. I hadn’t yet reacquainted myself with the original text!  This point was brought home when I first read the source chapter for this post, entitled Acquisition, Deployment and Management of Resources.  

At first sight, there didn't appear to be any extracts that drew attention to the underlying dynamics of organizations by way of analogy with the planning task.  However, on re-reading the text, I discovered three important areas in which parallels can be drawn between the paper's comments on specialist planning and the informal coalitions perspective of organizational dynamics.

Facilitating change #3 – Who are the organization’s decision makers?

Previous posts in the series (see Footnote) have highlighted the need for the change facilitator to influence the organization’s ongoing decision-making and action-taking process. But who are these decision makers? Is it the Senior Management Team? Or line managers?  Or is it members of the organization at large?  This post addresses this question; drawing inferences from my 30-year-old paper on the analogous role of the specialist planner and ‘testing’ these against the informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics.

Facilitating change #2 – A question of influence?

This post continues the review of my 1980 paper on the nature of the planning task in organizations and its comparison to the dynamics of change as embodied in Informal Coalitions (see Footnote). The focus here is on the suggestion that the planner’s task (and, by inference, that of the change facilitator) is to influence the ongoing decision making and action taking of line managers.

A central proposition of the informal coalitions perspective is that overall outcomes emerge from the organization-wide interplay of people’s everyday decisions and actions.  Through their ongoing conversations and interactions, people perceive, interpret and evaluate what’s going on and decide how they are going to act.  This is not a neatly packaged, linear and step-wise process but rather the complex and emergent interweaving of in-the-moment sense making and action taking.  Seeking to influence the nature and dynamics of this conversational process, in a deliberate and informed way, is then the essence of change leadership.  And the change specialist’s role is one of facilitating this practice in ways that are intended to be organizationally beneficial.  Crucially, of course, those who are seeking to lead and facilitate change can act with intention, but still can't be sure as to the outcomes that will emerge.

Facilitating change #1 – A continuous process

This is the first leg of our quest to see what insights - if any - we might gain into the challenges of change facilitation from my 30-year-old paper on the nature of the planning task in organizations (see Footnote). The proposition here is that change facilitation is best considered as a continuous process.

From an informal coalitions perspective change itself is seen as a continuous process. It is not something that happens in pre-packaged episodes between periods of stability.  Also, a fundamental assumption of this perspective is that organizations are complex social processes rather than, for example, complex adaptive systems – or systems of any kind, for that matter.

So we appear to be ‘in the right ball park’.  But what specific inferences can we draw from the original paper on this aspect of the role?

Informal coalitions expressed as a de Bono “bonto poem”

On a couple of occasions, I have posted a poem to the blog. These were meant to provide some light relief from my more serious musings about informal coalitions and all things organizational. This post adds a third. It is based on Edward de Bono’s notion of a "bonto poem", which I came across a couple of days ago.

If you fancy a break from the usual ‘thinking’ diversions of crosswords, sudoku or whatever, the bonto offers a potential escape route. It challenges the writer to create a poem that ‘makes a point’ within a strict set of rules – and using just four lines of verse.

Working the shadow side of organizations - implications for facilitation

Johnnie Moore, in a typically thoughtful post entitled "A rambling post about the shadow side", highlights the challenges for facilitators in dealing with shadow-side issues that emerge - by accident or design - during organizational workshops and other meetings. His feelings are echoed by others' comments on the post. And I added my own 'two pennyworth' on this critically important aspect of organizational dynamics - and its implications for facilitation.

For the record, my  comments and Johnnie's response are reproduced below.