informal coalitions

Book review: Guide to Organisation Design

From an informal coalitions perspective all formal organization designs merely provide 'inputs' to the in-the-moment sensemaking from which localised actions arise and 'global' (eg organization-wide) outcomes ultimately emerge. Formal structures, systems and processes both enable and constrain this sensemaking and action taking. But these cannot determine what actually emerges - or how those 'outcomes' are themselves perceived, interpreted, evaluated and acted upon as part of the ongoing process of conversational interaction.

Organization design does not therefore provide the 'magic bullet' for organizational change and performance that many of its proponents claim.  At the same time, there can be little argument that if organizational (re-)design is on the agenda it needs to be done well. And this is where Dr Naomi Stanford's excellent book on the subject, Guide to Organisation Design fits in.

Throughout, she manages to combine a passionate belief in the value of systematic, business-focused organization design with a healthy scepticism for any position that might suggest that the formal outputs of the process (such as organization charts, roles and relationships) provide a guaranteed blueprint for success or a once-and-for-all solution.

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.

Solutions Focus and the dynamics of organizational change

Andy Smith’s “Practical EQ” weblog, provides an interesting and useful overview of the latest edition of Jackson and McKergow’s book, Solutions Focus. As someone who has used the Solutions Focus (SF) approach in individual and team coaching interventions, I share Andy’s attraction to the method. The shift in focus that it facilitates – from what needs fixing to what’s already going well that can be built upon – can provide a powerful form of reframing during performance improvement conversations of one form or another.

Organizational consulting - The search for 'truth' through storytelling

A few years ago, I attended a session on psychodynamic consulting, led by Larry Hirschhorn, at the Tavistock Institute in London.  The basis of his approach was to “get people to ‘tell their story’ and engage with it.”  Although he acknowledged that he keeps a model of the psychodynamic process in mind, his basic message was to “stick with the data.” A similar philosophy underpins the task of leading or facilitating change from an informal coalitions perspective.

Changing the conversations - Patricia Shaw

In his personal weblog (On conversations ... 4 December 2006), Johnnie Moore sets out some of his early thoughts on re-reading Patricia Shaw's book Changing Conversations in Organizations. The book is one of the series published in 2002 by members of the faculty and students on the University of Hertfordshire's Doctoral Programme in Organizational Change, which are referred to elsewhere in this blog.

I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop run by Patricia Shaw at the university in May 2002, timed to coincide with the launch of the book series. Some of Shaw's concluding remarks and my own thoughts on what she said are set out below. 

Silence is golden – creating conversational space

About a year ago, during the final throes of writing Informal Coalitions, I was invited to lead a two-hour discussion on this topic as part of a consultant conference. In preparation for this, I wrote and circulated a brief paper that outlined the dynamics of informal coalitions and identified the implications of these for leadership practice.

Don't give clients what they want!

Its funny - although de Bono would say perfectly natural - how incidental remarks and observations about one field of activity can stimulate new ideas, fresh perspectives and useful insights in another.

The context

One such example occurred as I was driving to the local rail station a few days ago, on route to a meeting in London. I happened to be listening to Victoria Derbyshire's morning 'phone-in programme on Radio 5-Live. The topic of the day centred on how best to raise children, given the concerns that had resurfaced in the previous day's news about the detrimental effects of youngsters' growing attraction to fast food, computer games and activities that offer instant gratification.  This conversation helped to crystallize my view on how consultants need to operate if they are to help clients to add real value to their organizations.