informal coalitions

A lateral view of organizational complexity – Part 4: Leadership implications

This is the fourth and final post in a mini-series that seeks to draw parallels between Edward de Bono’s work on the mechanism of mind and Ralph Stacey’s complex responsive process view of organizational dynamics.

Both of these strands of thinking are reflected in the informal coalitions view of organizations as dynamic networks of self-organizing conversations.

This final post looks at the implications for leadership of these two perspectives. In particular, it focuses on two fundamental challenges to conventional ways of thinking about organizational leadership, namely that:

• leaders are not objective observers and controllers of other people’s actions
• the complexity perspective does not represent an optional way of managing organizations.

Book review: Identity - Sociological perspectives

I’ve just finished reading a really engaging book on identity by Sociology lecturer, Steph Lawler. In it, she challenges the widely held view that a person’s ‘true identity’ is ‘inside’ them and fundamentally separated from the social world. Instead, she advances a radically social perspective of identity, arguing that it is produced and negotiated between people in relationship.

In an accessible style, Lawler maintains that identities are

"… forged, not within the individual, but in networks of relations with others, some of whom we shall encounter and some of whom we shall not. In this, we are both made and unmade by each other."

This means that identity is not a ‘given’, but something produced through the narratives people use to explain and understand their lives. Her focus on narrative challenges the notion of the atomized individual and replaces it with a concept of a person enmeshed in – and produced within – webs of social relations.

Lawler’s perspective on the nature and dynamics of identity meshes with that which is embodied in the informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics and other ‘relational’ perspectives.  As such, although its focus is on broad social and political issues, it necessarily places a number of question marks against important elements of mainstream thinking on the leadership, performance and development of organizations.

A lateral view of organizational complexity – Part 3: Language, conversation and pattern breaking

This is the third in a series of posts that seeks to draw parallels between Edward de Bono’s work on the mechanism of mind and Ralph Stacey’s complex responsive process view of organizational dynamics. Both of these strands of thinking are reflected in the informal coalitions view of organizations as dynamic networks of self-organizing conversations.

This third post looks at language, conversation and pattern breaking.

A lateral view of organizational complexity – Part 2: Non-linear dynamics

This is the second in a series of posts that seeks to draw parallels between Edward de Bono’s work on the mechanism of mind and Ralph Stacey’s complex responsive process view of organizational dynamics. Both of these strands of thinking are reflected in the informal coalitions view of organizations as dynamic networks of self-organizing conversations.

This second post looks at the non-linear dynamics of organization: challenging linear cause and effect; the criticality of initial conditions; and polarization.

A lateral view of organizational complexity – Part 1: Self-organization, continuity and change

Edward de Bono, the inventor of lateral thinking, has been a prolific writer on the brain and thinking for almost 40 years. In formulating my view of organizations as dynamic networks of ongoing, self-organizing conversations during the 1990s, my thinking was stimulated as much by de Bono’s early writings on the ‘mechanism of mind’ as it was by the emerging theories on the application of the complexity sciences to organizations.

The theory and practice of informal coalitions therefore draws a number of analogies from de Bono’s work. At the same time, the complexity strand of thinking in informal coalitions leans heavily towards that articulated by the Ralph Stacey ‘school’ at the University of Hertfordshire’s Complexity and Management Centre.

This series of posts will seek to bring these two strands together, by suggesting that the theories underpinning de Bono’s notion of lateral thinking provide some interesting and provocative parallels with Ralph Stacey’s complexity-based view of organizational dynamics.

Later posts in the series will include: Part 2: Non-linear dynamics; Part 3: Language, conversation and pattern breaking; and Part 4: Leadership implications.