informal coalitions

The reified world of everyday organizational reality

Over recent days there have been several lively discussions on self-organization across a number of blogs. The latest comments on the first of my own two posts, #6 by Stephen Billing and #7 by Chris Mowles, have centred on a separate but related aspect of organizational dynamics known as “reification”. This occurs when people treat something that is an abstraction as if it really existed - or ‘thingify’ it, as I have called it elsewhere.

Both Billing and Mowles see this as severely limiting our understanding and practice. This is because it can deflect attention from what’s happening in the ‘here and now’ of people in interaction. Billing has since restated his concerns about this phenomenon in the post Be Aware of Reification on his own blog. And Mowles’s last comment takes the argument into what he sees as the risks in using models and frameworks to inform management practice. These, he suggests, similarly reify complex social phenomena by “… [taking] on a life of their own [and] seeing regularities where no regularities exist.” His comment draws on the work of philosopher Axel Honneth, and it reflects the view of organizational dynamics put forward by the University of Hertfordshire’s Complexity and Management Centre, where he is a Fellow.

These are powerful voices ranged against the notion of reification as a potentially useful aspect of organizational dynamics. And, in many respects, their arguments resonate with my own views (see, for example, Leadership is a "doing word" and The wiggly world of organizational dynamics).  At the same time, I think that these concerns might be underplaying the pervasive role that people’s reification of their everyday experience has on the construction of meaning and organizational outcomes.

Seth Godin on bloggin'

A recent tweet from David Gurteen pointed to this short YouTube clip of Seth Godin talking with Tom Peters about the importance of blogs and blogging.

 

It's comforting to know that Godin thinks blogging is a worthwhile enterprise - even if nobody reads it!  And even then, of course, blogging is a social act. It presumes an audience.

Is there anybody there!?

Self-organization and emergence: #2 – Organizational dynamics v organization design and development

As part of a stimulating conversation on self-organization in Stephen Billing’s blog, I added a few more thoughts on the topic as viewed from an informal coalitions perspective. As with my previous post, the intention is to note these comments 'for completeness' on this ‘home’ blog, as well as - perhaps - exposing this issue to other readers.

The particular focus here is on the points I made in response to John Tropea’s interesting vision of what he calls a “role-based” organization. In this, individuals would have greater discretion to organize their own roles and relationships to suit their particular talents and interests.  However, implicit in this is the widely-held view that self-organization happens (or doesn’t) as a result of deliberate choice – either by management design or as the result of a ‘grass roots’ initiative. And it was the felt need to challenge this general perspective that prompted me to add my ‘two pennyworth’ to the discussion.

On self-organization and emergence: #1 - Processes not systems

Over recent days, I've contributed to a couple of wide-ranging discussions on self-organization, in response blog posts by Bas Reus and Stephen Billing.  This post and the next one summarize my current thoughts on the topic, from an informal coalitions perspective, to anchor them in this 'home' blog.  I'm working on the basis of Weick's principle (in Sensemaking in Organizations) of "How do I know what I think until I hear [see] what I say?"

In the book, I describe organizations as dynamic networks of self-organizing conversations. Organizations exist because people can’t achieve alone what they need or want to achieve. So at the core of organization is the notion of people in interaction. And people use ‘talk’ (in the broadest sense of the word) as their medium of communication – both with others and with themselves (i.e. thinking). This means that self-organization isn’t a strategy designed and implemented by managers (as opposed, say, to command and control) it is a natural dynamic of all organizations.

On commonality and difference in organizations

I was scanning down the tweets from my Twitter “friends” yesterday when I was attracted to an entry by Joe Gerstandt. It contained what I took to be an invitation to sign-up for a web discussion on the topic of “commonality and difference”. Since these characteristics are fundamental to my thoughts on individual and organizational identity and the dynamics of change, I clicked the accompanying website link to see what he had in mind.

Does organizational culture exist? A view from the road less travelled

In his latest blog post, Stephen Billing asks if there is such a thing as organizational culture. This is another of Billing’s interesting provocations, arising from his complex responsive process view of organizations (as advocated by Ralph Stacey and his colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, UK). In this case, his declared aim is to prove that organizational culture doesn’t exist. 

Like Billing, I also view this question from a vantage point on what might be thought of as ‘the road less travelled’. Unusually, though, I beg to differ on this aspect of organizational dynamics.  So this post summarizes my argument in support of the concept, as a contribution to the interesting discussion that he has initiated.

Revolutionary v evolutionary change – Part 3: Outcomes emerge from the give and take of everyday conversations and interactions.

The preceding two posts (here and here) summarize how I responded to a request to take part in a debate about the relative merits of evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to change.

In essence, I said that this was not the most important question to address!

Instead, I argued that managers need to ask themselves how best to engage with the hidden, messy and informal dynamics that are continuously at play in their organizations (regardless of how a particular formal change effort might be described). This final post in the ‘trilogy’ says more about that challenge.

Revolutionary v evolutionary change – Part 2: The ‘right and left hands’ of organizational change

If organizations are blessed(?) with a comprehensive set of management tools to effect change, why is it that the odds on success are something like two-to-one against?

It’s true that in our ‘right hand’, so to speak, we’ve got barrel-loads of tools, techniques and frameworks that have been designed to help us manage change.  Unfortunately, although these appear promising on paper, they seem to be less so in practice!

The problem is that most of the mainstream approaches, such as Kotter's Eight Steps, are based on flawed assumptions about how organizations work. They focus on the formal, rational, structured aspects of organization, and ignore the hidden, messy and informal bits, through which outcomes actually emerge.  Many of the conventional, 'right-hand' tools work well for the matter-of-fact changes in the design of structures, systems and processes. But, in terms of organizational change and performance, this is only part of the story – and rarely the most important part.  Instead, those charged with bringing about change need to look at - and engage with - the messier stuff that's going on in the organization's 'left hand'.

Revolutionary v evolutionary change – Part 1: The missing ingredient?

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I would take part in a debate on the relative merits of adopting a revolutionary or an evolutionary approach to change. When I agreed, the organizer asked me which side of the fence I was on - revolution or evolution.  I said that there was only one place that I could be – and that was on the fence.  Or, to be more precise, I would be on both sides at the same time!

On reflection, that sounded as if I wanted to take the best bits of both arguments and blend them together in some way.  Either that or I was hedging my bets.  Instead, I wanted to argue from a different perspective altogether.

So I began my input by suggesting that, if the audience were to think of the advocates for evolution and revolution as sitting on opposite sides of the table, then the place to look for me would be underneath the table!

“All human interactions are complex but some are more complex than others” – Discuss

In the previous post, I commented briefly on Ralph Stacey’s explanation of why he no longer sees his Certainty-Agreement matrix as a valuable framework for thinking about the complex dynamics of organizations. This same line of thinking underpins his criticism of systems thinking and of the related notion that there are different ‘levels’ of complexity.

Despite agreeing with the core of Stacey’s analysis and conclusions, I speculated that there might still be some value in recognizing both that complexity is inherent in every human interaction – however mundane – and, at the same time, that some of these interactions take place within a more complex context than others. Indeed, Stacey himself appeared to acknowledge that it might be possible to differentiate between situations of high and low complexity – if only with the benefit of hindsight.

So, does differentiating in this way make sense? And, if so, what would be the value in doing so?