informal coalitions

Mystic Megaproject – Predicting the future with Big Science and Big Data (or not)

I was struck by the following headline in last weekend’s Sunday Times,

"Virtual ‘mirror’ of world to help predict future".

I see the future as being perpetually constructed in the complex reality of people's present-day interactions. So the claim that it will be possible to make meaningful predictions by 'mirroring' these complex dynamics clearly merited attention. 

Digging a little deeper into the FuturICT project to which the article refers, it appears that a wealth of top-level European universities and other scientific institutions are participating in the project. So the enterprise carries a vast weight of academic credibility, based on participants’ expertise and methodological rigour. However, despite recognizing the complex and uncertain nature of human interaction, statements on the related website still make confident claims about the benefits that the project will deliver. For example,

"FuturICT will integrate different scientific areas and activities into a FuturICT platform that will enable participatory science and technology to manage our complex world in a sustainable and resilient manner (my emphasis)"

This prediction (as with others on the site) seems quite a bold one to make, given the inherent complexity and uncertainty of the process that the sponsors are seeking to model – and the absence of the very ‘tools’ of predictability and control that they are setting out to develop!

Thoughts on “soft power” and the dynamics of informal coalitions in organizations

Over the years I’ve had an aversion to the use of the adjective "soft" to describe anything associated with the dynamics of organizations.

Most particularly, the use of the term "soft skills" to describe the people aspects of leadership capability tends, in my experience, to subordinate these in some managers’ minds to what they see as the ‘real work’.  More importantly from an informal coalitions perspective, the association of 'the people side of organization' with what is often dismissively referred to as the "pink and fluffy" stuff means that the very fundamentals of organizational dynamics – the complex social process of human interaction – get lost.

This process is far from ‘pink and fluffy’. It is power-laden and political. It involves the coming together of people with differing and often competing interpretations, interests, ideologies, and identities. Much of the process takes place informally, ‘in the shadows’ of the formal structures, systems and procedures. And it is influenced by taken-for-granted patterns of assumptions that have arisen over time as a result of past sense-making-cum-action-taking interactions. All of these factors, and others, arise because organisations are dynamic networks of people interacting with each other. So it seems to me that an understanding of these dynamics, and how they impact upon business change and performance, should be at the heart of HR practice. Sadly, it isn’t.

"Soft power" exercised through coalitional activity

So what about the notion of "soft power"?  Mark McKergow has identified this as one of the central characteristics of "Host Leadership" that he advocates in his related website, and about which I blogged earlier. Is this similarly tainted by the use of the adjective "soft"?