We are immersed in conversation - even when we are alone. Throughout our waking hours we talk to ourselves. For a lot of the time we talk with others as well. It’s through this ongoing process of conversational interaction that we make sense of our experience and act into the future. In this way we (along with everyone else) perpetually construct the future in the currency of our present interactions. The past is similarly a product of today’s conversations. It is not fixed and unchanging. We re-member it – i.e. put it together afresh each time – in the context of our current interactions [1].
So how does this relate to the dynamics of organization?
Organization is conversation
As Dunford and Palmer observe,
“Organization is conversation. That is to say, conversation does not just occur about organizations; conversations constitute organizations. Organization is not independent of conversation.” [2]
This is a central theme of Informal Coalitions, in which I describe organization as the dynamic network of self-organizing conversations. That is to say, organization is an ongoing process, not a physical entity that can be designed, built, and changed at will.
Some of these conversations occur in planned settings with structured agendas and people acting out their formal roles and relationships. Most though take place informally, whether intentionally, habitually, or simply by chance. It’s through the widespread interplay of these myriad ‘local’ (i.e. small-group and one-to-one) conversations that 'overall' outcomes emerge.
Managers - "in charge" but not "in control"
Managers, from the Boardroom to the front line, are participants in this process. And, since they are formally in charge, power relations are often weighted heavily in their favour. Nevertheless, all conversations are co-creation forums. This means that they can't dictate everything that happens in the moment of their interactions with others. Even less so can they control how the themes that emerge are taken up by people in their subsequent interactions. To underscore the limits of their control, the vast majority of conversations in which organization is enacted, and from which outcomes emerge, take place in peer-to-peer or colleague relationships - i.e. without the participants' line managers being present at all.
Taking complexity seriously
Given this, practitioners, policy makers, commentators, and the general public are badly served by much of today’s management writing and consultancy offerings. Too often, these ignore the real-world dynamics of organization outlined above. Instead, they maintain that managers can control whatever happens, provided that they do things ‘better’ and get them ‘right’ in line with their latest ‘best practice’ prescriptions. This is patently not the case. But claims of "If you do this, you'll get that" can be hard to resist. Instead, we need an approach to organization and management practice that takes seriously its socially complex - and essentially conversational - nature (see here, for example).
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[1] Griffin, D. (2001) The Emergence of Leadership. Routledge.
[2] Dunford, R. and Palmer, I. (1998) Discourse, Organizations and Paradox. In Grant, D. et al (Eds) Discourse and Organization. Sage
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