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Can we control change in organisations?

1/22/2017

The mainstream view of change and innovation in organisations is one based on a linear view of process and management. In this view of the world, we should set clear objectives and targets, chart a clear route to reach them and then regularly measure and manage individuals and teams to ensure that they are moving towards those targets. This is a view of organisational change based on hierarchy and a simple, linear view of the world. This approach to leadership and change within organisations is underpinned by an attempt to bring heightened certainty, and ultimately to ‘control’ all aspects of change. In turn, in many organisations, particularly in the public sector, these attempts to control change at a micro-level have led to an explosion of quantitative measures used to indicate whether or not individuals are following the desired trajectory, and in some cases, even a desired process.

Streatfield (2001) offers a different view of innovation and change in organisations. Based on his work in the pharmaceutical industry, he sees the activities which make up an organisation as being messy, complex and of a form which cannot be reduced to simple, wholly ‘controlled’ processes. Uncertainty is a fundamental aspect of work in any organisation, even in sectors such as pharmaceuticals which some outside of the industry might assume is a highly mechanistic and controlled process. Consequently, Streatfield suggests that an organisation should be characterised ‘as complex responsive processes of relating in which patterns of meaning emerge’.

This gives two very different views of leading and managing quality, one based on measurement, within a predictable and closely defined environment, where variability is consciously reduced, leading to planned conformity. The alternative is to see organisations as complex, at least in part, unpredictable entities which are characterised as networks both internally, and in connections externally. Here, Streatfield argues that control needs to be of a different type, ideally a form of working within a paradox of ‘being in control’ and ‘not being in control’ at the same time. This is partly the result of a view of organisational change based on emergence. One way of understanding the nature of emergence is provided by Davis and Sumara (2006):

decentralised control and neighbour interactions: change is developed in the interaction between the personal and social. Individual and collective interests should be mutually supportive rather than inherently competitive and it is the interaction between neighbours which allows for the development and emergence of new ideas and perspectives. However, to allow the development of rich neighbour interactions, it is essential that change is not controlled from a single point; any group must be given a level of decentralised capability.

internal diversity and redundancy: systems need to be able to react in different ways to different situations to ensure a diversity of insights to aid innovative solutions to problems. However, for such diversity to be present there needs to be a level of duplication within the system, such as shared responsibility and interests. It is this duplication which allows for easy interaction within the system and for elements to compensate for inadequacies which reside there.

Freedom and coherence: within any system there must be potential for the exploration of possibilities resulting in the opportunity for personal agency and the diversity identified above. However, whilst this inclusion of freedom is central to the emergence of change, complex systems are not chaotic and require a level of coherence to orientate the activity of the actors within the system. Coherence imposes a loose framework within which individuals can operate freely whilst creating frameworks for coherence.

Therefore, in organisational change there is a need for greater flexibility than that afforded under strict, quality controlled, and reductive approaches. However, it is important that the system has coherence and direction. If change is accepted as being an emergent set of processes, affected through the interaction and insight of individuals across the organisation, leaders cannot expect to be wholly in control. However, leaders do have a crucial role in setting boundaries (coherence) allowing for neighbour interactions and drawing together the narratives from across the organisation to help it develop in coherent ways. In this sense, Streatfield argues that leaders need to see themselves as being both in control and not in control at the same time. It is how they navigate this paradox which determines the quality and form of formal change which the organisation is able to create.

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Researching Change – an initial process critique

1/15/2017

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‘The river where you set your foot just now is gone – those waters giving way to this, now this.’ Heraclitus (Fragments, 41)

Heraclitus is sometimes seen as the ‘father’ of process philosophy, the statement above emphasising that change is a fundamental part of reality, and that this reality is one drive by process; it puts the flow of change at the centre of how we can understand the world. As Rescher (1996: 28) states,

‘Becoming and change – the origination, flourishing, and passing of the old and the innovative emergence of ever-new existence – constitute the central themes of process metaphysics.’

As we inhabit ever more complex societies, there can be a tendency to attempt to reduce that complexity to make reality more easily understandable. In research, this complexity reduction takes a number of forms. The calculation of ‘effect sizes’ in large scale experiments, the capture of a ‘case study’, the results from a survey. All are attempts to capture an instance in time, a stable moment or relationship. If Rescher’s notion of reality above, one marked by flow, change and emergence is correct, however, then perhaps we need to rethink the fundamental approach we take to research.

Process philosophy is based on the centrality of process and time (change) in allowing us to understand our world. This presents a serious set of issues and problems which we need to consider if research is to help us understand and act positively in and on our environments. To capture and uncover the complexity of processes and how they lead to the patterns, artefacts and events/situations we wish to understand is difficult. In many social situations such as human experience in cities, student learning in classrooms, or political perspectives in communities, patterns emerge due to the processes at play and lead to resultant behaviours which are not merely random (as the processes involved are in some way causal). But neither are they simple and linear. Some of the processes involved may remain hidden, or may change in magnitude and form over time. And yet many of the research tools and approaches we rely on do nothing more than capture these complex flows at a point in time. Or perhaps at points in time – from which we extrapolate and then build relationships. Sometimes we might do this accurately (do we ever really know?), on other occasions we might only begin to uncover a small part of the processes responsible (again, how do we know?). On other occasions we trick ourselves into believing we have uncovered stable classifications which tell us something foundational about the world – such as leadership typologies!

Given the complexity involved in social processes and in social contexts, when we analyse the ‘things’ they produce, how do we begin to make sense of these networks of activity and creation? In a world of process is there a methodological approach which can allow us to get close to uncovering the ‘reality’ of the social, the cultural, the economic and the environmental? As we create an ever more complex world we will increasingly lose our ability to understand it unless we can begin to take seriously the need to develop research approaches which help us engage with process as the driver of change.

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Change and education - a brief reflection

1/8/2017

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I'm currently working with some international masters students on the concepts of innovation and reform in education. I always think that one of the main questions we need to ask ourselves when developing ideas around innovation is 'why'? Here, we can get carried away discussing the place of technology, endlessly argue about the 'right' way to teach, or debate what the structures of schools should be (the politicans' favourite). But I suggest here that perhaps the main initial rationale for any innovation or change needs to be set in aims - what are we trying to do and why? And therefore we need to look outwards from education; after all it can be argued that whilst education is a good in itself (it has to be if we are to encourage people to engage with their world, develop their understanding of it, and lead a meaningful life) it also needs to serve other purposes. For example, whether we like it or not, as societal systems stand, education serves a purpose in helping people gain the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to get the job they want.

So what should be the aims of education? I'll consider this more fully in a future post, but for now I want to think about how we might start to develop a discussion about the embeddedness of education in wider socio-economic, cultural and environmental issues. When I work with the master students one of the first things I ask them to consider are some of the issues which are currently emerging as major processes of which society needs to take account (I discuss the factors I've highlighted in the image to the right in more detail in a short video). The issues raised are not necessarily new, but they have developed a greater degree of urgency in the past decade or so, some even in the past few years. The questions I ask the students to consider are shown in the image, and centre on whether these issues are the concern of education.

Part of the discussion tends to gravitate towards how such issues should be included in education - if it is accepted that they are important and worthy of discussion. The development of knowledge is a key aspect of any good education, but we need to think about which knowledge and how that knowledge is put to work. E D Hirsch, who offers the philosophical backbone of many of those advocating a return to a 'knowledge' curriculum makes the case for why knowledge is so important.

'To be truly literate, citizens must be able to grasp the meaning of any piece of writing addressed to the general reader. All citizens should be able, for instance, to read newspapers of substance..'
E D Hirsch (1987: 12)

I can't see that anyone would find this statement controversial. But, surely there is a very strong case that as we move forward, if anyone is to make sense of the average newspaper then the issues listed above, and others like them, are central to their readership? This is where I think we have a problem in education if we base the curriculum solely on the notion of including 'the best of what has been written and said'. This might be useful if culture (in its widest sense) was a generally very slow moving or static concept. But it isn't. Culture shifts and changes - it is a process not a 'thing'. If education is only about looking backwards rather than looking forwards we will always be in a reactive space rather than a proactive one. I would argue that inclusion of issues such as those above is central to a meaningful curriculum as there needs to be a fusion of established knowledge, intertwined with new ideas. And I don't see this as a linear process. We shouldn't develop an educational system which exposes students only to the 'greats' of our culture with the thinking around new insights coming later - say at university for example. The new, the uncomfortable, needs to be fused with the established from the word go, to be brought into tension and fusion together. This suggests that debate, discussion and application of what is learned is also very important. The issues I've outlined shouldn't be represented as knowledge to be transferred but ideas to be debated, critiqued and reflected upon. To offer knowledge as so much information which needs to be memorised without substantial opportunity to apply, to link to other, perhaps seemingly disconnected ideas, leads to a severe case of 'dumbing down'. Only through understanding and discussing the emerging knowledge and understanding gained can the individual become the critical newspaper reader in Hirsch's statement. Knowledge in a curriculum is necessary but not sufficient.

It is in seeing education as a complex, dynamic process, embedded and intertwined with a rapidly changing series of contexts that we can help children become the critical newspaper readers of tomorrow, and hopefully beyond to engaged and critical citizens. This is also why the role of teachers is so crucial. Biesta (2015) argues that the role of the teacher should be to help students make sense of a world beyond which they are aware so as to move away form the dangers of an 'egological' education. He argues that this can best be done when seeing the student as a subject in the process, not the object. This means that the teacher needs to be sensitive to issues, ideas and insights which are important both within and beyond their own subjects, but which are also helpful in expanding any student's worldview in critical and useful ways. This suggests a varied and flexible approach which has an underlying focus on fusing 'core knowledge' with new, developed through a variety of opportunities. Education is part of a wider series of processes which already impact on children and will do so increasingly as they grow up. Is education flexible enough to change as the world changes around it?

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Can we control change in organisations?

Researching Change – an initial process critique

Change and education - a brief reflection

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