Society for Organisational Learning in the UK

Executive summary:
This paper presents the findings of research undertaken within the
context of member-organisations of SOL (the Society for Organisational
Learning). These organisations, coming from both the private and the
public sector are all considered leaders in their respective
industries, and share a common interest in excellence within the
framework of the current rapidly changing socio-economic and business
conditions.

Taking on from the assumption that the organisations have a shared
interest in the new sciences (chaos, complexity etc.) as well as in the
concept of learning for performance, we undertook research the findings
of which underlined the importance of relationships for learning.
People, their work contexts, the processes and the actions taken on
board in every day work situations were analysed in a way that
fractally represented the whole of the culture of the organisations to
which they belong and was depicted in the framework of the five
relationships: the working alliance, the anticipated, the
developmental, the personal and the transpersonal relationships.

The important findings of this initial study could contribute towards a
powerful intervention for increasing the learning capacity of
organisations and guaranteeing a better understanding of people,
processes and decision-making in for organisations in today's
increasingly changing and unstable business conditions.

Introduction and Background


Miner and Mezias opens their important 1996 review paper as follows :
"For nearly thirty years, organisational learning theory has been an
ugly duckling in the pond of organization theory, interesting, but
living on the fringes" (p. 88). However they go on to stress that
"organisational learning now stands on the threshold of moving center
stage in organization theory, both in an applied and theoretical
context" (p.90).

At the London School of Economics, the Programme on Strategy and
Complexity runs a series of seminars which brings together academics,
management consultants and organisational leaders in order to develop
discussion and research in the above-mentioned fields (Mitleton-Kelly,
1997). As a professional management consultant and academic with
substantial experience in business leadership, I was invited to speak
on the same occasion with the leader of one of the companies
participating in this initiative, earlier this year.

The theme of this talk was about organisational learning -particularly
in the light of learning the new sciences such as quantum physics,
chaos and complexity. In my view of the learning process, there is a
learning cycle, some of which can be described as "unlearning" or
letting go of past learnings. This can also be traced to research I
have published on two occasions (namely 'The Achilles Syndrome',
Clarkson, 1995a; and 'A Small Kitbag for the Future', Clarkson, 1993).
This is a particular skill and attitude which I have found by 25 years
of experience in this field to be correlated to effective
organisational and individual learning. The theme of my talk, paired
with the business leader's talk on "learning" was therefore to be-
"unlearning". Unlearning can be defined as the process of relinquishing
previously effective knowledge and skills in order to acquire newer,
more effective and occasionally diametrically opposed knowledge and
skills.

In order to ground this work in empirical data, I suggested and
undertook a qualitative study using a form of qualitative research
called discourse analysis. Miner and Mezias (1996) also stressed the
importance of the "special insights" which can be provided by
qualitative research into organisational learning. The pilot project
involved qualitative interviews on the themes of interest (use of the
new sciences, newly developing skills, knowledge and attitudes) with
some ten members of the organisation under discussion.

The results of this study was so well received and its usefulness so
appreciated, that three other companies (so far) requested a similar
intervention. In this paper the results of the first (now pilot) study
will be aggregated with the results and discussion of the other three
companies. This will be interwoven with the smaller and more informal
researches done on the day of presentation in order to model continuous
research (or learning as well as unlearning) as well as to inspire a
spirit of questioning and constant re-evaluation as an ongoing process
of integrating research and practice in organisational learning. The
learning obtained from the research thus becomes part of an ongoing
cycle, each product becoming the seeds of the next phase in the
project. This process of blending research and application in an
ongoing process fertilising each phase of the organisational learning
cycle is considered particularly important in our current
socio-economic conditions. Multiple authors (eg. Dodgson, 1993; Nonaka,
1993; Peters and Waterman, 1983) have pointed out that organisations
who are surviving and even thriving in the light of an increasingly
unknowable future have had to become more open to disorientation,
turbulence, confusion, conflict and unpredictable changes. Therefore,
new knowledge, attitudes and competencies are now required and enacted.
This project is in service of that goal.

The process that we follow as researchers is a cycle of iteration; we
view our involvement with organisations, the subsequent research
performed and the feedback getting from the interventions we are making
as researchers as the most important stages of this cycle.

A learning cycle of research and organisational interventions

So, the major research question guiding all of the work is this: What
can be learned from people in reasonably successful "learning
organisations" where the new sciences (such as complexity, chaos
theory) are being intentionally explored?

What is organisational learning?
Although the items which comprised the questionnaire were designed to
indirectly probe learning and unlearning processes in the individual
selected from the four companies, it was our expectation, based on the
variety of approaches and definitions in the literature, as well as in
popular usage in management development and process consultation, that
there would be little agreement between the representatives of the four
companies assembled on the particular day to receive and discuss the
findings up to the date of the workshop on organisational learning.

These company representatives as well as some members of SOL and the
Mentor Group took part in a brainstorming exercise in order to define
organisational learning as each one of them understood it. This was
done by using new groupware technology made available on the day. A
sub-goal of the hosting consultancy company was to introduce this new
groupware to the representatives of the four companies and other
participants. Forty-two different notions of learning were captured
through this process.

We could possibly make an overall categorisation of the responses into the following three categories:

Strategic: The ability to adapt to changing circumstances
Structural : The culture that allows experimentation, innovation,
spreading of best practice and developing policies to support the above
Cognitive: The sharing of mental models, accepting new ideas and sharing knowledge.

This process of spontaneous definition of the central term of
organisational learning was stimulated by projecting colour
illustrations of ancient alchemical notion of Chaos visualised as
associated in such earlier centuries to ideas of disillusionment,
disintegration and disassociation (Roos, 1997) Contemporary
discoveries, reflections and visualisations have represented Chaos as
elegant mathematical formulae or beautifully coloured fractal images
found in computer imagery or analogously in nature. It seems that
humankind has made some steps in organisational learning if we compare
these two kinds of illustrations of the notion of chaos. How did we (as
the human race) get from the one to the other? If we make a composite
textural description using Moustakas' (1994) methodology from these
responses we find organisational learning described phenomenologically
as:

Being prepared for the uncertain and the unpredictable, finding new
solutions for new situations in and around the company, adapting to
changing circumstances and doing what contributes to organisational
purpose effectively. This can be done by changing to a culture that
stimulates ideas, reflecting on what is important, harmonising the
needs of stakeholders, employees and customers, growing and developing
the individuals to become fully expressed and contributing, building
confidence in colleagues, developing training in line with business
developments and constantly upgrading the shared notions of what is
currently important in the organisation. Organisational learning can be
supported by the creation of a greater wisdom in the company, by
sharing languages between different organisational participants, by
increasing an understanding of the things we do not know, by thinking
and reflecting leaving space before action and by leaving every policy
and strategy open to challenge. (p....)

The Major Research Method using the interviews:

The centrepiece of the major research method was based on using
semi-structured psychologically informed interviews (Kvale, 1996) with
certain selected staff to probe how they are coping - and particularly
what kind of knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits these individuals
as fractals (not necessarily a statistically representative sample) of
the organisational culture are currently manifesting in self-defined
"learning organisations". A basic assumption (drawn from chaos and
complexity theory analogies) behind this research was that any part of
the system will embody the whole of the system. Individual
conversations would be explored as if they could convey qualities and
information about the organisational learning processes as a whole. The
goal would not be numerical exactitudes of representation, but
discovering qualities which could lead to further explorations, more
questions and deepened learning. (Clarkson, 1998).

Given the extremely narrow time constraints (three weeks for the
pilot, four weeks for the rest of the research programme) there are
obviously severe limitations of space and time affecting both the
extent as well as the interpretation of the research findings. The
major research method selected is qualitative discourse analysis, not
quantitative data analysis. Qualitative research is based on a
different paradigm than the more conventionally used quantitative
methods which are mostly concerned with numerical values, statistical
probabilities or counting. The method used here is based on using
discourse - people's ways of talking - as a primary medium of
exploration and learning (Clarkson, 1997).

The focus was specifically not on diagnosing problems, but on
identifying excellence. This is partly as a consequence of my own
personal and professional interests which lie in researching, exploring
and facilitating excellence, creativity, the overcoming of limitations
and blocks to superb functioning, "flow" or superior achievement in
individuals and in organisations.

We also assumed that the respective level of cooperation was indicative
in this case of the individuals organisations’ desire and demonstrated
commitment to learning.

Interview Method

Because of restrictions of time and distance, the interviews with
members of each organisation would have to be conducted by phone.
Confidentially was assured to each individual participant and all
participants were specifically asked to give their permission to use
their data in this form. All identifying information was removed before
transcribing the tape-recording of the information. Subsequent typists
or raters were thus not informed of any personally disclosing material.
Semi-structured highly generalised questions were designed to elicit as
broad as possible range of personal and organisational issues relevant
to the themes of interest. The questions were sequenced very carefully
in order to maximise as much of the development of a relationship with
the researcher as possible given the short duration of the interview.

The aim was that, within the restrictions described, the interview
would feel as sociable as possible in order to facilitate the
interviewee to talk more freely than they might in a more formal
setting. However the same questions and similar interview style were
used for every interview - although circumstances eventually required
two psychologically trained interviewers. It was a question of striking
a balance between free conversation whilst preserving a degree of
uniformity and the possibility of making cross references. The content
of the answers was therefore not considered as important as the way in
which things were talked about - the process.

We did get very interesting feedback on the questions, which were not
actually designed to come up with a yes/no/so many answer, but to be
evocative of discourse, lingering more on the nature of what was
happening. Several people found the experience of being interviewed
interesting and informative in itself and thanked us for the
opportunity to reflect on tacit aspects of their organisational
learning which are not otherwise elicited in the normal run of
business. This has extremely important implications for the notion that
reflection is a vital part of learning - particularly the kind of
organisational learning which we are studying in this project. In this
way the research project itself becomes an organisational development
intervention. As I have pointed out elsewhere this is both an ideal and
achievable state - the meshing of practice and research, research and
practice. I do not support the separation of the management consultant
and the organisational researcher's tasks. In my opinion it is urgently
advisable that (a) all organisational interventions should be
researched and (b) all organisational research should be conceived of
and operationalised as organisational interventions with their
integrated significance for organisational learning always in full
focus.

The questions used in the interviews themselves were based on my
previous experience of working with numerous organisations and
organisational consultants on these themes of organisational excellence
and thriving (instead of just survival) in chaotic conditions of
increasing organisational complexity for example those skills,
knowledge and attitudes I attempted to spell out in 'A small kitbag for
the future', 1993. (Although some of the questions used in the
interviews as prompts will be mentioned in this report, they will not
all be released until the completion of the project.)

Suffice it to say at this stage that all the interviews of the first
company were subjected to discourse analysis, - not by an analysis of
answers question by question, but actually by themes across the entire
interview. One of the successful strategies for solving problems was
described by one of the early interviewees as "collecting all the data
in one place and then staring at it until a pattern emerges". This is
similar to the emergence of creative order from chaos. It is also a
good description of phenomenological discourse analysis as a
qualitative research method. The structure which finally emerged as the
best fit after considerable trials allowing other possible patterns to
emerge from the collected interview transcripts was in fact suggested
by the second interviewer. It happened to be a framework configuring
different kinds of human relationships which I had discovered in a
previous study as implicit in all psychological literature to do with
counseling and psychotherapy (Clarkson, 1995b).

Having found this framework based on five different kinds of
relationship to be both fitting and very useful from the feedback on
the research findings in the pilot study, the same framework for
discourse analysis was used for the other companies as well. There is
no suggestion that this is "the right" way of analysing this data. It
is quite possible that several other patterns may be discovered as
emergent from the data so far collected, but such efforts will have to
wait for another occasion.

Part of the experiment of course, was to find if self-defined
learning organisations can use this way of looking at themselves
fruitfully. One major criterion to judge this research by is thus its
usefulness and application to real life organisational situations (and
we will return to this point by the end of the paper). However, in
service of thoroughness of research methodology the final discourse
analysis using the identified framework was subjected to an interrater
reliability check by a professionally trained individual familiar with
the model.

Principal Research Findings:
When asked to say how they were using the knowledge from the new
sciences in their work, very few people indeed could answer - even when
we prompted "chaos and complexity". Some others just assumed we meant
"computers". Explicit use of the new sciences or technology was largely
absent, contrary to the Mitleton hypothesis 'to be fully effective
these principles need to be openly discussed and understood'; we
actually found that although these concepts were not fully understood
or even known in some cases, yet they were still in use in an implicit
way.

In all cases, no matter what the question was designed to evoke, the
talk (or discourse which represent s the way of understanding) was
mostly about human relationships.

This was, and was not, surprising. It was surprising in that the pilot
company presentation on organisational learning did not mention human
relationships at all. The questions of the semi-structured interview
themselves did not mention human relationships per se, but had
concentrated on patterns and ways of learning and unlearning, issues of
personal development, change and trying to identify the familiarity
with the new sciences. At the same time, it was of course not
surprising once revealed through the analyses of the interviews since
human beings live and breathe relationship; loss of relationship such
as solitary confinement is one of the greatest punishments, and our
human relationships are both our greatest sources of pleasure and of
pain. We also learn and unlearn in relationship. Relationships are here
to be understood fractally, by self-replication across scale:
inter-psychically at micro level, inter-personally at organisational
level and even culturally/planetarily at a macro level. Relationship is
considered to be the glue that holds the universe together, not only
the molecules, but also the organisations and organisational learning.

This fact which was emerged as crucial and pivotal from my
psychological research (Clarkson, 1975-1998) was easily (and perhaps
surprisingly) corroborated in the present studies of organisational
learning. As one respondent said: "What has changed most for me has
been an awareness of the importance of relating with others".
Relationship is fractally understood here i.e. intra-psychically at
microscopic levels and interpersonally, organisationally or culturally
at macroscopic levels. All these at different levels are implied
whenever the notion of relationship is used.

And we are biologically grounded in our relationships which operate at
all the different levels of our being as the basis of our nature as
agents of creative evolutionary emergence, a property we share with all
other species. These are not romantic yearnings and utopian ideals;
they arise from a re-thinking of our biological natures that is
emerging from the sciences of complexity and is leading towards a
science of qualities which may help in our efforts to reach a more
balanced relationship with the other members of our planetary society.
(Goodwin, 1994, p. xiv).

3. The emergent order from the chaos of discourses was a categorisation
in terms of five kinds of relationship - which can be read at
individual, team and organisational levels.
4. These five modalities of relationship are:

(a) the working alliance;

(b) the anticipated relationship;

(c) the developmental relationship;

(d) the personal relationship; and

(e) the transpersonal relationship.

Characteristics of the five relationship modes in relation to organisational learning/task:

the working alliance = the definition of the task

the anticipated relationship = interference with the task

the developmental relationship = improvement for the task

the personal relationship = the pleasure in the task

the transpersonal relationship = the meaning of the task

To illustrate the embedded and symbolic meanings, for each of these a
reproduction of a picture from an artist as well as a Peanuts cartoon
depicting the kind of relationship being explored was shown along with
anonymous examples from the discourse analysis. Everything was stripped
of identifying data to illustrate the nature of that relationships in
the learning organisations under investigation.

The Working alliance: the definition of the task

I think that after the times we've been through, everybody knows in
some part of their mind that even if they are confident that they can
get another job, they always know what could happen to anyone.

I feel more stressed in work these days. There is a restructuring of
the company and a lot of redundancies going on. Where there were seven,
there are now two of us - so there is a lot more work and I feel under
a lot more pressure.

Primary skills.....intuition
Being selective about picking up data/intuitive about what has been
going on constant recalculation. A recasting of information, knowledge,
data, making judgement on what's important, what's not in terms of
personal effectiveness. The brain behaves better than technology. A lot
is rooted in knowledge and experience. making judgement about what will
matter and what not; sorting/filtering. It feels it's intuitive, but
I'm not sure it is. if you've been for many years in the system, you
get to react automatically.

What do you do.....when you don't know what to do
Thinking back to the immediate questions; basic questions to clarify
the situation/problem enough to start know the networks you would
apply. Classic business manager problems, members of executive board
these concern largely issues outside the normal experience; for the
other sort of problems, I talk to the broader networks, somebody will
recognise it, be more of an expert, go out there and look at something
comparable, from a similar situation.
Personal strategy...
Put as many brains in the problem as possible. Try to build teams, with
a variety of strengths. Decisions are not taken entirely on your own,
you're accountable for things, you have to feel comfortable for what is
decided. Some times the evidence is not very clear.
Tell me an experience of failure..
The most dramatic came early on when I first came to the region, I had
to work on a difficult managerial exercise; we could not recognise some
of the analytical cues; it was rather a political problem. That's where
the scenarios are useful. How this might play out and what cues to look
for.
What most useful...did you learn?
understanding forces and things that caused the essence of management leadership
THE ANTICIPATED (OR TRANSFERENCE) RELATIONSHIP

The anticipated relationship: interference with the task

Failure...coped
In the last organisation, I failed to manage my boss effectively. It
went sour, it took me a long time to recognise that and make a decision
to go out of the organisation. I was rather too loyal to the boss. It
was a fast-moving organisation, turning people around at an alarming
rate. It was poor judgement to stay there. I should have been more
personally focused. I didn't cope very well. I saw it wasn't working. I
negotiated the exit quite well. Dramatic effect; loyalty blown apart.
Psychologically painful. shock, disillusionment, I got hurt and
depressed. But I learned a lesson

Colleagues...success
a mixture. Some more jealous, some more supportive. They are all junior to me, anyway.

In the past, people at work used to be envious of others' achievements.
They tend not to be so much now-less envy. In the home environment, it
is different; smaller things upset me.

Wrong/ineffective
Too lenient. I had to set a clear framework for working. It they are
under pressure, I get some of it on myself, which is not effective,
neither for them, nor for met.

Recognise that a lot of things have not changed. I can track my ideas
and where they come from. Commitment has not change. I react in a
predictable, but excitable way.
I've yet to find any kind of formal learning versus helping in
preparing somebody to be the leader of an organisation; there is a
certain loneliness; competition was extreme. It was considered
inappropriate to talk around. It was very isolating.

Very frequently. The conversation I am having with you is not too
dissimilar to the ones I have with my colleagues, so you can check on
this tape how much I have laughed. I probably try to make people laugh,
especially subordinates. Contract labour force is a very hire-and-fire
environment (and that is not a good idea-it doesn't work). I am in a
position of great power over this workforce and sometimes they don't
even like to be seen talking to me. So, when I am relating to them I
will try to use jokes, conversation that will make them feel
comfortable.

In research which I have done on the psychology of the famous, people
interviewed say often that "fame" or renown caused them to lose their
membership card of the human race; the smallest flaws become
exaggerated, medium goodness becomes exaggerated, too and people become
cardboard figures (Clarkson, 1998).

THE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP = THE PLEASURE IN THE TASK

This has been tried to be fostered in management by the get together
bonding of people from work. The difference between the developmental
and the real personal relationship is that the first is partly
conditional, in that it is trying to build better people, better
management etc.; the personal relationship is more unconditional. It is
being around with other people that you like to listen to, to hang out
with, whether something comes out of it or not. People are seen as
people in this kind of relationship and would even do things that they
would not originally want to do, just for the sake of the relationship.

You can get such a relationship from state leaders, or from opponents
in sports, where there is warmth, a sense of human beingness. This
doesn’t have to be nice and loving all the time. The difference between
that and being friends with somebody is the work context. You can have
friends as well as friendly colleagues. It is a kind of oil that makes
the relationships smoother.

The developmental relationship: improvement for the task


My process: who is in the team, get them involved, agree on things,
keep going on that level, build on that and go forward again.

Regarding Failure....
Building a lot of emotional support to the new development, difficult
to get it right, for political reasons it did not go on; a few years
ago, I would be very bitter and just try to talk to 5th columnists etc.
which is what they did; now, I'm more pragmatic. I think did we make
this move as we could? yes, let's see if we can do it in a different
way; reacting emotionally is a waste of energy

Management style changed?
Cultures different than before. I did the same study in the old
organisation. Before, matched culture of management to power games.
Now, it is different, but also different problems. I have changed my
style, it was quite defensive before, now it is softer and more open.
By softer I mean changes in terms of style, not always having to
fight/compete for a voice. It's much freer, easier now.

Anything important for which you changed your mind?
I have opened more. I have accepted more the politics involved in being
open. More skill is needed, though; but when you're open, you have more
change of getting people on board, by being more transparent; I have
not yet been let down by being open; one has to moderate, though.

I got a lot of investment on me from my company in terms of personal development. 10,000 on leader program
me, pay is enough, but for the private sector is low, for me it is OK like that.
Unlearning?
Yes. Shedding some of the old behaviours, slightly less assertive. More
thinking and reflecting. A bit more creative, because in my old role I
was at the business end, the commercially oriented end, rather than
strategy/policy

New sciences?
General awareness; not especially using them. I suppose they are
background knowledge, that plays into general thinking, reflecting on
how the organisation is working.

What has been ineffective has been the use of information technology
and other administration systems, especially in the civil service- and
I think that has been less effective than people think it is. There is
not enough people contact and people rely too heavily on it.

I have become more confident and less worried about control. Old
management style used control when things got difficult. People are far
more confident if they have the space and time to find their own
solutions and be creative. I don't feel quite so concerned and
accountable for everybody else.

The personal relationship: the pleasure in the task

Important thing about which you changed your mind:
The importance of things outside the work environment. Being in a
stable family environment. That was an anchor, especially when the
organisations are so volatile. Careers can be changed overnight. There
are other precious things.

Meeting...somebody says to you don't know what you're talking about
It depends on whether they are correct or not. You have to respond,
sometimes they can be right; it's like playing poker, admit it and
laugh, sometimes this happens with issues not preplanned in the agenda.
Sometimes you're in meetings because of your seniority, not knowledge.

We come together, agree on things, then come back to it; I like to work with people who share what I do.

It is executive directors who work in different styles that I find difficult to work with

Having children, made me parsimonious about how I use my time, and also
opened new directions about how people are thinking and feeling.

I laugh quite a lot. Try to smile anyway, very important

I ask somebody who does know. You should never feel isolated. There is no shame in asking

How do you relax?
With my children. I have an active home life. I don't relax a lot. We do stuff together, like cinema, theatre and concerts.

Strategy for solving problems?
Quite analytical. But I can be quite judgemental. Was a robust ESJT,
now ENTJ. I like to be decisive even if it is the wrong decision; there
is a need for it.

The biggest issue with which I still struggle but which I have improved
upon is learning to bite my tongue. To give people space and time so
that they can invent their own solutions. Don't give them the answers
before they get there. An example: I was on a visit to one of my sites.
We were shown around by a gentleman and my boss was with me. The
gentleman did not say the things that I thought were appropriate. he
didn't speak well on the issues which are fundamentally very important
to the company. I wondered what I should do. At the end of the day I
got this gentleman in and spent an hour and a half on a Friday evening
talking about what was on his mind-and so much stuff was coning up. He
thought I had been asking about production, not safety. I realised that
it can take a long time in someone's company for them to surface. Now,
he is almost an evangelist on the issue-once he got it, he headed off
in the right direction. So, listen, and give people space

The transpersonal relationship: the meaning of the task
Given up assumptions.....beliefs
Quite a few from time to time. Some potentially incompatible; conflicts
of beliefs such as if you have a passionate belief in democracy versus
respecting people's needs
There is however, a certain order of importance

Best conditions for creativity?
On holiday; subconscious is a wonderful thing

Is there a particular set of values/philosophical positions/spiritual beliefs?
A mix of things: Classic Christian and Jungian influence; when I was at
school, it was hip to read Jung; Judaeo-Christian approach to life and
other beliefs like the welfare state and the accompanying social
responsibility, a contract between the individual and the state; of
Jung, more influenced from ideas of myth and society, neglected
unconscious and other such powerful images

There is moderate change. We respond to political situations. There is
a market there, affected by the change. It is an imposed change on
assumptions and beliefs; it is not driven by me

I have questioned my role as a force for good in society. Seeing that I
didn't give society anything back. Three years ago there was a
conference in Eastbourne organised by children in response to the
adult's Rio Summit regarding the environment. I spent three days in the
presence of 12 and 13 year olds talking about the environment, and it
dawned on me that what we are creating is for our children. I think
that is why I took it as a cause, as a way of putting something back
and building a positive future for our children. I do that through my
business. I influence things. It is integrated in my life.

Leadership as a management style rather than a 'control and command'
style of leadership. Giving people the space to do things rather than
telling them what to do. And then seeing people perform at
extraordinary levels. And then providing them with the support.
Providing them with the direction, obviously-but then giving them the
space to be creative

I think first thoughts are intuitive. When someone has a proposal or
there is a new structure, you have an instant thought about it, and
that probably predominates even after you have thought it through. I
think first reactions are important.

Some people have very fixed sets of principles and stick to them. I am
not like that. I believe that life is not a fixed framework. People
change, you change, life changes, priorities change, everything
changes. That is my value system. Everything is in a state of
relativity and flux. That's it. Regarding chaos and complexity. Of
great influence was a speaker we had at the learning set: Arie de Geus.
He enabled me to come to terms with complexity.

Example of analysis of one question:

How much money do you earn, and do you think this is enough?

I earn .....and I am happy with that. The problem is with travelling and travelling expenses

How much money I earn? I'd say about .....thousand pounds a year

Is it enough?

No, it's not. I think on occasions it sounds a reasonable amount of
money, then you backtrack and say what was that amount of money per
hour. And then you look at the guys who disappear at 4:30-5:00 in the
afternoon, and you think on occasions, perhaps they've got it right,
'cause there is a difference between them doing the 37 hours a week and
you doing 55 to 60 to 65, whatever that is.

Hmm, and you can't go out and play.

No (laugh)

Yeah. Absolutely. They can go out and do something like flyfishing

I earn about ......per year. I spend it all on my family, but it is not
a motivation for me. What motivates me is what I am doing.

If I am not being creative enough or my skills are not being
utilised-that is more distressing to me than not earning enough money.

.......per annum. I believe that for the job I am doing, the company treats me very well.

In total, I have no idea. Somewhere just less than.....Do I think it is
enough? I depends on the context. In a balanced view of the overall
state of society, it's vaguely immoral. In terms of it in competition
with other people inside the organisation, it sometimes seems poor.

Yes, I think it is enough. I earn around ....and it certainly meets all my needs, and more besides probably.

I earn ....I think it is far too much and not enough. I have adjusted
my lifestyle to the point where it is not enough. I aim to be the chief
executive of the new organisation and I intend to earn more. On the
other hand, I know in my heart that that's stupid. I am ambivalent.
Comparatively, it is at the lower end of what people doing my kind of
job earn. On the other hand, it is a pretty decent wage compared to
what I used to earn and what other people earn.

DRAFT WORKSHEET FOR OVERVIEW OF FIVE RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK
RELATIONSHIP Contribution to the Organisation Human Motivation Some Signs of Dysfunction
Working Alliance

(Behavioural Psychology) Achieving organisational tasks

Practising learning - necessary for survival
Doing

Competence

Productivity
Lack of clarity of goals, objectives, roles

Task-dominated culture

Sterile, driven work climate

Unfinished (Transference)

(Freudian Psychology and other secondary process + paradigms) Grit in
the oyster Unlearning of dysfunctional outdated learning - to
Completion Resolution 'Barriers to change'

'Resistance'

Fixed, disruptive patterns of relationship

Developmental

(Adult Learning and Development Models) Developing the organisation's
human resources Learning of identified knowledge, attitudes and skills,
growth and development Loss of excitement, lack of 'stretch'

Boredom

Neediness

Burn-out

Over- or under-protection of staff

Personal

(Humanistic Psychology) Developing the organisation as a working
community with a healthy culture Enjoying learning in community -

Shared organisational goals

Intimacy

Friendship

Community

Loss of contact, lack of feeling of being personally appreciated

Uncontactful conflict and competition

Fake bonhomie

Loss of task focus

Transpersonal

(Heraclitus and other primary process + psychologies such as Jung,
Rank, Complexity) Developing wider organisation as a whole mission and
purpose Unlearning in order to discover emergent order -

Chaos & Complexity

Meaning & Archetype

Holism - Implicate Order

Connection & Connectivity

Paradox & Contradiction

Quantum Physics

Unwillingness to trust primary process - life energy at work:

Meaninglessness

Anomie

Ennui

Disregard of ethics

COMMON PROBLEMS IN ORGANISATIONS LEARNING IN TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP THEORY
Another brainstorming session took place so as to identify common problems in organisational learning:

A number of issues (66) were brought up by the participants as
hindrances/problems with reference to organisational learning. These
included

management issues: 'people in power reluctant to reveal ignorance and
incompetence', 'lack of clear processes for implementing organisational
learning', 'updating documentation'
cultural issues: 'need of a culture of listening and dialogue', 'international cultural differences'
procedural issues: 'pace of work-no time to reflect', 'time to learn,
to plan, to reflect, to review', 'not reviewing failures from the past'.

In terms of the five relationships, the problems for organisational learning were the following:

Working alliance: Sharing of language, time for reflection, what
measures we agree on and at what speed, issues of understanding and
meaning, issues of structure, updating the documentation

Unfinished relationship: Lack of openness, intentions and
misunderstandings, fear of failure, fear in the organisations,
knowledge being power

My hypothesis was "fear of failure and pseudocompetency". This indeed
emerged - several mentions of "fear". There is a connection with the
learning cycle in Achilles -diagram.

'I have developed a capacity to talk about something without
understanding it. Capacity to bullshit works. Everyone is in the same
boat. You develop a sense of what is and what isn't important but
occasionally you get caught out'.

'Never be dogmatic. To try things out, to innovate, to test things out.
To be properly risk-taking. In organisations we all talk about risk
taking , but 99% of the time we don't mean it at all. My previous chief
executive professed to be a risk-taker. 'I don't mind taking risks-as
long I am sure nothing will go wrong'. That's the mentality we work
with. We don't accept that risk-taking may lead to failure. We don't
cherish failure as something positive in our development'.

Developmental relationship: Intentions misunderstood

Personal relationship: Open-ness

Transpersonal relationship: Energy and priorities

An increasingly useful qualitative method used to describe the
"experience" of an issue is called textural description (Moustakas,
1986). This is a phenomenological subjective analysis, meant to convey
through the use of the respondents' actual words and phrases the
essence of the experience in a way accessible to empathic
identification. Such a textural analysis of the responses in our pilot
research project reads as follows:

As problems or obstacles to organisational learning, can figure the
lack of clear processes for implementing organisational learning
practices alongside with a distrust of management and a possibility of
perceiving it as 'just another management fad'; in addition to that,
there are limitations due to the lack of time to reflect, the lack of
competence in using dynamic thinking tools and support systems to
capture and codify knowledge and the challenge of coping with the needs
of a geographically dispersed and mobile workforce. There is an obvious
need to accept uncertainty and unpredictability, to involve the body
and emotions in the company workings, to keep the enthusiasm going, to
allow for fun and a culture of listening and dialogue without
prejudices, to support international cultural differences, overcome
cynicism, arrogance and apathy (especially from the people in power),
as well as the gap between rhetoric and practice, cultivate openness,
tolerance and a common understanding and a shared desire to achieve.

I agreed to make some preliminary comments about the different company
learning cultures as I perceived them from the very limited data
available from these interviews.. These comments are not to be
construed as definitive in any way, merely as stimulation for people to
compare and contrast with their own experiences. In order to compare
culture more deeply and profoundly, one would need to have more
interviews, perhaps also more transcribed meetings of teams and meeting
in order to build a more accurate and useful company culture profile.

Subjective impressions from the interviews:

Company B: the Working Alliance was as a whole a strength in the
company. There were positive fits in the personal relationship. There
was evidence of some transpersonal elements, though this can be
difficult for an industry which sells a product which is necessary, but
rather nondescript. The organisation seems to be actually overcoming
transference. There is the risk of sticking too much onto the Working
Alliance.

Company C: The organisation runs on people’s good will. There is a lot
of commitment, as well as personal values. The Working Alliance, (the
infrastructure) appears little bit weak. This could lead to some degree
of apathy or cynicism, as personnel hold values that are dissimilar to
the organisational experience. There is a connected risk or opportunity
that comes from caring more for the people. Putting stress on people
could be a breaking point. The values and beliefs of the organisation
are placed on the personal level, and since the leaders come from the
government, there is a sense of an ill-defined task at play.

Company A: There is large use of methodologically implicit use of the
new sciences. There is limited transference in the organisation. There
is a strong developmental element, however, a sense of isolation from
community and a sense of competitiveness, which displace the importance
of personal issues. The intervention in this organisation would be the
realisation that it is time to be, not time to reflect; there is
actually a need to make some emptiness.

Company D: : There is a lot put in the company into development,
however, some of it is wasted. There is a lack of connectedness to
transpersonal issues as well as evidence of transference. The approach
is a little bit quantitative, perhaps if the development initiatives
were acted in a different fashion, they would be more effective. Now
they seem a little bit mechanical, although the company is explicitly
devoted to Learning.

All the companies have strengths and weaknesses that are not the same for all of them. Variety is needed.

It was stressed in the meeting that future research could well focus on
building the profiles of the company cultures, so as to build on their
strengths and minimise their weaknesses. The important and innovative
aspect of such research would be that it will be collaborative, with
equal participation weight on the part of the academia, the companies
and organisations as well as consultants.

___________________________
Thanks to Eve Mitleton-Kelly of the LSE for the invitation, SOL
Organisations for financial support, Vincent Keter, Katerina
Nicolopoulou and Elaine Clifton for research assistance and
administrative support from Rita Cremona and Su Anstey.
Special thanks to Katerina Nicolopoulou for composing the Executive
summary and helping at the drafting of the Learning Cycle for Research
and Organisational Interventions.
___________________________
References
Clarkson, P. (1993), A small kitbag for the future, MEAD, the Journal
of the Association Management Education and Development. Also in
'Order, chaos and change in the Public Sector: papers from the third
public sector conference', organised by AMED, 18-20 January 1993, pp
17-27; and in P. Clarkson (1995) Change in Organisations (pp. 107-120),
London: Whurr.
Clarkson, P. (1995a) 'The Achilles Syndrome: A competence/confidence mismatch', i-to-i.
Clarkson, P. (1995b) The Therapeutic Relationship, London: Whurr.
Clarkson, P. (1998), 'The psychology of fame: implications for
practice' in P. Clarkson (ed.) Counselling Psychology: Integrating
Theory, Research and Supervised Practice (pp 308-324), London:
Routledge.

Clarkson, P. and Angelo, M., 'Organisational Counselling Psychology:
using myths and narratives as research and intervention in
psychological consultancy to organisations', in P. Clarkson (ed.)
Counselling Psychology: Integrating Theory, Research and Supervised
Practice (pp. 319-336), London: Routledge.

Dodgson, M. (1993) Organisational learning: a review of some literatures, Organisational studies 4, 3: 99375-393
Fractal Cosmos Diary 1991
Goodwin, P. (1994) How the Leopard Changed his Spots, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Kvale, S. (1996) Inter Views: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Miller, A. and Mezias, S. (1996) 'Ugly Duckling no more: pasts and
futures of organisational learning research', Organisation Science 7,
1: 88-100.
Mitleton-Kelly, E. (1997) The Implications of Complexity for Strategic
Thinking (prepublication) 'The Future of Strategic Management', The
Strategic Planning Society Annual Event, London.
Peters, T. J. and Waterman, R. H. (1983) In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best Run Companies, Free Press.
Roos, A. (1997) Alchemy and Mysticism: The Hermetic Museum, Cologne: Taschen.
© Prof. Petruska Clarkson, PHYSIS, 12 North Common Road, London W5 2QB. Tel/Fax: 0181-567-0388. (June 1998)