Kevin Roberts of Saatchi and Saatchi has written on his involvement with a new project: Imagination@Lancaster. I have commented that this is a worthwhile and potentially exciting project and one that I look forward to seeing its products and progress with some eager anticipation. However, call me skeptical if you like, but do I detect something of a recent drift in emphasis? Certainly, I do if I read Kevin's recent post literally.
Initially we were treated Friday, June 22, 2007 to the possibility that Imagination@Lancaster would provide a forum for the reimagination of '…the way universities interact with industry and government, and the impact we could all have by pooling resources in one university'. This is, from my own point of view, a noble and worthwhile aim that seeks to adress a specific area of social reality - the boundary between diverse yet socially critical realities. It is an aim with at least a focus.
We are now (Tuesday, July 17, 2007) treated to a process of translation and diffusion – where the dream for Imagination@Lancaster is apparently now '…to be a global leader in imagining new concepts and new collaborations for the common good'. Are we missing something in translation? I fear we have at least (from my own point of view admittedly) lost the noble focus of our noble cause.
The world (we might assume from Kevin) is clearly bereft of creative ideas and our potential saviours are – we are encouraged to read – a '...bunch of collaborators with a total commitment to sustainability'. A noble cause, yes! But the mere possession of a strong will to act as passionate catalysts to bring the future into the present simply introduces a design for some new grand narrative. Is the pooling of this '...intellectual, passionate capability...' a rejection of the “potential of all” to contribute to '...the brining of the future into the present'? This might unfortunately be read as a rejection of social potential of “Stalinist” proportions.
Kevin Roberts writes that core to the Imagination@Lancaster team is the belief that '…creativity happens at the boundaries, the exceptional is in the everyday, and that uncertain ground is the place to be if you revel in a challenge.' We do not want, may I suggest, that the Imagination@Lancaster team become '…a global leader in imagining new concepts and new collaborations for the common good'. Neither do we need the application of their power, and their clear potential, to show how others can begin to imagine new concepts and new collaborations for the common good – we are all capable of creativity and using our imagination.
What is really required is a focus for the facilitation of collaborative government/industry/academic strategies, policies and action for the creation of new spaces for play; space within which all of society can participate (voluntarily) if they so wish, rather than the apparent suggestion that our future is to be created by only a select few!
Actually, I have a strong belief that Kevin's intention was not to suggest that the Imagination@Lancaster team was, in some way, a reified collection of individuals with some grand design on the world. I still await more on this potentially groundbreaking idea! The question for me remains the retention of an appropriate focus.
Wednesday 18 July 2007
Saturday 14 July 2007
A View from Wien (2): On Dancing Organisations!
In this second post relating to my attendance at the 23rd Colloquium of the European Group for Organisational Studies: Beyond Waltz – Dances of Individuals and Organisation, I want to look at the notion that organisations might be brought to dance to their own melody.
I have written, in a work-in-progress essay, that the synergy and rhythm that might be identifiable in the social negotiation of an organisation’s common purpose can be metaphorically likened to an organisational performance of dance. Here I use the concept of “dance” as it generally refers to patterns of human or animal movement occurring in a form of expression, social interaction, or some other form or method of non-verbal communication.
The associated concept of “rhythm” within a dance can be interpreted as the variation in length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. Here rhythm involves patterns of duration that are phenomenologically present in such events and, seen in this light, both the concepts of rhythm and dance are inextricably linked. I might therefore surmise that forms of “dance” may be seen as being dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints. They range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to virtuoso techniques (such as ballet).
Within the colloquium, a number of people sought to draw correlations between organisation and various forms of dancing; they sought to provide insight into how organisations might be read through these forms. Thus, taking one case in point, I was party to a basic lesson in the Argentinean Tango: a dance of passion! Here I was encouraged to think about how entrepreneurial managers are required to lead their organizations through exploring the passion implicit in that dance. Other dance forms were discussed. However, perhaps the most enlightening experience for me was a session with Aurelia Staub, the Artistic Director of the Konnex Dance Theatre.
With Aurelia, our colloquium sub-group of some 20 people were not so much introduced to additional and specific dance forms, but more to the basic concepts of movement in space and time within a group environment. In a simple exercise, we were all led to the “dance floor” – a lecture room where tables and chairs had been cleared away. With only the simplest basic movements (forwards, left, right and backwards) and constrained by the boundaries of the room and the proviso that no collisions were allowed between people, we proceeded to move – in our own choice of direction – around the room. Observable from this exercise was the distinct possibility that people, given a degree of freedom, yet operating within certain basic protocols, could generate new and meaningful patterns of movement in which co-operation was implicit and the patterns themselves indicated a form of natural rhythm.
Can organisations be made to dance? Yes! My own belief is that the question for organisational research is not what dances are being practiced but, in order to better support managers in practice, how can we encourage the emergence of an organisation’s natural “dance” movement, and how might this dance then be choreographed within a shared common purpose.
I have written, in a work-in-progress essay, that the synergy and rhythm that might be identifiable in the social negotiation of an organisation’s common purpose can be metaphorically likened to an organisational performance of dance. Here I use the concept of “dance” as it generally refers to patterns of human or animal movement occurring in a form of expression, social interaction, or some other form or method of non-verbal communication.
The associated concept of “rhythm” within a dance can be interpreted as the variation in length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. Here rhythm involves patterns of duration that are phenomenologically present in such events and, seen in this light, both the concepts of rhythm and dance are inextricably linked. I might therefore surmise that forms of “dance” may be seen as being dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints. They range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to virtuoso techniques (such as ballet).
Within the colloquium, a number of people sought to draw correlations between organisation and various forms of dancing; they sought to provide insight into how organisations might be read through these forms. Thus, taking one case in point, I was party to a basic lesson in the Argentinean Tango: a dance of passion! Here I was encouraged to think about how entrepreneurial managers are required to lead their organizations through exploring the passion implicit in that dance. Other dance forms were discussed. However, perhaps the most enlightening experience for me was a session with Aurelia Staub, the Artistic Director of the Konnex Dance Theatre.
With Aurelia, our colloquium sub-group of some 20 people were not so much introduced to additional and specific dance forms, but more to the basic concepts of movement in space and time within a group environment. In a simple exercise, we were all led to the “dance floor” – a lecture room where tables and chairs had been cleared away. With only the simplest basic movements (forwards, left, right and backwards) and constrained by the boundaries of the room and the proviso that no collisions were allowed between people, we proceeded to move – in our own choice of direction – around the room. Observable from this exercise was the distinct possibility that people, given a degree of freedom, yet operating within certain basic protocols, could generate new and meaningful patterns of movement in which co-operation was implicit and the patterns themselves indicated a form of natural rhythm.
Can organisations be made to dance? Yes! My own belief is that the question for organisational research is not what dances are being practiced but, in order to better support managers in practice, how can we encourage the emergence of an organisation’s natural “dance” movement, and how might this dance then be choreographed within a shared common purpose.
Tuesday 10 July 2007
A view from Wien: The Death of an Art?
Last week I had the good fortune to enjoy a formal reception and dinner in the roof-top Justizcafé of the Justizpalast in Vienna. I dined in the company of some bright new minds in management and organisational research, drawn from many of the top universities of the European states, and including some others from around the world – from Australia, Brazil, USA, and Canada.
While – like me – there were a few older “newly qualified” academics, the majority demonstrated the real potential of a younger generation to contribute many, many years of dedication to developing the body of management and organisational knowledge. The diversity of talent at that dinner was impressive; like children, their futures stretched out before them. Talking to a number of them, both during the reception and dinner and before, during the earlier events of that day, you could see and hear the passion they held for their subject matter.
Following that dinner, and in a less formal grouping – enjoying a simple meal and beers in central Vienna – I reflected on the prequel to the 23rd Colloquium of the European Group of Organisational Studies, in which newly qualified PhD graduates, and those still in the process of study, had been given the opportunity to discuss their work with a faculty of established European academics. I recalled – not for the first nor, I doubt, the last time – Picasso’s notion that every child is an artist; the problem is how to retain the artist in them once he or she grows up. Here, to be metaphorical, in my presence were some of the talented child-artists of the academic world.
It is ironic that, given the state of funding of academic institutions – particularly in the business and management schools into which these new academics are beginning to find their way – the expectations placed on academics to publish in only “certain” recognised A grade publications, or to produce research output that meets the “requirements” of sponsors, can seemingly act to constrain the freedom of thought and interpretation that acts to reveal new knowledge. Is the space between the academic world and the business world being eroded to such an extent that it is no-longer a space for creative play? If we lose this space at the expense of making the academic world a potential profit centre – as with any other market place – are we seeing the death of yet another artform?
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