Changing Conversations in Organizations

This book draws on the theoretical foundations laid out in earlier volumes of this series to describe an approach to organizational change and development informed by a complexity perspective. It sets out to make sense of the experience of being in the midst of change. It focuses on the essential uncertainty of participating in evolving events as they happen and inquires into the creative possibilities of such participation. Most methodologies for organizational change are firmly rooted in systems thinking, as are many approaches to process consultation and facilitation. This book questions the way such thinking suggests that we can choose and design new futures for our organizations in the way we often hope. Avoiding the widely favoured use of 2 by 2 matrices, idealized schemas and simplified typologies that characterize much of the management literature on change, this book encourages the reader to live in the immediate paradoxes and complexities of organizational life, where we must act with intention into the unknowable. The author uses detailed reflective narrative to evoke and elaborate on the experience of participating in the conversational processes of human organizing.

"Must of the thinking about orgazational change suggests that we can choose and design new futures for our firms. Questioning this idea, this book also describes an approach to change and development informed by a complexity perspective.."-Business Horizons

Dr Patricia Shaw (University of Hertfordshire, UK)