Much of the current writing on organizations adopts the language of systems thinking - although what this means in an organizational context differs considerably from writer to writer. And management theorists and practitioners are not alone in viewing organizations in this way. Journalists, politicians, inquiry chairmen, and other commentators regularly refer to "the system", or "systemic failure" when pronouncing on events that hit the headlines. So seeing organizations as systems, which have the capacity to act in some way separately from the actions of ordinary people, appears natural and straightforward. But is it?
The issue
From an informal coalitions/complex social process perspective, what people think of as an organization comprises people interacting together for a purpose - or, more accurately, for a diverse range of purposes. Some of these are explicit, seen as organizationally legitimate and openly acknowledged. Others are implicit and/or covert. Some are mutually supportive. Others are in conflict. As people interact from moment to moment, both in conscious pursuit of these several purposes and habitually, various formal artefacts (such as policies, strategies, structures, processes, procedures, and the like) are constructed, named, and announced, before being interpreted, drawn upon, adapted, or ignored by others. The characteristic patterning of people’s thinking and acting (often reified as "the culture") similarly emerges from this same conversational process.
Organization (or rather the ongoing process of organiz-ing) is therefore an act of co-creation between human beings in the normal course of their everyday interactions. And this process is in constant flux. In other words, the reality of organization is being continuously (re-) constructed in the currency of people’s present-day interactions: A dynamic network of self-organizing conversations, which does not respect boundaries – whether those implicit in the notion of a formal organization or others which define the supposed limits of this or that "system".
Judging by comments made in many on-line and real-world exchanges, though, this conversational construction of organization seems to present two fundamental difficulties for those who see, think and talk of organizations in "systems" terms.
Continue reading "From talking in terms of systems to talking instead of systems" »


“There is no such thing as society” - An informal coalitions perspective
Around 25 years ago, the then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said,
"There is no such thing as society."
Clarifying her view, she went on to say,
"There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves."
Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987
In an apparent contradiction of this position, her latest successor David Cameron has put what he calls "the Big Society" at the centre of his party’s political philosophy. However, according to the Conservative Party website, its aim is to help people,
"To come together to improve their own lives. The Big Society is about putting more power in people's hands - a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities. We want to see people encouraged and enabled to play a more active role in society."
In ideological terms, then, there appears to be little difference between the two positions as regards the sought-after action ‘on the ground’. In Lady Thatcher’s terms, though, this represents a denial of the very idea of society and a belief in the sovereignty of individuals. Whereas today’s Prime Minister sees it as the essence of society in action. So which of them is right?
The focus of informal coalitions is on the underlying dynamics of human interaction, rather than on the ideological stance that such interactions might reflect. And, viewed from this perspective, they are both right. And both wrong.
Continue reading "“There is no such thing as society” - An informal coalitions perspective" »
Posted on 09 April 2013 in Acting Politically, Complexity, Current Affairs, Informal Coalitions - Origins and Approach, News Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: Big Society, David Cameron, informal coalitions, Margaret Thatcher
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