Some thoughts about participation that emerged in conversation with Chris Blantern – a very wise person.
Some leaders treat participation as an end-in-itself – a box to be ticked in the proverbial good leader manual. Arguably, how conversations happen is more important.
Depending on prevailing organisational culture, meetings can be discursive rather than action orientated; or, it can be action-orientated without being discursive. Frustration with either pattern can generate adversarial forms of talk, which could, in turn beget active or passive resistance.
There is a skill/art to facilitating/hosting conversations that generate genuine engagement. However, there is only so much a facilitator can do at each event or meeting. Organisational actors need to be attentive (listening), appreciative (thinking the best of others), curious and inquiring. For many these skills do not come naturally, they have to be learned and practiced. Attending to developing this culture should be the raison d’etre of organisation development practitioners.
I am a ‘People Practitioner’ who has, over the years, been swept up by the tidal wave of change that has seen my profession go from being called Manpower Management to Personnel Management to Human Resource Management, and now back, well sort of… to Systemic People Management. I came up with the last phrase because I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with working within the confines of the ubiquitous neo-liberal approach to categorising and organising people. I believe that people are people, not merely assets, human capital or resources. While we do find fulfilment from PRODUCTivity, we are ultimately human beings, not human doings. I would like to transcend who we have become and becoming in a marketized, monetarised world and leave the corporatist worldview that reminds me so much of the allegory of Plato’s Cave.
I love God, my family, playing guitar, following Arsenal, travelling and taking and editing photos. This website is a celebration of all these things and more.
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