| INDEX | Part II: Storytelling Skills and TAMARA |
PART I: HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR CRITICAL THINKING AND STORYTELLING SKILLS?
What skills do managers need? Dr. Pat Bradshaw, who leads York University’s innovative MBA program, has some interesting answers. He advocates teaching, what I call "critical thinking skills" to MBAs.
We talk a lot about framing and reframing. Basically, this means re-defining what a problem is and coming up with a deeper understanding of the problem through multiple reframing techniques which generate more creative solutions. .... We actually work hard to unsettle people. We teach ontology, epistemology, postmodernism, feminism, complexity theory, and sustainability—we ask people to confront their deep assumptions. By understanding their deep assumptions, students are better able to see situations from different perspectives and generate more creative answers (Press here for HR.com article).
What is the difference between Critical Thinking and Critical Theory (as well as critical theory, Critical Management Studies, and Postructuralist Theory)?
Critical Thinking came up in the Management Education Development (MED) 2004 symposium with Stewart Clegg, Henry Mintzberg, myself, and several others. Mon Aug 9 MED Distinguished Speakers: "Role of critical management studies in management learning".
Mintzberg focused on what is critical thinking (as a common sense kind of logic), whereas Clegg and I were focused on critical theory (e.g. Frankfurt School, critical theorists outside said school, and Critical Management Sudies - CMS in our own AoM, as well as poststructuralists such as Foucault, Derrida, & Kristeva). There are quite a few differences in all these traditions. I think we were finding some common ground in the ballroom session, but missing many of the nuanced differences.
For Mintzberg, the style of critical thinking is centered around his contextual (some would say contingency) understanding of the relation of strategy, system, and environment. The Ctritical Theory, CMS, and Poststructural approaches have analytic frames that are used to effect the critical analysis. For example, genealogy of ideas for Foucault, neo-Kantian versions of ethics of answerability for Bakthtin, Marcuse, Adorno, and Horkheimer (these are not quite the same, but general idea is people are complicit in organizations, and cannot escape responsibility as was attempted by munchkins claiming to be doing good while participating in the Holocaust); with Kristiva and another concept of Bakhtin, the poststructral approach is to look at intertextuality (how one text is citing and informing other texts, and therefore complicit in the larger social field).
At issue in the dispute between critical thinking and more polyphonic thinking, is that critical thinking has a unitary perspective. Even a stakeholder model, popular in organization studies, tends to be some manager trying to think through how other stakeholders would react to a strategy of some firm (which is not the same a direct democratic participation of the stakeholders in a more polyphonic dialogic). Looking at critical thinking,
A resonable definition for critical thinking -- "entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference." http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/definingCT.shtml
Poststructural theory would go a step further, and look at the dualities in the reasoning, the structures of hierarchy in the text, and develop implications for a less hierarchical model. I call this resituation in a deconstruction analysis (Boje, 2001 narrative methods book, sage).
Anyway, I hope this gives some clarity on the similarities and differences of critical thinking and CT, ct, and poststructural theory.
As you embark on the semester, attempt to stretch your mind. Become an intellectual - USE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. Graduate from Level One to higher levels of THINKING over the course of the term. Or do the following: When my dad wanted me to learn to swim, he picked me up, carried me to the end of the dock and threw me in. I learned to swim! Other people, like to just stick their little toe in the water, then cautiously get more wet. It's up to you how you want to develop your critical thinking skills.
Level One Logic (Undialectic Dualism
Logic) - Opinions and Generalizations about the world are like noses,
we all have one. I can not grade your opinion. Agree or disagree,
it's up to you, but it won't count toward a grade. What counts is
to use and exercise regularly your higher level critical thinking skills.
Level One reasoning is undialectic, linear, dualistic, and ahistorical.
STOP LINEAR THINKING! It is all about choosing between materialism (of Cartesian
positivism and its resumption of blind neutrality of facts) and the idealism
(of relativistic social constructions = all truths are created equal).
This dichotomous logic (either/or; good/evil; fact/value; material/ideal;
logic/emotion) is undialectic in trying to understand the relationship between
truth and human action as a matter just of choosing the right or wrong explanation.
It is linear in that A leads to B which leads to C. STOP DUALISM! Western
thinking is overcome by oppositional logic (either/or). And it is dualistic
in that it is a choice of A or NOT-A, rather than seeing the potential of
B, C, D, and E. STOP AHISTORICAL LOGIC. To overcome naive logic, look at
systems, dialectic, and deconstruction logics that follow. The reason
Level One logic is naive is it ignores the forces of change and transformation
in history. It finds one fact, fixes it in an overhead or 2 by 2 (two facts
related), without looking at the rhizomatic interplay between them through
the lens of time. LEVEL ONE logic is socialized by culture (the boob tube
and other media, and this university education). When you catch yourself
saying "that is just common sense" know you are now using Level
One habituated logic. Please try the following ways to break out of Level
One logic:
Level Two - (Systems
Logic) - Learn Systems Level Thinking (How is the part related to the
whole?; How are both changing in relation to each other through time and
space?; What are the Complexity issues?). Adorno (1967) argues that our
cultural phenomena (parts) are mediated through the social system's totality
(wholes). Simple Resource 1.
More complex Thinking - 2
-->Try Holons Skills
Level Three (Dialectic Logic of Critical Theory) - Dialectic logic is most noted in work of Hegel and Marx, then systematized by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Theodor Adorno, Leo Lowenthal, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Franz Newmann, Otto Kirchheimer, Fredrich Pollock, Eric Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse). At its most basic level CT is about incorporating contradictions of Level One in a contextualized and historical analysis of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
What is Critical Theory? CT for Carr, 2000a: 208, 210) "refers to self-conscious critique that is aimed at change and emancipation through enlightenment and does not cling dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions.. Critical theory defends the primacy of neither matter (materialism) nor consciousness (idealism), arguing that both epistemologies distort reality to the benefit, eventually, of some small group." CT sought to move beyond LEVEL ONE undialectic reasoning. CT reformed Marist theory by rejecting class interest analysis in favor of cultural analysis of social totality (Carr, 2000a: 213). CT also rejected Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management for being an oppressive implementation of both system theory and structural-functionalism. Structural-functionalism sees every structural form as having a function. CT favors instead an historical and contextual interpretation (as opposed to just a static-time-fixed boxes and lines representation). "Synchronic" looks at interrelationships of parts and the whole at one point of time, while a "diachronic: approach looks at the historical transformations of society and its social concepts (See SEAM). Therefore, LEVEL ONE is synchronic as opposed to diachronic, or more important the interplay of the two as a total system (LEVEL TWO). CT sought a new praxis (combination of theory and practice) that would transform institutions (corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizational behavior and management) with a dialectic logic that is synchronic and diachronic.
What is Dialectic Logic? DL for Marcuse (1993: 445) "invalidates the a priori opposition of value and fact by understanding all facts as stages of a single process - a process in which subject and object are so joined that truth can be determined only within the subject-object totality. All facts embody the knower as well as the doer; they continuously translate the past into the present. The objects thus 'contain' subjectivity in their very structure." That means LEVEL ONE is too simplistic in separating Fact from Value as a choice, rather than seeing them in their mutuality (both exist) and in a process of continuous change and transformation. Finally what is a "fact" is mediated by and through society (Adorno's theory of the social totality) and by the observer's presence (Heisenberg Principle in Physics).
What is Dialectic Thinking? As a study guide, begin with the "Critical Thinking and Critical Theory approaches" essay (press here). For the Frankfurt School of CT, dialectic thinking builds on Hegel and Marx triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. In the synthesis the contradictions found in LEVEL ONE are transcended, not by reconciliation or compromise, but by a new more transcendent "working reality" (Carr, 2000a). Dialectic is beyond dualistic (LEVEL ONE) thinking. As in tragedy, the thesis possessed the seeds of its antithesis all along (See Carr, 2000a: 213). And the synthesis "is the understanding of the unity that holds between the two apparent opposites (in Level One logic), and which permits their simultaneous existence" (Stepelevich, 1990 as cited in Carr, 2000a: 213, I added the parenthesis). for Adorno, 1984: 38) "dialectics is the quest to see the new in the old instead of just the old in the new." This makes linear periodization (i.e. pre-modern, modern, and postmodern epochs) problematic, since one can be found interpenetrating the other (interpenetrating in Mary Parker Follett's term from the 1920s, See Boje & Rosile, 2000). "Each triad represents a process wherein the synthesis absorbs and completes the two prior terms, following which the entire triad is absorbed into the next higher process" (Carr, 2000a: 213). Instead of linear thinking (cause leads to its effect), we have reciprocal and nonlinear thinking (cause and effect are mutual, one found in the other, and circular as in Nietzsche's treatment).
"Causality" eludes us; to suppose a direct causal link between thoughts, as logic does - that is the consequence of the crudest and clumsiest observation. Between two thoughts all kinds of affects play their game: but their motions are too fast, therefore we fail to recognize them, we deny them- (Nietzsche, 1967 #477 as cited in Boje, 2000 Narrative and Anti-Narrative Research Methods Chapter 7, Sage forthcoming).
One way to DECONSTRUCT, is to look at METASCRIPT and METATHEATRICS in what I call the SEPTET elements:
SEPTET ANALYSIS (See SAMPLE STORY and SEPTET METHOD).
1.
Work Organization Frames
– Taylorism meets Fayolism inside Weber’s bureaucracy “Frames
are ideologies and mind-sets, realized in narratives and theatrics”
(Boje & Rosile, 2002a). The ideological frames are Taylor, Fayol,
and Weber.
2.
Working Condition Themes
–Freire’s
(1970) thematic fans include oppressive
relation of older to younger workers; relations of different ethnic
groups (Swedes and Italians); sexist humor; minimal.
“The
thematic facets of each fan are explored with questions about how
people submerged in the reality of Working Conditions code and decode
their material conditions, as well as their existential situation”
(Boje & Rosile, 2002, Chapter 4, p. 14). Coding and decoding is
played out in Scene 3, when the blame game is played. Rather than
problem solving and work process redesign, there are lay offs in Scene
4. Instead of “low wages,”
or “getting drunk” at work, the feeling of blue collars workers being
exploited by white-collar privilege, is played “Banana Time” flight
from reality and boredom (Boje & Rosile, 2002, Chapter 4, p. 14).
3.
Training Characters
– Trowbridge Conveyors is “an
ever-changing cast of characters” (Boje & Rosile, 2002,
Chapter 4, p. 17). Not much real training
going on among this cast of characters, which is leading to errors
in the cutting, people are not multi-skill trained. Leaders (Manager,
Vic) are not training others in the cast to be more effective performers
(some crisis management training post hoc by Vic to Boje). Instead
of training people in multi-skills (multi-skilling) or in meaningful
workflow redesign, there are just lay offs and new recruits.
4.
3 Cs Dialogs –
lots of cussing on the shop floor; split in blue and white-collar
dialog grouping. Problems in all 3 C’s. “).
People get so busy they forget to dialog, which can result in unresolved
and widespread conflict accumulations; conflicts break out and can
no longer be contained by dialog” (Boje & Rosile, 2002, Chapter
4, p. 17). This is evident in Scene 3 (The Blame Game). The only time there
is dialog is during crisis. And this degenerates into the blame game.
5.
Timing Rhythms – Linear time segmentation,
without any networking of flows. Linear work process not sufficient
to deal with recurring cycles of orders and lay offs, without learning
to correct systemic dysfunctions.
“The
cast of characters, without training and retraining gets out of phase
with the contextual needs of customers, markets, and the fluctuations
of the economy” (Boje
& Rosile, 2002, Chapter 4, p. 17).
Trowbridge has a rhythm
of its own going, which is not learning from its customers, or its
own history of mistakes.
6.
Strategic Plots –
“Plots are defined as the grasping together of characters,
actions, rhythms, themes and frames, with dialog that affect the organization
in the spectacle of Metatheatre” ” (Boje & Rosile, 2002, Chapter
4, p. 18). The strategic
plot of this company is not working. The plan (script) to make Framer
John’s conveyor is symptomatic of deeper root cause and effect relations,
of strategy that is not being implemented. The plans are not being
REAL-ized. Only pieces of the plan are becoming REAL in the world
of tasks, work, processes, and conveyors. Planner Phil is not doing
any kind of participative planning; he is quintessential Taylor reincarnate;
he is part of the split between planning and working and between working
and quality inspection (QC is not that well implemented even as a
split out function). According to Aristotle (cited in Boje, 2002b
SEPTET definitions), “A tragic theme is a catharsis of the emotions
of pity and fear in the spectators (Aristotle’s Poetics, chapter
1449b: line 25). This strategic plot has a tragic theme; the hero
Boje has a reversal of fortune). The lay offs are supposed to be an
object lesson to the blue collars, so they will not repeat the tragic
errors of the laid off workers. But, as an object lesson, it is a
poor one; the workers learn to pity and to fear, but not to do their
work any better than before).
7.
Socio-Economic Spectacles –
“The spectacle is the moment when the
commodity has attained the total occupation of social life” (Debord,
1967: #42). “The concentrated spectacle is where both production and
consumption are constructed in a totalizing self-portrait of power
that masks its fragmentation” (Boje, 2002a What is Situation?). The
concentrated spectacle here is Taylor/Weberian/Bureaucracy. It is
a portrait of power that masks several fragmentations (vertical as
well as horizontal and between customer and the production process).
There is a concentrated spectacle of
making the conveyor and the megaspectacle scandal of seeing that it
keeps falling over. The spectacle of this commodity is the spectators
gathered around to see the Conveyor that keeps Falling Over.
The Socio-Economic consequences is, we can imagine, the loss
of this customer, loss of repeat business from word-of-mouth; the
loss of worker’s trained badly, to employ one more time (in the usual
solution) workers who are green (know little or nothing), and paid
low wages (making sure they are inexperienced like Boje). The White
Collar spectacle is the dance of blaming the Blue Collars, rather
than doing the collective dialog needed. Instead of collective dialog,
these guys are playing out a dysfunctional metascript for their concentrated
spectacle.
NOW RESITUATE - to come up with something workable
Level Five (Advanced Deconstruction
Logic) - Very Advanced MBA - Double Logic Skills -- Boje, D. M. 1999a
Is
Nike Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote? A Postmodern Organization Analysis of
Double Logic
Level Six (Nietzschean Logic) - Off
the Deep End - for MBA's Only - press here.
What I like about Nietzsche is he goes beyond (Level One) choices of Good
and Evil, to recover moral reasoning. Nietzsche moves us beyond linear causal
reasoning. Nietzsche reminds us (1967: #551) causality
is an "invention: a projection of our will onto an event, making some
other event responsible for something that happens. "Causation involves
a narrative structure in which we posit first the presence of a cause and
then the production of an effect" (Culler, 1981: 183).Nietzsche
is about seeing the moral choices in a careful relating of theory and practice.
Level Seven (Integrating Quantitative
and Qualitative Reliability and Validity) - Doctorate Level - Validity
and Reliability Issues --> post-graduate
level of validity and reliability. What makes one assertion valid and
reliable and another not? Please consult (Post-Doctorate Level)- Qualitative
Research Methods - Boje's Study Guide. Try Module
Two on Nike and a sample intertextuality analysis. Intertextuality has
many versions. The one I like was pioneered by Julia Kristeva.
Level Eight (Postmodern Logic) - for beginners, please start here "What is postmodern?" study guide. Intermediate level, proceed to Postmodern Organization Theory study guide. For MBAs and Ph.D.s see Disney as Tamaraland (Boje, AMJ 1995) [Focus on universalisms, essentialism, totalism, voice, etc.]. Next level of difficulty is Postmodern Narrative Ethics (Boje, 2000). At this point you will have debunked several misconceptions about postmodern logic.
One, postmodern thinking is not simplistic relativism (you are thinking of naive social construction theory). In the naive relativism argument, we postmodernists are accused of not being able to have a logic position because to a postmodernist all perspectives are equal. Wrong grasshopper. Some perspectives are more contextual, more local, better argued, more emancipatory, and more ethical than others.
Two, postmodern thinkers are accused of not being able to engage in moral reasoning. Wrong again. Postmodern writers such as Zygmunt Bauman write about postmodern ethical reasoning. The fact that there is more than one moral claim in most important issues of our time does not mean "one can just say anything" or "one can hole any position at all and be ethical." Postmodern logic contends that in acts of critical self-reflection we reason aobut our complicity in the world, the choices we make and don't make (e.g. in consumption, production, and distribution).
Three, postmodernists are sometimes accused of being subjectivists, unable to compile and use statistics. Again, this is a gross reduction. There are postmodern writers using statistics, including postmodern scientists (in every field you can name). The postmodernist points our the subjective choices made in how numbers get composed (by state and corporation), assumptions made in using statistical programs (some more appropriate to the question at hand than others), and what leaps of faith are made in the interpretation of numbers, charts, tables, and graphic displays (See Gephart's 1988 book on Ethnostatistics for more on these three points).
Ready to be tossed from the dock -->
For the Scholars -- Any book by Deleuze and Guattari - I like Thousand Plateaus
(any paragraph is a thesis). This is where you get a great treatment of
concepts such as rhizomatics and body-without-organs (BWO). For the
postmodernist, it is all about self-reflection, seeing yourself as complicit
in the production, consumption, and distribution of post-industrial and
postmodern global culture. Every purchase you make is a form of complicity,
a moral choice about global economy. Too often these choices are made without
active reflection on your interplay with the global economy, including who
makes what you wear and under what working conditions (See SEAM,
upper leaf). Too often, our intellect acts to separate us from praxis.
If you are a careful student, you will note I have set
up my own Eight Level hierarchy, and violated at least six of my own
assumptions (can you spot all six?). But, keep in mind the
point. The point is to do more with your answers than give LEVEL ONE
opinions. Get at the facts, get at the contrasting perspectives, and
develop your critical reasoning and critical thinking skills. Try to resituate
in the end. Become and intellectual, not just an MBA or Ph.D. mechanic
of Western logic. - dboje@nmsu.edu
Selected References on Critical Theoary and Postmodern Reasoning
Alvesson, Mats and Stanley Deetz (1996) "Critical theory and postmodernism approaches to organizational studies." In S.R. Clegg, C. Hardy and W.R. Nord (Eds). Pp. 191-217. Handbook of Organiztion Studies. London: Sage.
Alvesson, Mats & Hugh Willmott (1996) Making Sense of Management: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1993) Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Best, Steven (1996) The Politics of Historical Vision: Marx, Foucault, Habermas. NY: Guilford Publications.
Best, Steven and Kellner, Douglas
(1997) The Postmodern Turn. NY/London: The Guilford Press.Boje, David (1995). "Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of Disney as 'Tamara-land.'" Academy of Management Journal. 38(4): 997-1035. See http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/DisneyTamaraland.html
Boje, David (1998) "The Postmodern Turn form Stories-as-Objects to Stories-in-Context Methods." Published in 1998 Academy of Management, Research Methods Forum #3, on line - Robert Gephart, Editor. See http://www.aom.pace.edu/rmd/1998_forum_postmodern_stories.html
David Boje & Robert Dennehy's (2000) Managing in the Postmodern World
1st Edition 1993; 2nd Edition 1994; 3rd Edition September 2000. See http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/ for book on line.Carr, Adrian (2000a) "Critical theory and the management of change in organizations" Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 13(3): 208-220).
Carr, Adrian (2000b) "Critical theory and the psychodynamics of change: A note about organizations as therapeutic settings." Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 13(3): 289-299).
Cilliers, Paul (1998) Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. NY/London: Sage.
Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Trans. By Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Derrida, Jacques
(1991) A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds. Peggy Kamup (Ed.). NY: Columbia University Press.Gephart, Robert Jr. (1988) Ethnostatistics: Qualitative Foundations for Qualtitative Research. Qualitative Research Methods Series #12. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Hassard, John & Martin Parker (1993) Postmodernism and Organizations (Eds.). London: Sage (1st edition, 1993).
Linstead, Steven. (1993) From postmodern anthropology to deconstructive ethnography. Human Relations. 46: 97-120.
Marx, Karl (1867) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. The Process of Capitalist Production. Trans. S. Moore and E. Averling. F. Engles (ed.). NY: International Publishers. First published 1867, English 1967.
Nietzsche, Frederick (1967) 1967 The Will to Power. Trans. Walter kaufmann & R. J. Hollingdale. NY: Vintage Books.
Situationalist International Strasbourg Pamphlet (1966) "On the poverty of the student life." This pamphlet was a prelude to the May 1968 revolt in France and has been translated into more than a dozen languages and reprinted in over half a million copies. Ken Knabb's English translation English translation is at http://www.slip.net/~knabb/SI/poverty.htm
PART II: STORYTELLING SKILLS - Tamara
I am a storyteller. So are you. Stories are windows to the soul. I can only tell you my own story or else I get into problems of story ethics. To tell another's story without his or her permission will get anyone into trouble. But these are not the stories I mean. I mean the stories that are essential to good practical theory. Every OT theory is a story about organization life, told with a worldview (press here), scripting characters into a romantic or tragic, sometimes comedic or ironic plot. In organization theory (OT) the CEO, the worker, the Academic, and you the students all tell stories and each from a different worldview. How do you assess stories (press here)? There are ways (press here).
Walter Fisher’s (1984, 1987) narrative
paradigm theory, for example, uses structuralist
constructs of narrative rationality and coherence
(fidelity and probability) to a priori
decide which are good or bad stories (press
here for study guide). Fisher uses value-based reasoning skills to
see is a story is believable. Since we all are storytellers we all use
these skills (more or less) every day.
In large system change and in small business consulting, the organization has a story to tell its public, but it is not always agreed to by all. Here to questions of story-rationality and story-coherence arise. And organizations will try to make you believe they are more rational and coherent than is reasonable. This is what PR firms were invented for, to tell a story others will want to hear. Behind the official stories lurk so many other stories of many other stakeholders.
When you do corporate strategy, what are you
doing if not telling a new story (press
here for study guide)? But, whose story? And people and
organizations, as I shall present, can restory (press
here). And OT is between stories, between the mechanistic accounts
of Hobbes, Taylor, and many others and the organic, living accounts we
are here to explore (press
here for study guide). OT is between the story of nation states
and global corporate enterprise, between sustainability and the new
Biotech Century, between a place and virtual workplace stories. Making
sense of all these stories is what you are here to learn in OT.
I suggest you begin with Critical Thinking Skills (press
here).
Story Resources for you to explore You will be writing individual and team storytelling assignments (If you need some review of storytelling, click here for leader storytelling, here for strategic storytelling, for stories in context click here, to learn story deconstruction click here, for living stories click here, and for story references click here or web references click here. You will be invited to find your own unique story of OT. Or to play the storytelling organization game where these are more reside (click here). To use critical theory and deconstruct stories (and worldviews) is part of your syllabus objectives (click here for syllabus):
4.Be able to apply critical
approaches to the analysis of organization life.
1. Organizing and Managing Storytelling as a comprehensive sensemaking method of the Storytelling Organization - Boje (1995)
"The 'work' of contemporary organizations" is making sense of the storylines within them.
"People do not just tell stories: they tell stories to 'enact' an account of themselves and their community… Stories shape the course and meaning of human organization."
"The performance of stories is a key part of [the way organizational members make sense of their experiences] and a means to allow them to supplement individual memories with institutional memory… Organizations exist to tell their collective stories, to live out their collective stories, to be in constant struggle over getting the stories of insiders and outsiders straight.
At one extreme, the storytelling organization can oppress by subordinating everyone and collapsing everything to one "grand narrative" or "grand story." At the other extreme, the storytelling organization can be [creatively liberating, by showing members that there are always a multiplicity of stories, storytellers, and story performance events…
Because of the opportunity for multiple interpretation, much of management is about judging stories and storytellers…. Stories discipline by being explanatory myths, qualitative simplification, conceptual construction, and perceptual themes that interpret and frame organizations and characters. …
Organizations can not be registered as
one story, but instead are a multiplicity of stories and
interpretations in struggle with one another. People wander
the halls and offices of organizations, simultaneously chasing
storylines -- and that is the "work" of contemporary
organizations" (Source David M. Boje "Stories
of the storytelling organizations" A postmodern analysis
of Disney as 'Tamaraland,'"
Academy of Management Journal, 1995).
2. Storytelling as a critical management skillHiller et al. (1999) also state the relevance of storytelling to you as a skill (I have added some web links for your learning exploration):
In recent years, organizations have
begun to use storytelling as an essential, general technology
- to develop and communicate corporate strategy (Shaw, Brown,
& Bromiley, 1998, for more click
here), to generate more subtle and
effective market research (Lieber, 1997), to motivate and
educate workforces (Durrance, 1997, for a contrary view click
here) and executives (Berman, 1998), to
connect leaders with their followers (Bennis, 1996; Stewart,
1998; for more click here),
to bring tacit knowledge to the surface (Stewart, 1998, for
more critical ways, click
here), to empower women and other
"silenced" minority organizational actors (Goering,
1996), to facilitate the internalization of corporate values
and norms (Hansen & Kahnweiler, 1993; for a contrary view click
here), and to both change and
consolidate corporate culture (Durrance, 1997; Stewart, 1998;
another view click
here). Organizations employ variations
on storytelling methods - e.g., "learning histories"
(Roth & Kleiner, 1998) - to facilitate innovation,
problem-solving and continuous learning. Our students and we
need to understand how to most effectively use these powerful
technologies (p. 3).
3.
I will translate the first summary (above) of managing and organizing
storytelling to this class. You are now in a
storytelling
organization (hereafter STO) composed of team
STOs and studying other STOs. You are telling stories to give an
account of yourself, your team, and the organizations you study. Your
oral and written performance of stories is a key part of how you, your
peers and I make sense of your OT experiences. It is a way for you to
supplement your individual learning with the need of NMSU (an
institution of higher learning) to award you a grade.
Your team exists to tell its collective stories in a couple of storied presentations, and your team lives out its collective stories over the term. You and your team are in constant struggle to get the stories of team members and outsiders straight.
And this means getting your story woven into the collective storying your team enacts. A team is a small storytelling organization. At one extreme your team STO can oppress by subordinating your story and collapsing member stories into one "grand narrative" or "grand story" (here the differences in member stories get lost). At the other extreme, your team is a STO that can be creatively liberating, by showing insiders and outsiders that there are always a multiplicity of stories, storytellers, and story performances. This is a critical point, since each reading and each organization you analyze can be storied from a multiplicity of worldviews (e.g. the four ways of knowing we covered) or as it says in OT syllabus:
1.Knowledge Work and Management;
2.Corporate Imperialism;
3.Ahimsa;
4.Political Economy; and,
5.Postmodern and there are others (click here).
Listserve BULLETIN Storytelling Students do not just tell stories: you tell stories to "enact" an account of yourselves and their team. And these stories you tell in class and in listserve shape the course and meaning of your own OT of human organization. You and the organizations you analyze and explore cannot be registered as just one story. You are a multiplicity of stories and I as instructor struggle to interpret them in fitting ways. Please use the listserve as a way to explore alternative ways of knowing and multiple OT worldviews. According to OT syllabus: When readings are assigned for the week, you will be expected to respond to one or two analytical questions by the Monday prior to the class meeting on Wednesday. In addition to Web-based reading responses, the instructors may choose to give short written assignments to be completed in class or by the next class session (click here to check the posted assignments). Some Listserve guideposts
4. How to tell and analyze stories?
A. The Written Story
B. Story Analysis (So how do you communicate what you learned?)
C. The Oral Story
You will tell stories orally in your team reports and from time to time just to participate in class. Here are some hints and guidelines.
The Team's Storied Journal to Team-hood (Partly in your Story Journal, but from time to time you will be invited to share your personal and oral story).
By mid-semester and certainly by the end, your team will have constructed a story of its heroic or tragic journey through the perils of OT. All teams start in confusion, as imperfect strangers in a strange land. This we all know.
6. How to Use Storytelling to Learn Organization Theory (OT)?
Storytelling is the simplest ways to learn as you experience, to make sense of what you are learning, and to communicate that sense to yourself and others.
Keep a story journal. Respond every week on the list serve. You are going to collect stories about a business, a service learning site, your team, and reflect upon the course material. As you read and list to a lecture, please reflect upon similar and dissimilar stories in your own life and work experience.
Your task for the semester Develop your own story of OT, your own unique worldview of OT, and be able to tell the story of your journey to find your own worldview?
IN your storied journey to find your unique OT, you may find that your personal journey did not match your expectations. You my find that you discovered numerous OT's and had some trouble or an easy time mixing and matching bits and pieces to create your own view. You may have made a big stretch or done a little one, but one just right for you. Your team may have been a joy to behold with more harmony than any you experienced before. Or, yours could have been the team from hell. In either case you have many stories to tell.
Be self-reflective
7. Restorying (click here for study guide)
Restorying is a way to reflect back upon the muck and mire, on a story you are living that you no longer wand to script your life space. Restorying is something I have done with my own life, and something I do when I consult to problem-saturated organizations. It does not mean putting a lot of affirmative fuzziness over a problem. It does not mean inventing a fiction. No to restory is to take control of the story of your life. It is to deconstruct the attempts other people (and you too) have made to script a story for you with a character for you to play out that is not a plot you want to continue. This is called deconstructing the dominant story that runs you. We all get caught up playing a game or a role in our life at home, play, and at work. To
To restory is to identify moments in your life where that character, plot, and script had a different twist, an ending you prefer. Collect these acts of resistance to the dominant story and craft them carefully into the character you want to become and the story you want to live out. You can (and do) author your own story. I learned that I recruit people into my life so that I can play out the dominant story I learned from my parents, teachers, early work experiences, and the Army. I was living a story I did not want to be.
I found out the secret of storytelling. We create stories embedded in dominant storylines of organizations, various institutions, our society, and the world. And we can restory.
I hope you become a better storyteller, improve storytelling organizations that are everywhere, and whenever you need, restory your life. I hope you move from Level 1 up to higher Levels of logic and discourse in your critical thinking abilities. - David Boje.
Play Storytelling Organization Game
