Antenarrative is a pre-narrative bet that a story can be told that will enroll stakeholders in ways that transform the world of action. Antenarrative dynamics includes the plurivocal (many voiced), polysemous (rich in multiple interpretations) and dispersed pre-narrations that interpenetrate wider social contexts.
Concentrated Spectacles – The first six SEPTET
elements (frames, themes, dialogs, characters, rhythms, & plots) are
constitutive of concentrated spectacles, the Metatheatrics of the enterprise.
From bureaucracy to democratic firms, there are ideological frames,
themes of dominations, more or less dialog, character roles, rhythms, and plots.
Diffuse Spectacles - As a firm establishes markets around the world, their
theatrics plays on the global stage. The
Metatheatre of a multinational corporation, for example, includes the public
image, the faciality, and starring characters in a global drama.
Frames are ideological viewpoints (mind sets) that
become translated into advertising, speeches to shareholders, the training of
leaders and workers, and inform the strategic plans (plots) of the firm. Boje
(2001a) and Gardner (2002) have theorized and studied the multiplicity of frames
(what they call the hybridity of frames) in complex organizations.
Integrated Spectacles – Integrated equals
concentrated plus diffuse spectacle in synergistic combination.
Interpenetrate is a term used by Mary Parker
Follett to show how two elements typically thought to be separate and
oppositional, such as capital and labor or management and union – can be
retheorized as interpenetrating. Follett
believed, for examples, that managers and workers could reach peaceful
understanding about a conflict, by doing a joint analysis of the situation.
In the Metatheatre Intervention method, interpenetration of dualities
such as Social and Economic, and particularly Organization and Theatre is
critical to this manual.
Leadership is theatre. Effective leaders do stage craft; Executives are directors who line up characters (human and non-human alike), in an antenarrative (Boje, 2001a).
Megaspectacle – Some firms, form time to time,
enact a theatric performance that collapses into Scandal, such as Enron. Over a
thousand press articles described Enron as a colossal scandal.
Metascripts is
defined as the multiplicity of scripts, mostly unwritten ones, that constitute
the micro and macro structure, behavior, social dysfunctions, and hidden
costs/performance potential of complex organizations. Metascript is a
multiplicity of scripts that define the field of actions, where strategies are
plotted, rhythms find their time patters, characters get trained in their lines,
and many feel con-scripted and imprisoned in their character roles and dialog;
there are themes of working conditions for on and off stage performers, and some
of the mindsets are incommensurate with other mindsets; a mess of directors,
script editors, and characters learning and refusing their scripted lines
compete for time on the center stage.
Metatheatre
- a multiplicity of theatres (formal, informal, off and on stage) simultaneous
in a TAMARA of sites; with starring and supporting cast of characters who
(1) affect the quality of products and services, (2) enhance or lower
productivity, and (3) constitute the concentrated and diffuse spectacles of
theatrical performances experienced by employees, investors, customers and
vendors. Metatheatre is defined here as the multiple and contending
theatres that constitute organizations. The Metatheatre can be defined as a
network of simultaneous, TAMARA-esque stage performances. In your organization
you can never see all the theatre performed; it is occurring simultaneously on
different stages; some you see and perform, but other acts you hear about from
colleagues, vendors, and customers.
Metatheatre Intervention Method is designed to be a companion to the SEAM (Socio-Economic Approach to Management) Method (Savall, 1974, 2000; Savall, Zardett & Bonnet, 1999).
Rhythm is defined here, as the interaction of order
and chaos, flowing, symmetry and asymmetry, improvisation and repetitive
recurring patterns. Rhythm can be (1) seasonal, cyclical, periodic; (2) linear,
with sequential alterations and durations; (3) display patterns that are more
chaotic.
SEAM stands for Socio-Economic Approach to
Management. SEAM is defined as a method for diagnosing hidden costs and untapped
revenue potential that through researcher-intervention with organization members
can lead to a healthier relation between Socio dysfunctions (in working
conditions, work organization, communication-coordination-cooperation [3Cs],
time management, job training, and strategic initiative) with Economic domains
(Overworked people, time wasted, wasted resources, lack of production,
non-creation of revenues, risks to survival and growth, and non-sustainable
ecology practices).
SEPTET means seven elements of Metatheatrics.
The seven elements are: (1) Frames, (2) Themes, (3) Dialogs, (4) Characters, (5)
Rhythms, (6) Plots, and (7) Spectacles.
Socio-Economic SPECTACLES – “The
spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of
social life” (Debord, 1967: #42). There
are four spectacle types combining in organizations: (1) concentrated
(internalized), (2) diffuse (externalizing), (3) integrated
(concentrated + diffuse), and (4) megaspectacle (scandals dancing on the
public stage). Spectacles are composed of the first six of the SEPTET elements
of Metatheatre
Spectacles can be defined as the Metatheatre of late modern and postmodern capitalisms where concentrated and diffuse corporate spectacles integrate on the global stage, but can veer into megaspectacle scandals, becoming the stuff of popular culture (e.g. all those new E-words and E-jokes after the Enron collapse turn into megascandals).
TAMARA, Los Angeles' longest-running play, a dozen
characters unfold their stories before a walking, sometimes running, audience.
The organization is metatheatric; there are multiple theatres in any
organizations; some are front stages, others backstage; some play in one office,
while others happen at the same time in other offices, other factories, and
other countries. The Metatheatre is a network of theatres, a TAMARA.
Strategic PLOTS – There are multiple plots, and people subscribe to different ones; some are implemented, most are not. Plots are strategic plans, part of the narrative (and we think theatrical) strategy of the firms (Barry & Elmes, 1997). 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. We are interested in the pattern of relations between plots, what we call “inter-plot,” and is known more widely as “intertextuality” (Boje, 2001a). We assume the organization has many plots, some central, and others on the margins, some new ones and collective memory of ghosts of prior plots.
Themes - Freire proposes a thematic methodology that
future studies can adapt to the investigation of Metatheatre spectacles.
Each spectacle is a “thematic universe” in what Freire (1970: 86)
defines as a complex of “generative themes.”
Theme Analysis is a dialectical decoding and re-coding process to get a holistic graphic image of the theme fan and branch process. After the thematics has been codified and graphically prepared, the SEAM team feeds script transcript quotes back to participants in the Mirror Effect intervention.
Boje, D. M. (2002c) Theatres of Capitalism. Book being published by Hampton Press (San Francisco). Available until publication, on line, at http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/theatrics/index.htm (password is required).
AND
Boje, D. M. & G. A. Rosile (2002a). The Metatheatre
Intervention Manual. To be published by ISEOR Research Institute of University
of Lyon 2, France.
Please contact dboje@nmsu.edu to offer suggestions that will develop the SEPTET of Leadership and Theatrics.
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