Personal Blogs

Having enjoyed 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks I not only went on to read many other Faulks' novels, I also went on to read much of Pat Barker too (for the First World War setting), and Ernest Hemmingway. Indeed, written at the time, HGWells take you to a similar place.

I find myself reading 'The Girl at the Lion D'Or'.

As is too often the case I realise half way through I have read it before; I should know the characters and recall the events and outcome: I don't. In fact, I am compelled as much to read it for the story as to satisfy this nagging feeling I know something dreadful or beautiful is about to happen. We get a little of each. And some wonderful interludes, as if Faulk's wove in some short stories that weren't going to endure as novels. (There's a nifty idea).

I want to talk about this lovely story, how Anne comes from Paris to work at the Hotel Lion D'Or. Who and what she is touches many lives, she is a catalyst for misbehaviour, action and change.

But I can't help but reflect on how I read, or skim read. I simply do not take it in, or rather, my mind leaves it on the surface, like a conversation overheard on a train. My mind, my kind of mind at least, or how it has formed, through a combination of genetics and experience, treats all readying as frippery. The consequence of this is that when I have academic reading to do it takes a huge effort to get anything at all to stick.

Reading on its own is pointless.

Historically I took notes long hand of everything I read. Historically, at school and university this would become an essay, the essay would be discussed in a small tutor group, filed, then looked at again months later for an exam. This kept that knowledge for the required period. Today I take notes through a QWERTY keyboard and upload. I am toying with adding pen to paper again. Then what? So long as I return to the notes and develop them the topic may become a living thing. Best of all, for me at least, are the vibrant tutor groups, or some online forums where I can find them. I need to wrestle with a topic, to agree and disagree, to read more, to seek out my own heroes and villains from further references. Then, and only over a period of months, if not years, do I make any sense of it, do I feel a sense of conviction about what I have picked up, understood or misunderstood.

I'm coming to apperciate why 'scholarship' takes time.

I don't take notes when reading a novel; perhaps this allows me to enjoy the second or third reading. You discover new things, you pick up the detail, nuances that weren't apparent the first time round. You may even get a better sense of the author's voice and purpose.

Can anyone recommend a good read?

I feel a novel a week inbetween OU reading and employment would be a good tonic for my mental well being. I beleive I work and think better too, but escaping from it all regularly.

You can immerse yourself in a subject and drown.

Although I was unable to attend the inaugural lecture 'Reflections on the UK Economy' of the Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Business, known to everyone else as Evan Davis, I have been able to catch up with it all and the following discussion online.

The talk/lecture was introduced by the OU Vice Chancellor Martin Bean

We learn so much that was news to me regarding Evan Davis.

The Today Programme

The Dragon's Den

Made in Britain

I know about.

I'd never registered that The Today Programme has an audience of 7m every morning, nor that that there is something to view on 'The Bottom Line' Radio Programme when it goes out to million on the BBC World Service.

His skill, which is apparent on many of his shows, and from this talk, we are told by the OU Vice Chancellor is that Evan combines his 'expert knowledge with expertise.

He was raised in Surrey, his father a Professor of Technology at the University. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford followed by an MA in Public Administration, Harvard.

He then went to the Institute for Fiscal Studies

Then as an economics correspondent at the BBC.

Many accolades and awards followed.

His skill is to make complex technical issues easily understood.

'Where brain meets charm' is the way the Vice Chancellor, Martin Bean, put it.

The Evan Davies Lecture

Or was it a talk? (is this how a good lecture should be?)

It's an interesting time as the Higher Education sector goes through change. He then repeated a sentiment he expressed on 'The Bottom Line' the previous Thursday, that it 'feels like an 1989': 'A bonfire of the vanities as we re-assess', he said.

I left the country in 1989 and worked in France. I missed it. I had work, I knew people in England who did no.

Listen to the people who change their minds or speak their minds.

Don't listen to anyone who expresses certainty; there isn't any.

Supply and Demand

• Basis of Keynesian Economics
• He refered to Paul Krugemnan, Peddling economies is a source for Evan's key thesis.
• At one point he questioned why nobody, he included, didn't 'lift the bonnet on the Financial Sector' to see what was going on.

The conclusion, to continue with the Top Gear, Man of Action, everything revolves around the car on the drive analogy, was that everything was running smoothly. Too smoothly? It was doing 110mph up the M1 and no one cared to flag it down.

In contrast, my late father a Non-executive director of Barclays Bank in the North East, had for a long time predicted doom and gloom in the housing market. 'The bubble will burst, it can't go on'. I'm sure he was amongst like-minded people at Barclays who rode the storm better than the likes of Northern Rock. That said, he had plenty invested in Northern Rock too. Is this the trick, to cover yourself both ways, don't expose yourself? To juggle, as Evan Davis goes on to say, 'austerity' and 'growth'.

The metaphor of the babysitting club

• Give or receive baby siting.

The Keynsian solution:

• Conjure up some demand.

It's a baby sitting and gardening club.

A bit more complex than Keynes, we have a supply problem as well.

There are too many people in some bits of the economy.

We moved towards up market goods, manufacturing and sectors around IP such as pharmaceuticals we became clever at what we do.

All the little things we were making were doing well in the second quarter of 2008, such as the Brompton bike.

The services, financial, legal and accounting ...

The UK is second biggest supplier of such services in the world.

E.g. The Shard.

• Safety messages in nine languages
• Run by Hong Kong hotel chain
• Owners will be foreign billionaires.

Picking up many little contracts, such as divorce cases when the super wealth fall out with each other.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

• Creative industries
• Universities

We export more foreign doctors than Germany.

An interesting point, but if they spoke English in German hospitals might that be the differentiator not the expertise? German engineers are better than British, possibly by dint of the apprenticeship system and engineers being trained on the job, the title having some cache too.

• Upmarket manufacturing
• Aerospace and defence

'We've gone too far and need to make a shift back'.

Bog standard manufacture is what developing countries have always done, we have moved on, we have 're-orientated'.

This is is his conclusion, that no matter the pain we need to retreat, to get back to a more basic level of manufacturing. But is Dyson going to bring the manufacture of the Dyson vacuum cleaner back to Malmesbury? I think not.

Paradigm shift with the crash.

Why would  lift the bonnet on financial services?

• Regional problems.
• The supply shift we need, but it's a difficult task.
• Simon Renlewis article vs. George Osborne.
• We need to borrow more until the recovery takes hold ... But.
• Build up the tradeable side of our economy.

So what kind of policies?

• The role of universities in export
• The global finance sector not looking at the UK's medium sized business.

METAPHOR

• Subsidise gardeners to become babysitters.
• No point in paying people to dig holes to fill them in again.
• Austerity vs. Growth.

QQ1

From Surrey Technologies

The UK Government has just provided £10m to the UK aeroscpace industry while the French have given their aerospace industry a boost of 500m Euros. Does the UK lack ambition?

(An interesting question as 'Ambiton' was the theme of 'the Bottom Line' two weeks later)

If you can't raise it privately, why should the tax payer ...

Hard for companies in the UK to raise money.

Got to be very measured about it.

QQ2 Peter Cook

Does the Public Sector need to get smaller?

The non- tradable sector (hairdressers, what about Vidal Sasoon and the creative sector?) But no response

QQ3

Is the economy is too important to leave to the economists.

Economists

Have had a tough three years for credibility.

Much of it useless or disappointing.

Lawyers as Chancellors.

N.B. People need to announce themselves.

QQ4 Doom and gloom on the BBC kills my sales to sports cars.

Casual effect ... The BBC by and large do their job.

The BBC have a single narrative, so may be up or down for a period.

QQ5 Can we do to make the country more entrepreneurial?

Cultural change, Dragon's Den reflects and contributes. The more who do it, the ore will do it. Infrastructure say of Silicon Valley.

QQ6 David Backham, buying up toxic assets. Why? Spend on infrastructure? VAT

Bank of England buying bonds ... Should we be spending more on infrastructure. But conjuring up such projects isn't as easy, say the A11. Already got cross-rail, Olympics done.

QQ7 Question, low carbon economy and how will in help.

Not in the short term, but will as prices balance. Invest where we feel.

QQ8 Stuart Forrester, from german engineers, MA at OU.

A bit of either, Japanese showed us how to run a car plant. All comers welcome. And let us have our own. It is a global world, so cannot retreat.

A point to finish on.

The innate abilities of the British Public. Never going to be a smooth path.

Always going to go too far and tack back.

SAILING METAPHOR

Don't need to berate ourselves ... Self-criticism, various false price signals, shift resources ... We're a medium rank developed nation.

• Team Forming  (Henry, 2006:189)
• Forming and storming in which members establish their identities (Tuckman, 1965)
• Establish group norms and practices.

'Only after people feel recognised and norms are agreed is the group likely to perform well.  (Henry, 2006:189)

A problem to solve:

• Problem exploration
• Idea generation
• Implementation
• Analyse the situation
• Define the problem
• Develop options
• Select a strategy
• Develop an action plan

Parallel and sequential activities required for new product development.

Personal development:

• Piaget (1929) referred to often and read for the MAODE (Masters in Open and Distance Education, with the OU)
• Erickson (1959)
• Maslow (1962)
• Kohlberg (1969)
• Perry (1970)

Development of society, civilisations, agriculture, and industrial.

'It is possible to subdivide the onotogenetic and phylogenetic stages differently'. (Henry, 2006:190)

• Ontogentic means: 'The origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult'.
• Phylogenetic: 'Relating to or based on evolutionary development or history: a phylogenetic classification of species'

(See more: Henry on 'Creativity, Management and Well-Being').

Can you teach someone to swim if they won't get in the water?

You can take a horse to the trough, but you can't make it drink?

What therefore will motivate, drive, persuade, cajole, convince or oblige a.n.other to blog?

I'm seeking advice and help here as I am on a mission to initiate and nurture 12 new bloggers over the next four months. It feels like cheating to go on a quest for those who blog already and call them mine but surely this is the crux of the matter. I can preach to the converted, until then my words will fall on deaf ears.

Invite people to enjoy a variety of successful bloggers to help them find their way? How many do I have listed here? 100+ but where's the attraction in a list, you need guidance.

Define a blog?

Academics I quote and review here say you can't. They are beyond simple definition, but 'electronic paper' where people spill words, images, video (though not coffee), where they aggregate other people's content, majestic lists, dumb notes, a writer's journal, an academic's draft papers, a student's e-portfolio.

Is there a role for a blog buddy or blog secretary?

I believe Richard Branson has a blog and Twitter double,i.e. He doesn't write a word of it himself. That would be cheating. I can't write 12 blogs for other people (even if I write/produce or create some 16+ of my own).

Stuffing in things you've already written is fine with me.

I call up content from a diary I started in my early teens as well as from 2,000 odd blog entries posted from 1999 to 2004 and the 1000 odd posted since early 2010.

Analogical thinking, from Churchill's 'iron curtain' to the invention of Velcro.

(Indeed neurologists believe there is a gene that causes human beings to think in metaphors and that it is exactly this that allows us to invent, in fact  creativity in the face of adversity still rings true today, though we are not  facing a Sabre-toothed tiger at the entrance to the cave, or changing climate  with the onset of the ice age.)

Analogy - transfer of an idea from one domain to another.

Metaphor - resemblance or flavour. A way of making the strange familiar p.85. Or the hard to comprehend (trees, ecosystems, architecture, traffic lights).

Morgan (1986)

Kinds of metaphor:

·         Mechanistic

·         Ecological

·         Social

·         Cognitive

·         Systematic

Metaphors as labels:

Manager as captain or conductor.

Morgan (1986, 1997)

·         Machine

·         Organism

·         Culture

·         Brain

·         Political System

·         Psychic prison

·         Flux

·         Transformation

·         Instrument of domination

ACTIVITY 4.1

1) Pick three metaphors (a, b, c) for organisations, for instance the organisation as machine, organism or political system.

2) List the characteristics you associate with each.

3) Try and relate each characteristic to a feature in an organisation that you know.

4) What features of organisations do these characteristics highlight, and what do they conceal?

A) As an orchestra, ABB, 1999. A corporate cliché I have seen applied to Abbey National and others. Visually it may have resonance, though the cost of featuring musicians, let alone playing a piece where used is prohibitive to all but the largest organisations. The characteristics are of complementary divisions 'playing the same tune' with woodwind, strings and brass, for example representing the different businesses. With a single conductor it may better fit the largely privately owned enterprise, say a Richard Branson and Virgin, or a Russian Oligarch, though no longer News International and the Murdochs. The features perhaps work for News International with newspapers and TV interests, even having a go with MySpace being largely media, whilst Branson is more the empirical Napoleonic conqueror of anything going?

B) As a strawberry plant, i.e. a federal organisation that has grown organically rather than by acquisition, perhaps like a clearing bank? Perhaps like a franchise such as Kall-Kwik. Or a retail chain, appropriately, such as Body Shop. The characteristics I think of are independently managed businesses that sell the same range of products, with common branding and sales materials, though with some localisation. This works well in relation to the plant performing differently on a variety of local soils/climates i.e. the same organism but in different settings/opportunities to flourish or not.

An empire

C) As an empire, where a holding company or private equity group has gone on the acquisition trail buying up businesses for the opportunity, rather than as sets of businesses that complement each other, so take over, create economies of scale in management and Head Office functions. The characteristics here feel as if it should be military with no good outcome, ala 'Wall Street', though there are or nave been more benevolent, squid give groups or holdings companies in the past such as the long gone Ferguson Industrial Holdings PLC, or perhaps Unipart Group of Companies (UGC). This suggests a dictator at the top, though the leaders can be benevolent even if a tall pyramid is the business structure.

If the organisation doesn't fit the metaphor, it is too simplistic a metaphor!  

The metaphor can intone a favourable or negative bias. For example, if asked in research to describe the organisation you work for as a car do you want it to be a Citroen 2CV, or a VW Golf, a Rolls-Royce or Ford Escort, a 1980s Ford Cortina or a Triumph Stag?

A business that is a machine I the digital age is surely going to get left behind through its rigid bureaucracies and hierarchies, a predilection for quantitative measures (ROI and KPIs) too?

(My concpetion of the School of Communication Arts. Which one am I?)

In the past I used successfully the idea of 'nurturing' to represent first a school (Arts College) and then my own services to graduate recruiters.

In 2011 it seems archaic to think of teachers or tutors in this way, people who are moderators, coaches or facilitators. (The ecological metaphor is used with a cartoon not dissimilar to my own p.88 not shown here for copyright reasons, to represent people as seedlings or potted plants).

From Table 4.1 metaphors of businesses in relation to:

• Character
• Flair
• Structure
• Climate
• Style
• Authority
•  Form
•  Control
• Decisions
• Strategy
• Adaptability
• Orientation
• Approach
• Procedure
• Attitude

ACTIVITY 4.2

Take expressions of the above for a 'Machine like business, as 0 on a scale and

'Organic' as 10, then decide where:

a) you place your own organisation and b) yourself.

ACTIVITY 4.3

I'll do this one offline.

Other metaphors might include:

• Brain
• Knowledge
• Learning

Network (Morgan, 1993) business as a spider-plant.

Federal (Handy, 1989) business as shamrock

Chaos and complexity.

Brains and cities.

Supporting 'patterns of transformation that emerge spontaneously in complex adaptive systems'. (Henry 2006:95)

Complex adaptive systems: termites, flock movements,  (anecdote of the aeroplane simulator managed by parts of an audience that  collectively cancels out the oddball, incompetent, inattentive or would-be plane-crashing individuals) p96 (Berreby, 1998:45 and Clark, 1997:75).

Self-organisation

'people do not need to be told what to do: they are intelligent agents continuously learning and modifying their behaviour on the basis if feedback'. Handy (2010:97)

See DVD 2, Video 3

N.B. The metaphors chosen tend to reflect the chooser's values. (Henry 2006:98)

Activity 4.4

What metaphor would you use to describe your organisation?

Activity 4.5

Describe the process of management as you experience it.

• Warlike
• Sporting
• Spiritual

Activity 4.6

A metaphor to describe my management style.

Activity 4.7

Note metaphors to describe daily management styles.

Activity 4.8

Take a current task, associate with it an appropriate metaphor then give it  another that is far removed from the first.

Organisational paradigms p.104

Functionalist paradigm - world as an objective reality.

Kolb (1984) drawing on Pepper (1942)

Four ways of thinking about the world:

1. Mechanistic
2. Realist
3. Organicist
4. Pragmatic

And thinking styles:

• Assimilator
• Converger
• Diverger
• Accommodator

Table 4.2 Organisational metaphors and paradigms

Activity 4.9 WHAT METAPHOR WOULD YOU OFFER FOR MANAGEMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY?

 I've experienced many, including from the table:

·         Chaos/postmodern/play

 I know of:

·         System/participatory/co-create

 I like the sound of:

·         Drama/interpretive/enact

For the 21st Century I like the model of the modern ideas lab in which innovative ideas are trialled, developed then kicked out with a chunk of financing to thrive however turns out best! 

This is the sink or swim analogy.  

But after suitable teaching/coaching. Or perhaps a metaphor of procreation, raising and nurturing a child then letting them go? So organic or animal (or in particular mammalian or human).

Stacy (1996) and danger of controls, procedures and Pre-specified objectives.

FURTHER READING

Morgan, G. 'Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle-solving', C9 in Henry (1999a)

FROM MY OU STUDENT BLOG

'Consider this medium as like talking with your fingers - half-way between spoken conversation and written discourse.' (Hawkridge, Morgan and Jeffs, 1997,  quoted in Salmon 2005)

Salmon, G (2005) E-moderating. The Key to teaching and learning online.

REFERENCE

Berreby, D (1998) 'Complexity theory: fact-free science or business tool?

Strategy and Business, No. 10, pp. 40-50.

Clark, A (1997) Being there. Cambridge, MA. MIT

Henry, J & the MBA Course Team (2006, 2010) B822 'Creativity, Innovation and Change'  Book 1 'Creativity, Cognition and Development'. The Open University Business School

Morgan, G. (1986 2nd 1997) Images of Organisation 

B822 WK 1 CREATIVITY (pp13-29)

Notes

Chapter 1 Creativity

Guildford (1959)

• Originality
• Flexibility
• Idea fluency
• Problem sensitivity
• Redefinition skills

Perkins (1981)

• Intrinsic motivation
• A personal aesthetic
• Sensitivity to form
• A capacity for objectivity
• The ability to take risks
• Mental mobility
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Problem FINDING skills

i.e. The art of problem-finding.

Kirton (1994) -an innovative approach to solving a problem by reframing the problem and coming up with something new. - an adaptive approach, building on what has gone before.

MENTAL SKILL

Thinking in metaphors. Don't we all, it's a human condition, a mutation of a gene (Ramanchandran 2011) De Bono (1984)

Is creativity a transferable skill? Can it be taught?

The year I spent at the School of Communication Arts would suggest that it can.

1.4 EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE AND MOTIVATION (pp21) CHANCE FAVOURS THE PREPARED MIND

How many hours had the Beatles put in playing together in Hamburg?

How many hours was Mozart made to practice by his father?

Think of the Renaissance studios were boys shadowed great artists mastering fine skills as a result of putting in the hours. Even sports people, think of or watch the extraordinary power and dolphin-like swimmers as they flip-turn.

Genius (and creativity) is the product of nurture, hard work, endurance and context.

The sophisticated 'chunking' of knowledge? I can relate to this from trunks, post-office boxes and really useful boxes of research, even using relational database tools such as FileMaker Pro. Look at JKRowling when she discusses writing Harry Potter with all her folders and files on characterisation, places and events.

Edward Land took three years to develop the Polaroid camera (Westley and Mintzberg, 1991).

What about Eddison, Dyson or Steve Jobs? Obsessive and relentless?

Weisberg (1986) talks of ten years, something picked up by Malcolm Bradbury in 'The Tipping Point' based on research done at the Berlin Conservatoire on violinists: 10,000 hours (ten years) delivers a concert soloist; 8,000 lands you in an orchestra while at 4,000 you'll be lucky to teach. i.e creative competencies are a matter of expert recognition.

P22 Amabile (1983, 1998) talks of the need for intrinsic motivation, to love what you do.

P22 Perseverance A capacity for risk taking 'Find the inventors and do not get in their way' they say at 3M, reportedly.

P22 CLIMATE And the need to work in an exploratory way.

P23 Do I feel safe and valued? VS Total Quality

’Creativity ... tends to emerge naturally where people are motivated and in a climate that encourages exploration, rather than rewarding exhibition'.

P23 It can be uncomfortable from time to time. Away from the individual to communities of practice.

P24 What are the systems that nurture and sustain creative endeavour?

ACTIVITY 1.5  Compare your organisation as a competitor. Answer a set of six questions:

Towards the self-regulation of complex systems.

P25  Like Wikipedia.

Creativity is more likely in organisations that are neither too stable and ordered (for example bureaucracies) nor totally disordered, the suggestion is that creativity is likely is more likely to emerge at 'the edge of chaos'.

1.6 CHANGING CONCEPTIONS

Table 1.4 on the changing meaning of creativity is telling.

TABLE 1.5 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CREATIVE PERSON

• Positivity (opportunistic and tolerant)
• Playfulness (mental flexibility, risk taker)
• Passion (motivation, commitment)
• Persistence (experience, problem-sensitivity)
• And Persuasion (creativity invariably involves interesting others in your ideas).

1.7 REVIEW

• Personality
• Mental flexibility
• Experience
• Motivation
• Organisational climate
• Context

REFERENCE

Amabile (1983, 1988)

De Bono (1984)

Guildford (1959)

Kirton (1994)

Perkins (1981)

Ramanchandran (2011)

Westley and Mintzberg (1991)

Weisberg (1986)

I am being disingenuous.

Having read 'What makes a leader?' Daniel Goleman in 'Creative Management and Development' Jane Henry (2006) I have some ideas.

Leaders I can think of, in business, in the creative industries, what is it about:

• John Hegarty
• Martin Sorrell

Rational? Cool? And then there's personal experience, of being led, or leading.

In the mean time, what does it take?  And from a different mould:

• Seb Coe
• Boris Johnson

Vision, ideas, conviction, charisma, purpose ...

You don't learn to draw by reading a book, nor riding a bike or leading a team; you must do and learn from the experience, successes and mistakes.

WHAT DOES THE READING TELL ME?

An art not a science. All have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Goleman (2006:120)

And effective performance. Table 9.1

• Self-awareness Moods, emotions and drives and their effect on others.
• Self-regulation To think before acting.

• Motivation
• Empathy
• Social skill
• Finding common ground
• Purely technical skills
• Cognitive abilities
• Emotional intelligence

Goleman (2006:121) by far the most important.

BUT how nurtured likely to matter, that ability to control emotions rather than respond to them.

What makes a highly effective leader?

SELF-AWARE

Initiative Strategic Vision A thirst for constructive criticism A self-depreciating sense of humour Play to strengths. But most important of all Emotional intelligence.

SELF-REGULATE VS Impulsive behaviour.

Self-regulation that frees us from being prisoners of our feelings (2006:126)

Creating an environment of trust.

MOTIVATION

Motivated to achieve. Passion for the work itself Keep track of scores. Committed to the organisation

EMPATHY

Thoughtfully considering the employees feelings. Coaching and feedback.

SOCIAL SKILL and rapport

N.B. emotional intelligence can be taught.

'Externalisation is a process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts. It is a quintessential knowledge- creation process in that tacit knowledge becomes explicit, taking the shapes of metaphors, analogies, concepts, hypotheses, or models. When we attempt to conceptualise an image, we express its essence mostly in language - writing is an act of converting tacit knowledge into articulable knowledge'. (Emig, 1983).

REFERENCE

Emig, J (1983) The Web of Meaning. Upper Montclair. N.J.

Bonfire Night, Lewes, East Sussex.

We do this all evening, seven bonfire societies, marching in costume through town.

Families and friends.

Cars banned from 5.00pm to 2.00am

A fish-eye lens without flash.