'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
Personal Blogs
Talking with your fingers
Wednesday, 18 Apr 2012, 06:34
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B822 Bk1 C4 Analogical Thinking in Business, Organisations and Mangement Styles
Saturday, 12 Nov 2011, 14:21
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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 21 Feb 2014, 18:17
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.
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:
- Mechanistic
- Realist
- Organicist
- 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
H800 51 Wk11 Why this is like talking with your fingers
Monday, 25 Apr 2011, 07:03
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Dec 2011, 06:03
As it is a bank holiday and the first in many years that I recall being sunny, I find I am getting online for an hour or two at dawn to do some stiudent work and write this. Then I walk the dog along the River Ouse or up on the South Downs and the day is mine/ours.
Painting the porch
Then nodding off in the sun with a course book or two, a couple in print, a 2011 publication from John Seely Brown on the Kindle.
How, when and why blogs and threads work or fail is the topic of conversation.
I used to treat forums and assignments, optional or otherwise, as the weekly essay - something I had to do whether or not I engaged with others. I would also take part on a whim, responding to some entries, and happily letting the conversation drift off topic. Length was no object either. I lurked in other tutor forums too, making the time to follow how what ought ostensibly to be the same conversations could be very different indeed - some very active, some dead.
A year on I am more strategic.
I would like to be sharing the learning process, contributing to the conversations whether I can help or not, whether I am seeking answers or asking questions. The Cafe and General area serves a purpose to take 'over spill' though it functioned best in H808 where a moderator management the supplementary activities.
Gilly Salmon's 'E-moderating' has a good deal to say on this.
It is worth owning,. not simply to read cover to cover, but to have as a reference. I may not like the term 'e-moderator', but 'moderator' is, however diminishing or disparaging to a Dphil, the main function here. It could be carried out by a postgrad student, even an animated undergrad.
What matters is engagement.
Someone may need to act as the 'eyes & ears' for the group until it is established. Introductions have to be made, conversations started and moved along ... if anyone is rude, they should be quietly put in their place; if anyone is being like a door-mouse, they need support.
'The essential role of the e-moderator is promoting human interaction and communication through the modelling, conveying and building of knowledge and skills'. (Salmon, 2005:4)
There isn't a structure, no more than there is in a car or coffee bar.
The structure comes about from the people and activity in it. This is shaped entirely by the behaviour of the participants. 1) They have to turn up 2) Someone has to have something to say 3) Some of us need to be going around like a host, 'making polite conversation', 'networking', even introducing people. It IS a social gathering.
Tutor is a better term. It is valid.
Indeed the beauty of working online is that you can recreate the essence of an 'Oxbridge Tutorial', that privilege one-to-one, or one to two or three, that is the weekly essay read out and discussed.
Discussion is the key.
The tutor DOES NOT need to be a subject matter expert. See my interview with Oxford Senior Lecturer Dr Zbigniew Pelczynski.
Whilst the tutor cannot keep waving pixie dust over a group that simply does not gel they ought to try, especlally in the first weeks and especially with students new to this set up.
Why I participate in some forums and not others.
Often because someone else has started the ball rolling, and often. I will be the first if I have a need to get through the week's work and no one else has made a start. I may fret about covering all bases giving my response too much thought ... and therefore resulting in something overly long. Not easy to adhere to but I try to set parameters; 250 words typical, 500 words an absolute max after that think about offering it as an attachment.
It can be like chosing a restaurant!
You want to go where there's some buzz already, though not so much that you feel you will never be able to join in the conversation.
The reality is different.
This is an asynchronous beast. If I come in late I may read every post with care before I respond, which can result in a long response. People should feel just as comfortable simply answering the question, ignoring others at first .. or just reading the last couple of posts and responding to them.
It is tempting to respond to someone in a DIFFERENT tutor group if they say something strong; you're not supposed to do so! I might quote them in my own group. There have been times when lifting the thread of catalyst that got them going in another group will do the same in your own.
How my input is affected by the way the forum is structured.
At Harvard they use as system called 'Rotisserie' in some asynchronous threads/forums which, like playing pass the parcel (or pass the microphone) require people to take it in turns to say something. No harm there! No all the time, but for ice-breakers and specific, important threads it may work very well. Everyone has something worth saying, our differing perspectives are a vital part of the experience.
I'd like these threads to be presented very differently, as cards placed around a table. This sounds like a step towards a Virtual World. I just don't 'see' conversations as lists or 'toilet roll scrolls' from top to bottom, rather they should be in a circle at least, in a spiral at best.
It matters that activities have been designed that get people engaged without the need for a tutor all the time.
'Structured, paced and carefully constructed e-tivities reduce the amount of e-moderator time, and impact directly on satisfactory learning outcomes, adding value to the investment in learning technologies'. (Salmon, 2002a)
Do I behave differently in face-to-face tutorials?
I'm the student who says they understand but the tutor will see that on my face it says 'I still haven't a clue'. I will stop asking questions. Here I will ask more often, then start asking elsewhere, within h800, even beyond the Masters in Open and Distance Education. I'm still asking people how to visualise the learning process in threads, forums and blogs away from here.
Face-to-face people don't need to put up their hand to ask a question, you can read the person, you can tell if they are anxious to join in at some point. You don't need 'rotisserie' as people do take it in turns. Someone will act as the chair, even is there isn't one nominated. Think of us like the Village Elders taking it in turn to reflect on an issue.
Seeing that someone else has already made an effort to answer the week's questions I decide I can and should make the effort to do the same. It is easier to reply to the questions and ONE response than the question and 16 responses! i.e. I like to be second, or third to comment, rather than first or last. No good if everyone is hanging back. Perhaps between us we should nominate someone to go first each week!!!
'Online learning calls for the training and development of new kinds of online teachers - to carry out roles not yet widely understood'. (Salmon. 2005:10)
REFERENCE
Salmon, G (2005) E-moderating. The Key to teaching and learning online.
AND FINALLY, I relate to this, also from Gilly Salmon's book:
'Consider this medium as like talking with your fingers - half-way between spoken conversation and written discourse.' (Hawkridge, Morgan and Jeffs, 1997, quotes in Salmon 2005)
What use is Rogers when in explaining innovations
Sunday, 7 Mar 2010, 15:10
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 31 Jan 2013, 06:48
Rogers Criteria of assessment:
1) Relative advantage
2) Compatibility
3) Complexity
4) Trialability
5) Observability
DOKI & iTV (WAYL) were chased intuitively – if a client would back it, then it was ok. This chase continued with projects developed to support equally speculative broadcast / internet linked projects. From a business perspective this was encouraging clients to chase chimera.
We should have know better and offered value in money made or saving made ... networking for the NHS was developed within their far more cautious framework. The advantages had to be apparent and the transition compatible. Though apparently complex the technology & the players were in place to take the next step. It could be trialled at a limited number of outlets and observations shared with the team.
The relationship with Ragdoll was different again; all they wanted was a website. We tried to steer them towards something that would be a credible tool for selling product (their programmes & merchandise). We all got tantalised by the creative opportunities.
With FTKnowlege it was another leap in the dark, feeling their brand name could be instantly attached to a distance learning MBA programme and feeling their was a need to get in their first. The view being that not to do otherwise would see other Amazons and the like taking a huge market share.
REFERENCES
Kaye, R. and Hawkridge, D. (eds) (2003) Learning and Teaching for Business: Case Studies of Successful Innovation, London and Sterling, Kogan Page.
Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.
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