Bringing our book to life: the unpredictable process of working with friends and colleagues.

Bob MacKenzie and I are just finishing off our recent book where we were both co-editors and authors of some of the chapters. Here I share some of the detail of our project, the kind of fine detail that is often lost. It is a journey that turned out to be far more unpredictable and subjective than we had initially envisioned. This blog post delves into the hopes, challenges, and unexpected twists encountered during the writing process of our book on the impact a small business school has on its communities (MacKenzie & Warwick, 2024).

How we went about writing the book and working with chapter authors was not just about the application of straightforward methodologies and methods. In the world of writing and research, projects rarely unfold according to plan, and ours was no exception. The turbulence we faced, common in smaller educational institutions, highlighted the struggle to justify projects considered tangential to the ‘day job.’

From the outset we, as co-editors, urged contributors to delve into their lifeworlds, exploring their experiences associated with the local business school. We resisted the idea of ‘bracketing out’ in phenomenology, opting instead to emphasize the social and ethical dimensions of our collective endeavours. Our chosen methods aimed to showcase the intricate strands and relationships within the business school, beyond traditional metrics and valuations.

The crux of our approach lay in “Writing in a Social Space” (WIASS), a concept rooted in communities of practice and action learning. Whether in-person or virtually (transformed into “Writing in a Virtual/Social Space” or WIAV/SS due to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic), these sessions became the heartbeat of our writing community. It was within these spaces that we nurtured mutual coaching, support, and the well-intentioned challenge – a critical friendship – all aimed at helping contributors give life to their words and make their writing shine.

Before the book took shape, our journey began with a successful writing project for a Special Issue of the journal e-Organisation and People journal on small business schools (MacKenzie & Warwick, 2019). This precursor illuminated the inner workings of the business school, tracing a coherent arc that expressed its culture and unity. The subsequent shift from the journal Special Issue to a more ambitious book project marked the beginning of ‘Phase 2’, the writing of our book.

Phase 2, however, brought unexpected challenges. The shift to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic added a layer of loneliness and intensity to our work. The physical relocation of the business school further intensified the sense of isolation. Our workspace transformed from a lively, face-to-face environment to an online, faceless interaction. The daily 10:30 Teams Coffee break in the Business School became a lifeline in the sea of solitude.

Despite the success of Phase 1 of the Journal, Phase 2 presented hurdles that were not anticipated. The shift in context, compounded by the departure of the Head of the Business School due to reorganization, introduced a wave of unsettlement. Finding time to write became a collective challenge, with obligations differing among team members. The initial enthusiasm of Phase 1 waned, replaced by a need to navigate the complexities of delivering under new circumstances.

The signing of the book contract marked the commencement of Phase 2, bringing with it a shared sense of obligation. However, not everyone felt this obligation to the same degree. A survey revealed the struggle to find time to write, with one respondent expressing the difficulty of engaging in scheduled sessions until the book was due to be completed.

As a co-editor and author, this marked a turning point, prompting reflection on what had changed. The external context, shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, campus relocations, and organizational restructuring, had a profound impact. The sense of community and collaboration that once characterized our face-to-face interactions was disrupted, replaced by a fragmented, virtual landscape. Our writing community, which once thrived on the spontaneity of face-to-face engagement, had to adapt to the challenges of virtual spaces. The virtual learning environment became a crucial tool for coordination and communication, reflecting the need to transform our writing practices in response to the changing times.

In conclusion, our journey as co-editors/authors reflects the dynamic nature of collaborative writing projects in higher education. It’s a narrative of resilience, adaptation, and the persistent pursuit of our shared goal despite the uncharted waters we found ourselves navigating. As we continued we acknowledged the importance of reflecting on our experiences, learning from the unexpected, and finding new ways to foster a sense of community in an ever-evolving academic landscape.

Notes: the book is called The Impact of a Regional Business School on its Communities – A Holistic Perspective and will be published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their Humanism in Business series.

This blog was created by Rob Warwick and Bob MacKenzie, lightly polished by ChatGPT 3.5, and with a final buffing up by me, Rob.

MacKenzie, B., & Warwick, R. (2019). Writing from the University of Chichester Business School. E-Organisations and People, 26(2).

MacKenzie, B., & Warwick, R. (2024). The Impact of a Regional Business School on its Communities – A Holistic Perspective. Palgrave.

An antidote to bullet points

Recently I was in the Netherlands visiting their Open University lecturing and talking with a group of PhD students.

In one conversation we discussed the question of ‘contribution’, or how could research make a difference. Suggestions were discussed that you could imagine would lead to a few bullet points. Quite understandable but not quite hitting the mark it seemed to me, particularly when we are researching day-to-day goings on in organisations. Such an approach plays into the hands of the person who sees knowledge as an abstract entity that can be applied from one context to another with assured results.

Here is a suggestion. Before we get to the bullet points the author explains their situation. This narrative contains enough of the gritty detail to enable the reader to ‘live that experience’, but not in a fictional sense, but in a way that enables them to build a ‘bridge’ between their experience and that of the writer. This does not mean that they have to agree or for that matter directly relate to the situation, but just to say ‘yes, I can see why they have done …’ This might include a few striking moments that challenged one’s thinking or assumptions or where events took a surprising turn. It might also include a few textured details of the people involved, the location or the sense of anticipation or apprehension.

By this stage we have now established a connection of common understanding. And with assertive humility we can offer some grounded suggestions. These are suggestions that the reader can now relate to and imagine how they might be useful for them, adapted to the situation that they are facing.

This way of thinking recognizes both the power of the writer/researcher and the reader, it is now more nuanced. We have moved away from knowledge as being absolute where the reader’s voice is absent. For this to work, by which I mean any test of validity (a key point in and PhD), we need to recognize the role of the reader in how this might be useful, both the story and any bullet points that might follow.

Building trusting relationships – our report

Our report on trust has just been published (Donaldson and Warwick, 2016). It was a year ago when Alison Donaldson and I started our project, financed and supported by Roffey Park. Trust is an increasingly important subject in organisations, particularly as relationships are more fleeting as people go from one employer or project to another.  We were interested in taking a different tack from the routine academic examination of the subject that tends to be overly ‘thoughtful’ and analytic.  What if we were to gather a number of stories, conversations and insights from literature and use these as a way for people to connect with the whole gamut of feelings as they go about developing relationships? That is what we have done, paying attention to: vulnerability, hope, risk, disappointment, calculation, the unfathomable, the dynamic between individual and group, of power and so on. We have not come to any snappy conclusions. Instead we hope that we have come up with some useful insights and resources that people might read, discuss with their work colleagues and friends. And in doing so be jolted into noticing the development of trusting relationship in a slightly different way.

If you would like to read more about our approach and the methods we wrote a short paper titled Trust and the Emotional Bank Account for Croner-i  in their strategic HR series. Here we also outline the implications for organisational development and HR practitioners.

Over the next few months expect to hear more in terms of more workshops (for example click here) that we are running and further articles.

Donaldson A and Warwick R (2016) The Emergence of Trusting Relationships: Stories and Reflections. Horsham,  Available from: http://www.roffeypark.com/research-insights/free-reports-downloads/the-emergence-of-trusting-relationships-stories-and-reflections/.

In defence of I (and the Polo mint)

Once in a while I encourage my management students to write in the first person (ie with plenty of ‘I’ and ‘me’). They often react as if I have asked them to commit some dreadful academic crime – for not being objective. Coming from a scientific background I do have some sympathy with the search of objectivity and disguising our own involvement, but not entirely. When we write about experience, for example our role in a project, in not speaking of the ‘I’ is akin to a Polo mint – with a gaping hole just at the most interesting part. I want to know that they have recognised their own learning and to speak of their creative unsettlement as they got to grips with something new. That they now know and understand their process of learning in a reflexive way that will be helpful to them in the future. But it cannot be all ‘me’ and ‘I’, that would be a crime as serious as a mindless search for objectivity. I am interested in how they build bridges between their experiences and how others see the issue, for example, in the academic or professional literature; and it is from this that something interesting and relevant can develop that we can all learn from.

The challenge of writing mindfully

Recently Pete Burden and I wrote a book – Leading Mindfully.  Our aim was to point to the importance of actively noticing what we do in organisations; not just as individuals, but together.  And in doing so to improve how we all make decisions.  It is a book about conversation, of being reflexive and taking action – not as a solitary endeavor, but as a social process we are all engaged in.

So there was a dilemma – how should we write it?  Tradition would say that it should be written in prose; blocks of text whereby we laid out our argument as a bricklayer might build a wall.  However, this has a number of implications that we felt uncomfortable with.  Building such a structure implies that we are experts, and therefore, you are to be ‘taught’.  However, both positions are false – you have your own experience and understanding of the subject and our views are still emerging.

It is for this reason we wrote the book as a dialogue, trying to be as true to life as the conversations we had.  There are of course benefits and drawbacks in taking a different approach.

In the conversation there are now three of us – you as the reader, Pete and me.  You will notice areas that you both agree and disagree with.  And you will notice something similar in the conversations I have with Pete.  All three of us come from different backgrounds and experiences.  In this process we make sense of new ideas and our experiences in relation to what we might imagine doing in the future.  In fact, this is an argument we make in the book – as we lead mindfully with others.

But this has some drawbacks.  From your perspective laying out a clear argument can be easier to engage with, it takes less work to agree or disagree with a point made.  Instead, we are interested in questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’, questions that cannot easily be resolved in a binary way.  All of this said, presenting our ideas as a dialogue has a truth about it that we are looking to pay attention to in organisational life.  And in this sense our way of writing was as important as the ideas themselves.

If you are interested in the book you can find it here.

Lessons from literature: opportunities for leadership development

I have just finished the first draft of an article for a conference in the summer.  And I’m rather pleased.   That said it will need a lot of polishing before it is ready to see the light of day.  I have become fascinated in how literature can be used in leadership development.  The literature I have drawn on is an eclectic mix from Greek mythology, Victorian melodrama to Shakespeare. All too often case studies in management literature seem dull and flat. We do not share in the characters’ success or plight. Instead we are presented with facts and asked to make judgements without appreciating the connected themes of relationships, power and history behind the participants. It draws us to ask the question ‘why on earth would they do …?’

In literature we travel with the participants and share their risks, doubts and ambiguity as they take their next steps. We are therefore not prompted towards ‘clever’ solutions but instead we share a sense of their dilemmas. The point I’m illustrating is that instead of focusing on the separation between the subject (the reader) and the object (the participants in the case study) there is a temporal process of becoming engaged with the character’s story.   Literature can therefore be used as a catalyst to develop our own narratives of connected events over a period of time.  It provides insights into our own development in the context of our wider social story that we are part of. This is a useful addition to action learning and leadership development. I also argue that this way of engaging with our own stories can make a contribution to management knowledge, providing more realistic accounts that we can emotionally and logically relate to.

The Social Development of Leadership and Knowledge – the publication of our book

Some of you will know that over the last year or so Douglas Board and I have been writing a book on the interconnected social worlds of leadership and knowledge. Well, this month it comes out, as a first time author this is exciting stuff. This is how we describe the book:

Leadership and knowledge should be developed together: developed as two intimately linked ideas, and developed with other people.

We make this argument through extensive, theoretically-disciplined use of narratives from our managerial and doctoral experience. This volume is an inspiring resource for students and providers of practice-based research degrees, while offering practitioners, tired of broken promises from neat frameworks and models, unexpected opportunities to develop leadership impact and academic insight.

Ranging from complexity to sociology, and from leadership to ontology and epistemology, the central theory of this work draws on Bourdieu’s logic of practice and Stacey’s complex responsive processes of relating. It yields new ideas about reflexivity and essentially contested concepts. Since theory is not split from practice, nor emotions and politics from thought, full-time doctoral students will find an enlivening perspective on method as well as courage and support for the journey they are making.

We hope that this will strike a chord with those of you with an interest in at least one of more of the following:

• Leadership, particularly for those who seek to consider their own practical experience seriously, in contrast (or at least in addition to) those with models, frameworks, competencies and explanations as to how we ‘should’ lead.
• Those with an interest in the power of narratives as a way of exploring our interconnected social worlds. Instead of stories that close down the imagination with neat explanations we are interested in the openings they offer to enable the reader to imagine themselves in the writer’s situation and how this might help their practice.
• How knowledge is created amongst people and the leadership that enables this to happen.
• The importance of being reflexive in the noticing of what we are doing with others, how this comes to affect our practice and to impact on our knowledge and leadership.
• How we can develop our practice of becoming ethically and consciously aware of how we act and think and the impact it has.

Instead of writing about leadership, reflexivity and knowledge as abstract concepts the book is the account of a reflexive journey that both Douglas and I took. And we use this as a way of engaging with wider literature to produce a grounded engagement with these subjects.

These are the views of those that have read the book so far:

In inquiring into knowledge and leadership, and the connections between the two, these authors pull off an amazing feat; they not only demystify the fundamentals of reflexive research but do so in a vivid, informative and engaging way. Any researcher, especially any practitioner seeking to make better sense of their lived experience, will benefit from reading this book and should make it their first port of call.  Linda Holbeche, Co-Director of the Holbeche Partnership and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Progressive Leadership at City of London University

As a successful leader are you curious that the books on leadership often bear little resemblance to your daily practice? To explore this question seriously you may consider a PhD or other post-graduate qualification. The authors offer an insight into their personal reflexive search for academic knowledge that has in turn enabled them to better understand their own practice. Reading this book may help you to become more effective as a leader, or can be seen as an invitation to start your own doctoral research. Professor Nol Groot, Management and Complexity, PhD School, Open University in the Netherlands and former Member of the Executive Board of the Dutch National Railways

The authors present viable and much needed research approaches to explore complex relationships within organizational cultures and the lived experiences of leaders and organizational participants. Using examples from their own research, they provide a strong balance between theory and practice, and engage the reader through use of metaphor, narrative storytelling and case study methodologies. This book will be an extremely valuable resource for any research practitioner in the fields of organizational studies, educational leadership, higher education and management as well as those who seek to understand the social, emotional, and political layers and entanglements of organizational life.  Sheri Klein, PhD, MFA, artist/educator/researcher and Professor (ret.) of Art Education, University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA.

The book is available to order from Palgrave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book stores.   Ideas of course do not come to an end on finishing a book. In fact we see this as a start. We would love to hear comments and views and most importantly how people are practically working with the ideas we discuss in order for us to make our next steps.

Paying attention to the ambiguity of leadership

A few days ago I attended a workshop/conference called ‘Understanding Leadership: A Multidisciplinary Workshop’ at Cass Business School.  People came from the US, Europe as well as various business schools in the UK along with a scattering of high profile names.  During the course of the day the voice of the management scientists seemed to gather pace, particularly those with an interest in quantifying what it is to lead and to be human.  Questions relating to the ‘accuracy’ of research were defended by reference to sample size, questionnaire design and statistical techniques.  When the question was posed, ‘how can the ambiguous nature of leadership (and being human) be reconciled with the quantification of that experience?’ the answer again came back to questionnaire design, proven techniques and the ‘extensive body of research’.  The question was an invitation to reflect on the nature and limitation of this way of thinking.  I should know, I asked the question.  It reminded me of Donald Levine.  From his book that explores the loss of capacity in the modern world to deal constructively with ambiguity, he makes the following point:

In their quest for precision, social scientists have produced instruments that represent the facts of human life in one-dimensional terms.  They have defined concepts with rigour in order to represent dominant traits and tendencies univocally.  …  For the truth of the matter is that people have mixed feelings and confused options, and are subject to contradictory expectation and outcomes, in every sphere of experience (Levine, 1985, p. 8).

Here Levine is highlighting a problem between people’s experience and how we choose to think, represent and engage with that experience in muting those mixed feelings, confusions and contradictions of life into a liner red thread of cause and effect.  I am not saying that there is not a place for this approach.  In fact there was a presentation on the impact of female leaders had on organisations, this was highly quantified and was excellent.  I could see how these insights could be of importance to policy makers, practitioners and researchers alike.

However, there is another voice; that of accepting how difficult, messy and ambiguous leadership can be and working to get meaningful sense out of this.

Douglas Board and I pay attention to this in a rigorous way; this is the aim of our book, The Social Development of Leadership and Knowledge.  Next week in our blog for the book, see www.leadershipandknowledge.com, I discuss working live with this narrative in a session with 30 or so organisational development practitioners as an example of reflexivity in action.

Ref: Levine, D. (1985). The Flight from Ambiguity – Essays in Social and Cultural Theory. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press

The value of ambiguity and experience

A few years ago the following quote really struck a chord with me.  It is from Donald Levine in a book that explores the loss of capacity in the modern world to deal constructively with ambiguity, he explains that:

• In their quest for precision, social scientists have produced instruments that represent the facts of human life in one-dimensional terms.  They have defined concepts with rigour in order to represent dominant traits and tendencies univocally.  They have constructed scales in order to measure the strength of specified variables on one dimensional continua.  Investigations that rely on such instruments produce representations of attitudes and relations that strike us time and again as gratuitously unrealistic.  For the truth of the matter is that people have mixed feelings and confused opinions, and are subject to contradictory expectations and outcomes, in every sphere of experience (Levine, 1985, p8).

• It must be of an event that happened very recently, preferably within the last few days.
• It must be of something that matters; there is an important stake in the outcome, an outcome that has yet to be fully played out.
• As for style or length, that matters little, other than the importance of congruence with the writer, the nature of events and those that will read it.

In working with their narratives, reading them aloud in small groups, re-writing them important details emerge.  Details that people can ‘do something with’ in terms of future actions.  The ambiguity is not lost; it becomes an important opportunity for reflection.  Here is some feedback:

• ‘I found it completely fascinating … the relationship between thought, writing and the people here today’.
• ‘I think the social process definitely helped because I got feedback that I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own.  There is only so much you can work out by yourself however long you think about it’.
• ‘I found the process of being met, my story being understood and response at an emotional and intellectual level was important for me.  … I understood the essence, a lot was washed away, and there was something really significant’.
• ‘There was so much going on in the tiniest of interaction’.
• ‘It feels that it has been quite special and surprising actually; more akin to a supervisor relationship … that they understood me and were interested in what I had to say … it seemed very important’.
• ‘We all went about the task of re-writing narrative differently, one person edited and added something, another shortened the story and I came up with new questions’.
• ‘This re-writing prompted a creative unsettlement’.

The point I am making is this: there are rich opportunities in dealing with the complexities of personal experience in order to make effective decisions.  Ambiguity should not be lost to the siren voices simplicity; experience if just too valuable.

Ref: Levine, D (1985) The Flight from Ambiguity – Essays in Social and Cultural Theory, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press

Ref (Picture): Jastrow, J (1899). The mind’s eye, Popular Science Monthly, 54, p299-312

Complexity and organisations – a conversation

Like many people I am on Linked-in and am a member of a number of groups, including Complex People. Occasionally I get ‘caught’ in a conversation that manages to either consolidate and/or develop my thinking; this was the case in the following exchange between Nicky, Sue and me.

Nicky: Is anyone familiar with the work of Ralph Stacey and particularly his interpretation and application of Complexity Theory?

Rob: I know Ralph’s work. In essence he has moved away from ‘systems thinking’ (where there is an assumption of boundaries in which a person is either an inside or outside) towards a ‘processes’ of an ongoingness. This is why he uses the term ‘complex responsive processes of relating’. It draws inspiration from Hegel, rather than Kant. This way of thinking pays attention to power relations between people, drawing particularly the work of the sociologist Norbert Elias.

Nicky: Hi Rob, yes thank you, it is a good, succinct summary. It is the essence of my understanding of his work too.

I’m using his work as a basis for researching executive coaching in organisations. I’m finding it very useful yet every now and then I come across people who consider his work too controversial and would rather shy away from using it in their research.

I’m curious about this aspect of his work. Is it really that contrary to how complexity theory is currently applied to organisational theory?

Rob: To some it is seen as controversial because it is very challenging to the ‘ways of doing things’ both in management and academia, particularly when you work through his concerns of how Kant’s work has implicitly been taken up. To others, his close attention to what ‘we’ do in organisations reconciles with our own experience. He is careful to stress that complexity science is an analogy for the process of human relating, but never the less a very powerful one.

People discuss complexity in different ways. To illustrate this with a few examples, if one takes the work of Peter Allen, using mathematical modeling he developed a concept of complexity that enabled insight as to how various populations behave over time. He then applied these insights into the realm of organisations. In his book Surfing the Edge of Chaos, Richard Pascale used complexity as a means to discuss a number of highly relevant and engaging problems and situations in organisations. In emphasizing case studies there is less attention on the theoretical understanding of complexity, particularly the tension and conflict that can exist as factors create ‘friction’ with each other. Or there is Robert Chia, with a perspective of complexity that draws heavily on postmodernism with the heritage that brings to the argument. Finally, Margaret Wheatley associates complexity with leadership and systems thinking. Here she takes a more ‘illustrative’ view of complexity with comparisons with the natural world. There is little sense of paradox and power that affects us as we make our way through organisational life. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but for me Stacey manages to help describe the ongoing struggle that people face, issues that tend to be diminished if we take a subject/observer ‘systems’ stance.

Nicky: It would seem then from what I’ve read so far and your explanation above that the value of complexity theory lies mostly in finding analogies to allow us to think about the problems from a different paradigm.

I guess therein lies a limitation as compared to more traditional systems thinking. It seems to me that very useful tools and techniques have been developed for ST through the years with real application to solving organisational problem. I am struggling to find this concrete side of complexity theory.

Rob: The best book to read is Stacey’s Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics. Part 1 is about ‘systems’ and Part 3 is about complexity as a process. In my view I would not look for a load of ‘tools and techniques’. I would say that the concrete side is about tackling in very practical ways what actually goes on in organisations and between people without going through an ‘intermediary’ of tools or frameworks. In other words, it is about paying very close attention to what happens between people and how these interactions come to affect others and so on.

Nicky: I’ve read that book of Stacey’s (took a while!) It is a well-researched, very useful reference source, if slightly slanted. I have no problem with his notion of observing ‘what actually happens’ in organisations as opposed to espoused theories and models. My concern is with how this relates to Complexity Theory.

Sue: Have really enjoyed this thread. I am both challenged by and enthused by Stacey’s work. And I agree that sometimes it is seen to be impenetrable and inaccessible in everyday organisation life. My pragmatic response is simply not to talk straight away about ‘it’ but rather to get on and do something different, informed by these stances.

Rob: Narrative is critical in this way of thinking about complexity. So, if I can take my own research as a case study you will see that they are peppered throughout the paper (have a look at pages 61, 78 and 120 for examples). By paying very close attention to those micro-interactions between people more general themes can become apparent, repeated patterns emerge; as does noticing of power relations between individuals. So, there are useful analogies with complex adaptive systems, networks, fractals, chaos etc. But the focus is on what people do, as expressed in narrative, and working with that narrative. This means looking at how the narratives relate to literature (sociological, philosophical, psychological, management etc) in the academic and practitioner fields, working in a small group to notice and work further on the narrative. This last point is important, quite often when we are immersed in the field of practice and unaware of the norms and unsaid ways of doing things (Habitus as Pierre Bourdieu and others termed it). So, where does complexity fits in? As I said, it forms a useful number of analogies to explore experience; like all analogies sometimes they are useful, sometimes not and it is important to be aware of that balance. The key for me is how we can take a person’s actual experience seriously and make a contribution to their practice and knowledge more generally.

Ref: Stacey, R (2007) Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics (5th Ed), Harlow: Prentice Hall