what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Changing the World?

I have long known that the trick – for any daunting task - was to break it down into small, manageable parts. .But I hadn’t until now really tried to apply this technique to the various unfinished texts which haunt me on my laptop….But, a year or so ago, I started to use a simple matrix (or table) in my blog – and this seems to be supplying the discipline to identify what exactly is still missing from the Dispatches to the next generation draft……

As I have read through each of the book’s separate sections, I’ve been able to check that each post actually adds value – and is taking the narrative (such as it is) forward.
So, when I came to what was supposed to be the concluding section, it was so obvious that……..there was absolutely no conclusion.
And, indeed I noticed this morning that I had so far not even given the book a clear set of objectives – against which I could satisfy myself about the relevance of the text – let alone its satisfactory conclusion…

Rather hurriedly, therefore I offer these reasons for reading the book -
- It puts the crisis in its proper context – social, historical and moral
- It is clearly written
- Its guided hyperlinks allow you to select the further reading which seems appropriate eg this unique list of books worth reading
- It’s written by someone who understands your uncertainties and confusion
- It will allow you to hold your own in any conversation by referring knowledgably to the title of one (or two) of the almost 200 books referred to in the text….

But the result is that I have to announce a bit of a delay for the next part in this series about Dispatches to the next generation - as I try to work out what the book is about; and draft an appropriate conclusion!

I have another trick when I am facing a difficult challenge – I try to distract myself by reading something completely different. So I started to read Robert Quinn’s Building the Bridge as you walk on it – a guide for leading change – which is one of these curious books which can’t quite be classified. This one falls in the gap between “management literature” and “self-help guides” since it argues that leaders who want to change an organization have to change themselves first.

And I quickly realized that it perhaps supplies the peg on which I could hang my book’s conclusion…It was, you should know, written for an American audience which, for some reason, seems to need high-falutin’ phrases to describe what for me are straightforward processes
Some 20 years ago I developed an “opportunistic” or “windows of opportunity” theory of change for the struggle against what I started to call “impervious regimes” – those which are so confident of the lack of challenge to their rule that they become impervious to their citizens –

Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, take the time and trouble to prepare for these “windows of opportunity. And the preparation”, I went on “ is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.
- It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to be willing to speak out about the need for change.
- It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things – and helping create and run networks of change-agents.
- And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement such that people will trust you and follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

I think this is what Robert Quinn ,means when he talks, in his “Building the Bridge” book, about “Entering the fundamental state of leadership”. I spent 2 decades between 1968 and 1990 going from initial community action work to developing and managing for a huge Region what was the country’s first Deprivation strategy – compare for example the typology and references in this 1977 paper on Community development – its political and administrative challenge with the experience described, 20 years later, in Organisational Development and Political Amnesia

No comments:

Post a Comment