Tag Archives: complex responsive processes of relating

Complexity and Management Conference 2nd-4th June 2023

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Complexity, uncertainty, breakdown: coping, recovering and finding hope in dark times.

The Complexity and Management Conference 2023 will address what can feel like a constant state of breakdown, potentially undermining things we may previously have taken for granted, such as plans, rules, loyalties, markets, knowledge, and how we exercise authority in groups. 

If you are interested in the difference it makes to take the complex interplay of relationships seriously, particularly in dark times, then this year’s conference is for you. The conference is a mix of input and small and large group discussion, and conversation is the currency of participation. It will greatly enhance the conference if delegates bring concrete examples of their workplace dilemmas. Delegates are welcome to offer ideas for workshops in the afternoon of the first day, Saturday 3rd June. 

The conference runs from 7.00pm  Friday evening 2nd June, beginning with drinks and the inaugural dinner, and finishes after lunch on Sunday 4th June.

On Friday 2nd there is a one-day introductory workshop offering insights into the perspective described as complex responsive processes of relating, which runs between 9.30am and 4.30pm. Again, workshop participants are encouraged to bring concrete examples from their workplace as a resource to bring the ideas alive.

The conference is organised in collaboration with KIOL Executive Programme at University College Copenhagen and because of this it is likely to be full. Book soon and avoid disappointment.

The payment page is now live and can be found here. The conference fee includes all board and lodging.

Do write to me if you would like to convene a workshop.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Chris

Ralph Stacey Memorial Lecture Weds 5th October 6pm

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In the Ralph Stacey Memorial Lecture, just over a year after his death and birthday, I will reflect on Ralph’s rich and varied life, his deep humanity and his intellectual contribution. Patricia Shaw will respond, offering insights into the continuing relevance of the ideas for the enduring dilemmas we find ourselves facing.

Outline programme:

4pm – 5.30pm – Experiential group. Face to face only.

6.00pm            Ralph Stacey Memorial lecture by Chris Mowles, response by Patricia Shaw.

                        Q and A/observations.

7.45                 Informal drinks and conversation.

The event will be live-streamed. Joining instructions will be sent closer to the time.

In order for us to plan for numbers in person/send a link for streaming, RSVP c.mowles@herts.ac.uk

The Doctor of Management programme

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At the heart of the community of inquiry developing the perspective of complex responsive processes of relating is the Doctor of Management (DMan) programme. It has been running for more than 20 years and to date has produced 75 doctoral graduates. In the pragmatic tradition we encourage students to take their every day experience seriously, and to think sociologically about how their daily travails are informed by, and inform broader socio-economic trends. They are encouraged to take the perspective of the pilot, and at the same time the perspective of the swimmer, caught up along with everyone else amid the swirling currents of every day organisational life. If the theses graduates produce have one thing in common, it is that they are all extended exercises in reflexivity. We encourage managers and consultants to think about how they are thinking and acting with others, and to bring their assumptions about the world more the fore. In doing so they are complexifying experience, but when they do so they are still obliged so say something of relevance and interest to colleagues working in similar domains. They produce knowledge from practice for practice.

If this video makes you interested in the DMan, the conference, or anything else, then please get in touch. The book is available here: https://amzn.to/3GIZYFj . Many thanks to David O’Dwyer  for making this video.

Developing thinking, developing the practice of complexity

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More publications are in press following the publication of my book last November. Nick Sarra and Karina Solsø have edited a volume on complexity and consultancy; Kiran Chauhan and Emma Crewe have edited a volume on complexity and leadership, and Karen Norman and I are editing one on complexity and the public sector. More information on their publication dates soon.

Meanwhile Davide Nicolini will be our key note speaker at this year’s conference 3-5th June entitled The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory. You can book for the conference here.

If this video makes you interested in the part time professional doctorate the DMan, which is run psychodynamically, the conference, or anything else, then please get in touch. The book is available here: https://amzn.to/3GIZYFj . Many thanks to David O’Dwyer of https://lnkd.in/edgdxwgA for making this video.

What do managers do from a complexity perspective?

Complexity and Management conference 3-5th June 2022 – open for booking.

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This year’s Complexity and Management Conference 3- 5th June: The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory, with key note speaker Prof Davide Nicolini is now open for booking.

As usual there is an early bird discount until April 30th.

On Friday 3rd June there is an introductory day on complex responsive processes. This is suitable for anyone wanting to discuss what’s going on for them at work and to think about it in terms of complex group dynamics, as preparation for joining the main conference starting Saturday at 9.00.

Remembering Ralph Stacey

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The following is a longer obituary of Ralph Stacey which was commissioned by Group-analytic Contexts, and which I share here with their permission. It turns in particular on his relationship with the group analytic community, but some of his key ideas about complexity may be relevant for people working in other contexts.

Obituary Ralph Stacey 10/9/42 – 4/9/21

Ralph Stacey, economist, group analyst, Professor of Management at the University of Hertfordshire (UH) for 30 years, and much loved husband, partner, father, grandfather and colleague, died in September this year a few days short of his 79th birthday. His death was sudden and shocking, although for many years previously he had experienced quite chronic ill health. Physically frailer than some in their late 70s, Ralph was nonetheless intellectually robust right till the end. As an internationally renowned academic who developed pioneering ideas about the importance of the complexity sciences for understanding social life, and as someone who could speak without notes, and without PowerPoint slides for as long as required, exiting before his faculties declined had always been important to him. He was granted his wish.

Ralph was a great raconteur, and used to tell stories about his past in a highly self-deprecating and amusing way. He was rarely the hero of his own narrative. One tale he told about his own therapy as part of his training as a group analyst is quite instructive to understand the man. After five years or so he considered leaving the group to bring to a temporary end his therapeutic journey as patient. In response his conductor told him that she thought he still had experience to bring: Ralph, you are not yet fully part of the group. Ralph later recounted this episode as a light bulb moment for him. Indeed, he didn’t feel fully part of the group, and nor did he want to be. He was quite content to be an insider and an outsider, both at the same time. This paradoxical position pervades his thinking, and his experience as a gay, white South African who lived most of his life in the UK, as a critical management scholar who worked in an orthodox Business School, and an as eminent scholar lauding the importance of groups who was himself both shy and retiring, as a person committed to staying in relation, who on occasion could be fantastically stubborn and unmoving. To borrow Norbert Elias’s thinking, Ralph’s position in the social network as insider/outsider was pivotal in producing a canon of work which is still highly influential.

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Online book launch – 6-7pm UK time Tues Nov 30th 2021

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If you’d like to pop in for just an hour to hear about the new book, to meet others interested in complexity, to meet old friends and perhaps some new ones,  and to celebrate the legacy that Ralph Stacey has left us, then write to me at c.mowles@herts.ac.uk and I’ll send you a link 24 hours ahead of the launch.

Complexity and Management Conference 4-6th June 2021 – booking now.

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The Complexity and Management Conference 4-6th June 2021 – The Complexity of Practice, is open for booking now. Here is the booking page.

This year we are delighted to have Professor Hari Tsoukas, who is well known to many of you,  as our key note speaker. Hari is Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Cyprus and Distinguished Research Environment Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School. He is best known for his contributions to understanding organizations as knowledge and learning systems, for re-viewing organizational phenomena through the lens of process philosophy, for exploring practical reason in organizational contexts as well as the epistemology of reflective practice in management, and for bringing insights from Aristotelian, Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian philosophy to organization and management studies.

The staging of this year’s conference is no less an uncertain undertaking than last year’s. So we are organising for a face to face event, but at the same time preparing to go online. This means that the booking page requires you to make two payments. The first is a deposit (£100), and the second (£700) is to top up the payment to the full conference fee amount (£800). Should the face to face event be cancelled and we move online, we will refund you the top-up amount (£700) and keep the deposit as payment for the online event. This is the way the university best copes with refunds and it will save you going through the whole process again.

The event will, as usual, be highly participative and deliberative. If face to face, the conference begins on the evening of Friday 4th June with complementary drinks and gala dinner, and ends after lunch on Sunday 6th June. The conference fee covers all board and lodging for the event at Roffey Park Institute, Horsham UK. If we move online the conference will be just Saturday 5th June from 9am till 5.30pm.

There are limited places, so book early to avoid disappointment. I will send out an agenda early May once it is clear what kind of event we will be staging.

Whether face to face or online, the afternoon of Saturday 5th will comprise seminars presented by conference delegates emerging from some aspect of their work related to the conference theme on which they would like to convene a discussion. If you would like to convene such a seminar, please contact me.

On Friday 4th June, whether face to face or online, there is an introductory workshop to the ideas which inform the Doctor of Management (DMan) programme, a perspective we term complex responsive processes of relating. The workshop too will be very participative and discussive, drawing on delegates’ every day experience at work.

Looking forward to seeing you there, one way or another.

What does it mean to be critical? – complexity, reflexivity and doubt in everyday organisational life.

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Complexity and Management Conference – 17th– 19th May 2019, Roffey Park Institute.

One of the difficulties of thinking, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, is that it tends to unravel things. Next year’s conference will address a theme which has come up again and again in previous conferences, the degree to which questioning, particularly of our own assumptions and value positions, can unsettle. It’s not always easy to question what’s going on, particularly in organisations which encourage us to align and be positive, but what are the ethical consequences of not doing so?

In a recent piece of research carried out for LFHE/Advance HE, we discovered that senior managers in Higher Education establishments may feel conflicted about some of the change projects they are responsible for. Keen to do a good job on the one hand, on the other they may also entertain doubts about the long-term effects of the changes they are implementing. One requirement of surviving in an environment which values change, then, may be the ability to entertain doubt and uncertainty, and to find ways of critically reflecting with others.

Equally, consultants trying to navigate the crowded field of concepts and management fads may find themselves working for clients who seem to be asking for support which the consultant doubts will be helpful – what does it mean to be a critically reflective and reflexive consultant, and what are the ethical implications?

We are delighted to have Professor André Spicer from the Cass Business School, City, University of London to give the keynote on Saturday morning, and help us think these things through.  Originally from New Zealand, André holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne. He has held visiting appointments at universities around the world.

André is the author of many academic articles and nine books. The most recent are ‘Business Bullshit’, ’The Stupidity Paradox’ and ‘Desperately Seeking Self Improvement’ He has worked with a range of organisations including Barclays, TFL, Old Mutual, the City of London, the House of Commons, IBM and CAA. He frequently appears in the international media and writes regularly about work and organisations for The Guardian. He is currently working on a book about skepticism and doubt.

On Saturday afternoon we ask conference delegates to suggest workshops that they themselves would like to run consonant with the theme of the conference.

As usual the conference booking page will go live on the university website early in the New Year. The fee for the conference covers all board and lodging from the inaugural dinner on Friday night 17th May, through to lunch on Sunday when the conference finishes.

In addition we will offer the usual one day introduction to the basic concepts of complex responsive processes of relating on Friday 17th.

 

Complex responsive processes – 4 pillars of thought, 5 key insights.

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Before starting this post, and for those readers interested in attending the next Complexity and Management Conference, next year it will be slightly earlier: 17-19th May 2019.

Introduction

This post is the theoretical introduction to the perspective of complex responsive processes of relating, which I gave in the afternoon of the one-day workshop preceding this year’s Complexity and Management Conference. It informs a whole raft of publications written and edited by Ralph Stacey, Doug Griffin, Patricia Shaw and myself along with all the theses of graduates of the Doctor of Management (DMan) programme at the University of Hertfordshire, who now number 72 (60 doctorates and 12 MAs). The perspective has also been adduced by a wide range of consultants, scholars and graduates of other programmes. I mention this at the beginning of the post because I often get asked ‘what next for complex responsive processes?’, or ‘what or who constitutes the complex responsive processes community?’ I think the question is sometimes aimed at asking who decides what the perspective of complex responsive processes is, to which the answer must be, the original authors, everyone and no one. The glorious thing about ideas is that once published, they belong to everybody, irrespective of whether they are reproduced or developed in ways in which the ‘original’ scholars would recognise. And when other people develop the ideas in their own way, then this just leads to opportunities for further discussion. This is not to suggest that as far as I am concerned ‘anything goes’. The point about having an intellectual position is that you are prepared to argue for it, whilst acknowledging the perspectives of those you argue with.

The perspective of complex responsive processes rests on four pillars of intellectual tradition: it draws on insights from the complexity sciences; it is based in Norbert Elias’ processual sociology; it takes up key ideas from pragmatic philosophy, particularly from Mead and Dewey; and it borrows from the group analytic tradition as set out by SH Foulkes, particularly in terms of the working methods which we adopt on the DMan programme. What all four have in common is that they are concerned with phenomena in a state of flux and change over time, and they are focused more or less on how global patterns arise from micro-interactions, or how micro-interactions embody global patterns. Our particular interpretation reads paradox into the working of complex adaptive systems models (CAS), just as see paradox deployed by Mead, Dewey, Elias, and to a lesser degree, Foulkes. In other words, and in the perspective of complex responsive processes you can see Heraclitan dialectic running through our interpretation of CAS, in the work of the pragmatists and Elias, which draws on Hegel, and perhaps more falteringly in Foulkes. Elias and Foulkes are also informed by the thinking of Freud. There are links, then, between the four pillars of thought which underpin the perspective. Continue reading →