Tag Archives: doubt

Complexity and Management Conference 17-19th May 2019 – one month to go.

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Particularly from a UK perspective, where public discourse has become highly repetitive, accusatory and frankly boring, there has never been a better time to stop and think about what’s going on for us and whether our current ways of thinking about the world serve us well. What does it take to reflect together, to think critically about the predicaments we find ourselves in, and to question our own assumptions? How might we become more skilful in widening our circles of concern?

There is just a month to go until the annual Complexity and Management Conference 17-19th May entitled: What does it mean to be critical? – complexity, reflexivity and doubt in everyday organisational life. There are still some remaining places at the conference, as well as for the one day introductory workshop on complexity

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Socrates in the Louvre

and management on Friday 17th May. It is also now possible just to book for the Saturday to hear the keynote and attend workshops presented by delegates on Saturday afternoon. The booking page is here.

Our key note speaker on Saturday 18th May is André Spicer from Cass Business School, who has developed an international reputation for confronting fads of management, ‘wellness’ and the idea of smart organisations for example, to provoke us to think about what we are encouraged to take for granted. André will talk about his forthcoming book on critique and doubt.

The conference is an unusual forum for creating time to discuss what matters to the delegates – to rediscover who we are becoming and how we might take the next step together.

Hope to see you there.

Complexity&management Conference – 17th-19th May: end of early bird booking 1st April.

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What kind of experience can you anticipate at the Complexity and Management Conference 17-19th May at Roffey Park entitled: What does it mean to be critical? – complexity, reflexivity and doubt in everyday organisational life.  And what might you expect if you sign up to the one day workshop on Friday 17th May? Early bird booking discounts end 1st April 2019 – so book here.

Starting with the one day workshop, you will have a chance to explore the relevance of complexity thinking for your work, drawing on an intellectual perspective which has been developed over a 20 year period. There will be two seminar sessions exploring the key ideas underpinning the body of ideas called complex responsive processes of relating, but in the main you will have lots of opportunities to think with others about what’s going on for you in your organisation. It is time and space to take your experience seriously. Participants from previous one day workshops have

Arendt

found that it has prepared them better for  the conference,  although the workshop can be stand-alone too.

Meanwhile the conference, which begins with an inaugural dinner on Friday evening 17th at 7pm, is not a conventional academic event. You are very welcome to come and present a paper or a particular dilemma from your work during the workshop sessions on Saturday afternoon. But otherwise the only requirement is to come and participate fully with others to explore together why it is important to think critically in contemporary organisational life. In many ways the confer

ence itself is acounter-cultural event: there is time to reflect with no particular end in view apart from making meaning together, what the philosopher Hannah Arendt referred to as thinking without a bannister.

Conference fees, board and lodging are all included in the price. The conference ends after lunch on Sunday 19th May.

 

 

2019 Complexity and Management Conference 17-19th May

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stamp_hannah_arendt-2The 2019 Complexity and Management Conference booking page is now open and can be accessed here.

The title of this year’s conference is: What does it mean to be critical? – complexity, reflexivity and doubt in everyday organisational life.

On Saturday morning we are delighted to have Professor André Spicer from the Cass Business School, City, University of London to give the keynote on Saturday morning. 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’.

On Saturday afternoon we ask conference delegates to suggest workshops that they themselves would like to run consonant with the theme of the conference, so if you would like to suggest something, then do let me know.

As usual, the event will be highly participative and will offer lots of opportunities for discussion and exploration of the key themes with other delegates. The conference begins with an inaugural dinner on Friday evening 17th May, and ends after lunch on 19th May. The conference fee includes onsite board and lodging for the duration of the conference. Early bird rates apply before 1st April 2019.

As with previous years we are also offering a one day introductory workshop on some of the key ideas informing the perspective of complex responsive processes on Friday 17th May.

Hope to see you there.