Page 10 - Appreciative Leadership

Foreword

KENNETH J. GERGEN

It has been a great privilege to count Diana Whitney, the senior author
of this splendid work, as friend and colleague for over 25 years. From

our very first meeting, a common interest in human communication
was focal. For me, these interests took a scholarly turn; for Diana, they
led to a sparkling career in organizational development.
My scholarly journey ultimately led me to explore the ways in
which human communication gave rise to shared views of reality,
morality, and rationality. Ultimately, it could be ventured, all that we
hold to be worthwhile in life issues from communicative practices.

Such views, oft en identified as social constructionist, were unsettling
to many. Th ey flew in the face of the scientific beliefs in objective truth,

the philosophical beliefs in the foundations of logic, and the religious
and humanistic beliefs in the existence of universal moral principles.
Yet, in discussions with Diana Whitney, the potentials for such
ideas for practices of organizational change were breathtaking. Th eories
of the organization had long been based on a vision of the organiza-
tion as a form of machine that would be subject to rational design and
control. Organizational change was often based on top-down interven-

tions, fortified by research on structure and function. And it was oft en

unsuccessful.
From a social constructionist standpoint, the structuralist view
was replaced with a vision of the organization as a living process in

which every conversation in every location could affect—for good or
ill—the future of the organization.
It was largely out of our excitement in such ideas and their practical
implications that we joined with five other scholars and practitioners

to form the Taos Institute, a nonprofit organization linking social con-

structionist ideas with societal practices for purposes of social change.

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