Page 181 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 10 ■ The learning organization
1 Convergent conversation, which narrows discussion down toward a single per-
spective, opinion or answer.
2 Divergent conversation, which expands discussion by allowing for a multiplic-
ity of perspectives.
The crux of this is to engage in each at the appropriate time and the latter early
on in discussions about change. Emery and Purser (1996), Bunker and Alban
(1996) and Jacobs (1994) look at how best to gain a critical mass of people
involved in change discussion in order to evolve a sense of inclusion, commit-
ment and so on. Following Jacob in particular, it is clear that the period of diver-
gent dialogue about change needs to be significant before attempts are made to
close down and move to a more convergent dialogue, even though many people
engaged may seek closure more quickly. Bryman (2006) has analysed conversa-
tions as a means of progressing strategic change. He identifies four types of con-
versation from a functional perspective:

1 Conversations for ‘making sense’ of the issues change need address.
2 Conversations for making choices.
3 Conversations for reaching commitments about change.
4 Conversations over revisions to change plans.
These he describes as a learning cycle. He goes on to observe that the ‘sense-making’
conversations have the profoundest impact on the content of any emerging set of
change proposals. He notes the importance of divergent and convergent conver-
sation but also notes that we may observe conversations which are either about
innovation or replication. That is that at some stage the changes under discussion
are genuinely innovative. Sooner or later the changes are replication, as the organ-
ization seeks to roll out change. For him, where the talk is innovative you need
both divergent conversation, because this facilitates the widest search for ideas,
but also finally more convergent talk for this allows for focus on the innovations
to be put into place. Conversely, where replication is involved convergent con-
versation can create a sense of community and commitment. Clearly managing
discussion, whether informal or structured as part of change events, workshops

conferences and so on, requires attention to these categories and ideas.

Disciplines for the learning organization

Senge (1990) indicates how such an approach can be generated and identifies
what he calls five disciplines as the key characteristics which everyone must
develop if they wish to create a learning culture which produces an organization
capable of facing the challenge of making sense of emerging complexity.
The five skills or characteristics are:
1 Systems thinking: everyone must learn how to view things as a whole and that
one set of events impacts on others.
2 Personal mastery: for Senge this is ‘the discipline of continually clarifying and
deepening . . . personal vision, of focusing . . . energies, of developing patience,

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