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Collaborative
Action Research in an Organisation:
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This project was made possible through a grant provided under the Industry Collaborative Grants Scheme of the Australian Research Council and the organisation described in the paper. 1. Introduction In this paper we [1]
will examine our dilemmas and experiences within an action research
project, with a specific emphasis on the collaboration between institutional
partners. The project is ongoing between the State Branch of a large
government direct service organisation and researchers at Swinburne
University, Melbourne, Australia. It broadly aims to develop a framework
for quality in terms of (i) the roles and tasks of its professional
workers, managers, internal consultants and administrative and support
staff, and (ii) the continuous development of an organisational culture
where learning at the individual, group and organisational levels is
maximised. However, contrary to models of quality that initially specify
procedures and outcomes, we see an understanding of what a 'framework
for quality' means for this organisation, at this time, as an outcome
of the research. Even at this stage one year into the project, we are
unsure as to what shape it might take or whether a 'model' is the right
description for what it is we are seeking to identify. For this paper, we hope that through an examination
of our experiences, we might better understand the nature and process
of collaborative work. We have noted that researchers of organisational
dynamics or consultants frequently engage in collaborative efforts with
the members of an organisation to bring about organisational learning
or change and to understand their antecedents and effects; yet the very
process of collaboration is itself often taken for granted, especially
when it occurs successfully. Alternately, when the collaboration is
under stress or breaking down, the processes considered are often framed
in terms of resistance, whether this be to the 'outsiders', to change,
to management, to the organisational culture or to its environment.
Might there be other ways of framing such changes in the collaborative
relationship? Some of the work done on understanding the breakdowns
in collaborations, between researchers and organisations, or between
consultants and organisations, has been around the difficulties of establishing
initial working relations. Other work has been done examining the politics
of ongoing relatedness (Mirvis & Berg, 1977; Casemore et.al, 1994).
It is difficult to continue research where members are unwilling or
when organisational authority to continue is withdrawn. Yet in order
to understand the collaborative process, it is important to study all
those dynamics. We ask the question: might a better understanding of
unconscious as well as conscious dynamics deepen the collaboration? In designing the project, we understood the
need for a setting that could allow and contain negative as well as
positive aspects of the collaboration so that these could be understood,
learned from and worked with alongside the primary work of the project.
Drawing on models and ideas from psychoanalysis and therapy, where collaboration
between therapist and patient is required in order to understand and
work with the patient's problems, others have talked about such a setting
as a 'facilitating' or 'holding' environment (Bridger, 1990; Miller,
1995; Stapley, 1996; Willshire, 1997). What is meant by this is a setting,
that itself can be trusted to provide physical and psychologicial safety,
to those willing to experience and explore issues that might normally
be anxiety-provoking, politically subversive or counter-cultural within
the organisation. Such a setting allows exploration of ideas and feelings
that emerge during work yet which in less exploratory or safe settings
become suppressed or operate in an underground manner. A good holding
environment (good-enough in Winnicott's terms) allows for a containment
of such experiences and explorations, so that they can be integrated
for work rather than for counter-work purposes. For example, anger with
a manager might be talked through with him or her rather than left to
smoulder in resentment (and possible unconscious or even conscious sabotage
to the work expressed through lateness or absenteeism) because the issues
involved cannot be broached. In fact all co-operative and collaborative
work requires a form of holding environment in order to facilitate the
human interactions involved, and the learning from their consequences.
Where the purpose is collaboratively to study and understand organisational
dynamics, as it is in the current project, the holding environment needs
to include a facilitation of all aspects of the collaboration for these
purposes. Further, rather than a holding environment simply for what
already exists, a new collaboration requires an environment that will
foster that which currently does not. This was a challenge for our project
design. Organisation of the Paper In order to discuss our experiences of the collaboration
in the project thus far, and in order to understand the nature of the
environment that has been established in the project, this paper is
written in three sections: 1. First we briefly outline what we regard as important
in the psychodynamics of role and multiple roles, action, reflection
and open ended learning, linking these with ideas of task and collaboration.
This section acts as a conceptual background for our discussion. It
outlines the ideas with which the university research team entered the
project and with which they continue to work and also continue to modify
in light of our collective experiences. 2. Second we will give a description of the project
including aims, background, method and especially the place of learning
from experience within the project. As a focus for this we will examine
how we attempted to design an experiential event collaboratively with
input from both research partners (the university researchers and the
government organisation) so that a working relationship, which drew
on and increasingly built mutual experience between all participants,
could be maximised for organisational learning. Drawing on our experience
in the project, we will look at the work of the project steering group
and the specific dynamics of the working laboratory. Aspects to be considered
will be the development of collaboration, and the environment within
which collaboration can occur. 3. The final section will deal with 'the
collaborative state-of-mind'. We will attempt to draw together some
conceptualisations of collaboration, linking these with the material
presented in the previous section. Co-labour comes to be understood
in terms of the conscious processes of working together, as well as
the unconscious dynamics occuring in the presence of the collaborative
partner. Section 1: Psycho-dynamics
of Role, Task, State-of-Mind, This section outlines some of the ideas underlying
the way we have approached working in the project. It provides a framework
for the exploration of experience to be described later. Of particular
importance are our conceptions of role, task, state-of-mind, action
and learning. Task and Role A psychological group or organisation is an entity
because its members have a common task or tasks upon which they are
working. The people who make it up may or may not be physically present
or personally known to one another. What makes them a group is the way
they are related, through their roles, to the tasks of the group and
hence to one another. This is so whether or not the tasks are conscious
and deliberately agreed, or whether they occur unconsciously and collusively
between the members, or, more commonly, when both operate. It is so
whether the tasks consist of manual labour, the organisation of labour,
intellectual problem solving, emotional engagement, political intrigue
or any other. That the life and dynamics of the group are fundamentally
structured by the tasks of the group and the role relations of the members
is a central assumption for our work. Moreover, such dynamics are greatly
affected by how this entity (of group or organisation) exists in the
mind of each member. This is because each member enacts his or her role
in light of what is in their mind about the whole, even though this
is incomplete, fragmentary and built up through a particular and individual
set of experiences. That is, the dynamics of the group or organisation
are reciprocally related to the way people perceive their tasks and
take up their roles. To take this account of group life even further,
we propose that the group or organisation exists not simply in mental
models, cognitive frameworks or other complicated patterns of thought,
but also in feelings and volitions (Long & Newton, 1997). In deepening
the application of the concept organisation-in-the-mind Armstrong
(1995) illustrates through his case material how he came to the insight
that his client, the Chief Executive of an Authority responsible for
the containment and care of criminally insane clients, had internalised
his emotional experience of his organisation in a particular way. The
experience of this man, in his organisational role, was undergirded
by a feeling of deep vulnerability; a feeling which was unconsciously
linked to the primary risk associated with the work of the Authority.
Armstrong thus elaborates the meaning of organisation-in-the-mind
to include 'the emotional reality of the organisation, which is registered
in him (the client) and is informing his relatedness to the organisation,
consciously and unconsciously.' (p4). He shows how the concept of
the organisation-in-the-mind cannot be limited to some image,
vision or cognitive map if it is to reveal the emotional complexity
of the Chief Executive's role. The latter's efforts to produce change
in the organisation would necesarily have to take account of the experience
of vulnerability which was lodged in him and which permeated his working
relations with other members of the Authority. To put this another way,
the emotional life of the organisation, which included the acute feelings
of vulnerability by both staff and clients alike, could be glimpsed
through the experience of the Chief Executive in role. Armstrong's work
as a consultant was to bring into consciousness the reality of this
emotional aspect of the organisation's task and to help his client understand
how he had organised his own emotional response to this within his work
role. In order to account for this level of interpretation
and to avoid the more cognitive connotations of the term organisation-in-the-mind
we have coined the term organisation-in-experience. The dynamics
of such organisational experience are focussed and refined by attention
to role performance. We find useful Reed's treatment of organisational
role through the metaphor of a candle (Reed, 1976). As such the role
is seen as constant but everchanging. It is much more than the enactment
of a job description since it is influenced by the 'role idea' which
the performer brings to it; plus the performer's judgement of the fit
between the role, the organisation's aim and its changing context; and
not least, the oscillating feelings which the performer has about his/her
capacity to take up the role fully and work at the edge of uncertainty
and possibility. Like the candle flame, robust role performance has
considerable constancy amidst its perpetual flickering. It generates
most light as a naked flame but its flickering volatility and vulnerability
must be understood in terms of the risk it presents and the atmosphere
in which its burns. So the organisation-in-the-mind is more
aptly the organisation-in-experience (thought or unthought)of
each person. However, accessing, articulating and reflecting on the
organisation-in-experience is not an easy task, even though it
is exactly this task that is required for purposes of research into
organisational dynamics and organisational change. It is only when we
can begin to understand the organisation-in-experience for ourselves
and for others - whether those others be in our own workgroup, in another
department or in other roles - that we can begin to understand how and
why different roles lead to differing points of view, attitudes, beliefs
and constructions of work. For example, in the current project
we have become aware of an immense diversity between judgements about
the nature of 'quality work' and how it is viewed from the different
roles within the organisation. The group-in-experience or organisation-in-experience
is different for each person, even though it may be seemingly overlaid
by what is assumed to be a general agreed 'vision'. An additional complexity to what has so far been
discussed is the fact that people take on multiple roles, often in relation
to the same task but also in relation to multiple tasks. It is a fact
of modern social and organisational life, that taking on multiple, and
sometimes seemingly conflicting roles, is a common occurrence. Finally, we wish to add one more concept in this
discussion about roles. This is that of the group-as-a-whole
or organisation-as-a-whole, both of which are systems of interlinking
persons in roles. Although this outline has concentrated until now on
the individual role holder, what we want to add here is that the-organisation-as-a-whole,
through its constituency of roles, each dynamically being created and
modified by the persons incumbent in those roles, has an effect on those
constituents. This is no one way causality. The whole, which is more
than the sum of its parts, has an effect on each part. This is a paradoxical
or circular causality (Long. 1992). The complexity of the process continues
with the multiple roles taken. Bion's work (1961) examined the way in
which the group-as-a-whole engenders a collective state-of-mind
in its participants. This state-of-mind (Long, 1996), say a state of
dependency, is internalised by the members and constitutes one form
of the organisation-in-experience for them. A different collective
state-of-mind will engender other forms. So, one may have a role or
roles within a collective state of dependency at one time, and a role
or roles within a state of belligerence at another. This became
evident within the current project when new tasks were faced by the
various organisational role holders. The working laboratory, described
later in the paper, required the task of examining current dynamics
as well as attempting to understand what each of the organisational
sub-groupings meant for the organisation-as-a-whole. Working
collectively at this new task led to the expression of some of the very
painful aspects of the organisation's work. It also led to states of
confusion, anger, dismay and sometimes hope. Members were faced with
understanding their roles in light of such collective states. Such a circular or reciprocal process occurs,
then, not simply through the mechanisms of perception, thinking, feeling
and motivation - that is, the ways people respond mentally and internally
to the organisation in the development of their experience - but also
through action, for example, the actions that are taken in relation
to tasks and to others working on those tasks. Action and Learning Action methods in learning and research emphasize
the engagement of social action and its effects (Revens, 1983; Winter,
1989; Elden & Chisholm, 1994). The premise employed here is that
through action the actors are effecting (that is, bringing into continuous
being) the system of which they are a part. In a group or wider organisation,
members create their roles through the reciprocal processes described
above. In short, the organisation-as-a-whole (through its management,
but also through less formal means of taking up authority, exercising
power or control) may prescribe certain tasks and roles. The individual
or workgroup may take up these roles, develop them and create new roles
according to the various organisations-in-experience available
to them at different times and in relation to different tasks. Nonetheless,
it is through acting and observing the results of action, short and
long-term, that people are able continuously to develop and modify their
roles and to learn from them. What is learned is not always immediately obvious.
As with all experience, a symbolic system, such as language, discourse,
a system of roles or other cultural phenomena, is required to make learning
available for reflection, thinking and planning. Otherwise experience
occurs only as a more automatic and unconscious process. Nor are actors
always in control of what it is they will learn from any set of actions.
If they were, it would simply be a re-confirmation of something known
- perhaps useful in itself, but nonetheless, repetition rather than
learning. In action research, the design is systematically
to engage and learn from an iterative, cyclical process. Actions are
planned and implemented, specific effects are observed and the whole
process is subject to reflection and discussion before further action
is planned. The actions may be widespread or focussed; the effects may
be readily observable, longterm or covert. For example, the covert psychological
effects of change may occur long before these themselves have an effect
on the overt aspects of work. In the current project we wish to explore something
of the organisation-in-experience for the participants and how
this affects the way they carry out their roles and bring about organisational
change. This has led us to include the formulation of working hypotheses
during the reflection aspects of the action research and action learning
cycles. These working hypotheses are tested out through a further cycle
of planning, action and observation. It has also led us to emphasise
the observation of experience as well as more overt observations of
behaviour and organisation change. This in itself has led us to develop
and employ methods of accessing that experience. Finally, it led us to include attempts to think
about the irrational and unconscious aspects of experience, planning,
change and action. In the field these are discovered in their effects.
Catching youself in the throes of unconscious desire - to enact certain
emotionally laden scenarios (Sievers, 1995); to rid yourself of painful
feelings or disturbing thoughts - is difficult enough in the consulting
room or in a group especially designed to study such processes. It is
mostly impossible in the field. So we were often led to explore actions
and group dynamics in retrospect, or in the effects that they seemed
to have on the research team or the steering group. Including an experiential
working laboratory in the project design was an attempt to work with
some of the irrational and unconscious aspects of experience present
in the organisation. The more participatory the research is (that is,
the more the organisation members themselves take up responsibility
for researching their own system and their own place within it: for
being active in the research process) the less is the distinction between
researcher and researched, or more precisely, the less
is the distinction made between the need for different people to fill
these roles. The roles become positions to be taken up in the process:
positions that are available to one individual at different times, much
as are the positions of observing ego and observed aspects
of self, and of insider / outsider to the research process.
In this way, participative action research engages a capacity in the
individual to find multiple positions within the self and to take up
multiple roles within the work system. Ideally this enables people to
gain multiple perspectives on the task and to better understand the
organisation-as-a-whole, because of their access to multiple
organisations-in-experience. We hypothesise that when this is
successfully done, a state-of-mind is engendered where collaboration
and social development is possible; as is an increased capacity to tolerate
anxiety, ambiguity and other forms of social pain. Such a state-of-mind
might include trust, a capacity to work with different power relations
and a capacity to work from a position of not knowing: a position of
co-labour. We recognise that like all collective states-of-mind, this
is not achieved for all time, and that it is vulnerable to change. However,
we see it as an ideal state to be achieved when possible, in a 'good
enough' way for work to be ongoing and generally productive. Organisational life is rarely generative of such
a state-of-mind, as is attested by, for example, the literature on organisational
culture and social defense systems. Many organisational interventions
may be doomed to failure because those involved believe that collaboration
is achieved through consciously formed initial agreements, when in fact
it is a state-of-mind that is the outcome of work where individual and
social capacities are mutually developed. We take the position that
successful collaborative work is an outcome of mature working relations
between individuals and groups. The development of maturity depends
on many factors, including a good holding environment for the work,
the capacity to negotiate tasks and roles clearly, and the desire as
well as the ability to learn from the experience of engaging task with
others. One extra distinction we should make at this point
is that between consultancy and research. There is much that could be
said about the similarities and the differences between these roles.
A major distinction is that the collaborative researcher role is directed
primarily to the research task of discovery rather than the primary
task of aiding the organisation to pursue its espoused aims. The implications
of these tasks are important. Discovery and learning require a different
state-of-mind than does, for example, the primary pursuit of efficiency
and productivity. Learning not only allows, but requires experimentation,
freedom to make mistakes and the pursuit of diverse ways of doing things
in order to note their effects. It engages curiosity and promotes novelty.
In contrast, a primary focus on productivity tends to engage an instrumental
relation to task and role. Risks are minimised and immediate results
are sought. Diversion and play are rarely tolerated. Instrumentality
in and of itself tends to strip a task of deeper purpose and value. Also the researcher has the freedom of not being
directly in the employ of the organisation and hence not directly subject
to the authority, power and social dynamics entailed. This is not to
say that a consultant cannot achieve the independence necessary to help
the organisation think in new ways about their structure or processes.
It depends much on the style of consultancy, the emphasis placed on
learning and discovery and the capacity of the consultant to put his
or her observations forward without fear or favour. These distinctions are not necessarily as clear
in practice as in theory. The researcher wants the research to continue,
just as the consultant wants to earn a living through the continuation
of the consulting relationship. Also, both have specific expertise that
may lead the organisation to relate to them as 'experts' even in those
areas where they have little expertise, or in those situations when
a dependency on external expertise leads to overdependency and is thus
not helpful to either the research or the consulting task. Both are
faced with the ethical and power issues involved. Although we are clear
that the collaborative research task is different to the consultation
task, there are times when a consultant will need to take on a research
task, and times when a researcher is consulted. In the current project we have had to keep in mind these distinctions and to work continuously at defining the roles of the university research team members. What it is to be a collaborative research partner seems to us more a process than a definitive position. This paper will work with the ideas presented in this introductory section, with reference to the case material of the project. Section 2: The Project Having worked as a consultant with the organisation
- the state branch of a government rehabilitation service employing
helping professionals - one of the authors (SL) suggested a collaborative
action research project focussed on and aimed at (i) improving quality
(of task, role and organisation) at state, regional and local levels,
and (ii) developing managerial and internal consultancy roles in a framework
of maximal organisational learning. (Note, however, that the roles dealt
with in the project came to include many other organisational roles.)
This proposal was agreed by the manager for policy and programs who
became the direct organisation partner in the research. Approval and
agreement to be involved was given by the state manager and both institutional
parties to the agreement (the university and the organisation) sought
funding from the Australian Research Council, under its industry collaborative
grants scheme. Under this scheme, the government matches dollar for
dollar provided by the industry partner. Funding was approved in October
1995 for two years. A steering committee comprising three members of
the university research team and six organisation members was established
to plan, guide, oversee and evaluate the project in an ongoing way.
This committee meets monthly or more frequently when required. The research is occurring over five stages:
In this paper we are exploring the nature
of collaboration and will concentrate on the development of the steering
group as the major collaborative vehicle. In particular, we will explore
the experience of working together collaboratively on the design and
implementation of the experiential event - a 3 day residential working
laboratory - through a description of some of the dynamics occurring.
As with all social science, the concepts that guide us are ideal and
describe situations according to an overall logic. Part of our experience
is that the participative action research models presented to us in
the literature often appear too clear and simple to account for the
confusion and complexity in the project. It is not so much that they
don't provide useful concepts, than that they imply that acting in certain
ways clearly will bring about certain results. Much of what we experienced
was that there was little certainty in the process. Providing a Holding Environment for the Project The steering committee was set up to provide a
venue where the collaborating partners could begin work together. It
was hoped that the partnership between the university researchers and
the organisation could be extended and worked with in many different
ways as the project progressed, however, there needed to be a central
group that could take on the tasks of designing, steering, monitoring
and evaluating aspects of the research in an ongoing way and in light
of the progress occurring within the project. It was to be a forum for
discussion of the activities within the project and a place where there
was a sense of the whole of the project. Both institutional partners had their own needs
to be met by the research. The organisation wanted to improve the quality
of work done by its professionals, but they also were going through
many changes to their structure, the way they were funded and the types
of clients they had, and this had an impact on the way that management
took up the opportunity of the research. Although in a climate of financial
cuts, it was early on agreed to call the project 'the organisation growth
project'. This seemed to symbolise the hope that growth could occur
in ways other than size or funding. On the other side of the collaboration,
the university wanted the chance to engage in research. Having recently
moved to the status of university from a college of advanced education,
building a research culture and gaining income and kudos from research
was important. Beyond this, the research team had its own particular
way of working and its own particular way of conceptualising organisations,
as described in the first section of this paper. Success for the team
would mean being able to work with a model of learning from experience
and learning from the attempted exploration of unconscious processes
operating whilst organisation members went about their tasks from the
vantage of their particular roles. As the major containing environment for the project,
the steering committee needed to have strong authorisation for carrying
out the work of the project. The university team had expert knowledge
and a neutral or objective perspective. This was valued, particularly
as some successful consultancy work had been carried out with the organisation
by the authors - members of the research team. The organisation members
of the committee had inside knowledge of the organisation, and the authority
to make detailed decisions about what might be done within the project.
Moreover, many members of the senior decision making body within the
organisation were on the steering committee. For a successful collaboration
to develop, both parties should feel their needs were being worked toward. The initial relationship for the research was between
one of the authors (SL) and the manager of policy and planning (CF).
It seemed important to have the state manager strongly involved, not
only because he held authority for the branch, but because his position
allowed him to have a close understanding of the national situation
for the organisation and the changes that were occurring at that level.
He agreed to chair the steering committee. He responded positively to
the research proposal. Although he made it clear that the way of doing
things outlined in the proposal was not his usual way, his preparedness
to 'give it a go' arose from his recognition that the organisation needed
to engage new approaches to issues of quality. He believed that the
old established ways would not get them much further, given the sweeping
organisational changes upon they were about to embark. It was the manager for policy and planning who
had the better understanding of the concepts, models and methods used
by the university team, being a graduate of the program in organisation
behaviour conducted at the university. As the project was developed,
and in its early stages, he played an interpretative role, translating
between the two collaborating groups. As he said later, 'the public
service way of doing things is very hierarchical, and this new way of
working required a significant amount of explaining to my colleagues
who with one exception could not see the benefits straight off.' During
a large part of the first year of the project this manager was ill and
the major working relationship between the partner institutions was
maintained within the steering group broadly, and between the senior
researcher and the state manager more specifically. But by this stage
the project was well on its way, and the two groups had to build their
own bridges and make their own translations. Despite the state manager's ambivalence about the
project he was very supportive at many levels, including protecting
it at the national level where other projects on quality may have put
an end to this one; supporting the project financially; taking up the
role of chair of the steering committee; and, attending most meetings
where he took an active role, officially reinforcing the importance
of the project to members of the organisation through electronic and
other communications, and devoting his own time to the project in other
ways when necessary. We have come to see some of his stated, and at
times acted, ambivalence, as representative of public service conservatism;
and he has clearly stated that he sees himself as a career public servant,
as do many of the senior managers. However, as the project has progressed,
other members of the steering committee, including members of the university
research team, have also experienced ambivalence toward the project
and their part in it. This has been expressed through, for example,
a female case manager's withdrawal from the steering committee, and
through the experienced marginality of one member of the university
research team. It may be that the steering committee deals with collective
ambivalence and associated anxieties through the experience of just
a few of its members, leaving others to take a strong positive stance.
Such a splitting defence was also present in the wider organisation
with respect to ambivalence about the broad organisational changes mentioned
earlier. The members of the university research team had
to attend closely to their own experience in order to learn how this
dynamic operated with them. While having a steering committee seemed to fit
easily into the culture of the organisation, insofar as most of their
usual projects had what they called a reference group, such a fit has
not always been helpful Reference groups have a particular way of operating,
making the introduction of new ways of working in the steering committee
difficult. For example, a reference group, whilst having the ostensible
task of guiding and evaluating a project, has the implicit task of representing
the various interest groupings or structural configurations within the
organisation. This is associated with the task of seeming to steer a
fair course between different interests. A reference group might be
criticised for being politically biased, often by leaving the direct
case managers poorly represented. Such criticism, directed at the straw
argument of representation, often covered for other issues that were
not directly broached. In the establishment of the steering committee,
there was a strong push to have the different role groupings within
the organisation represented, so that the project might be acceptable. The feelings that go with this behaviour tend to
be those of not wanting to hurt the feelings of others, nor wanting
others to feel that they are being treated 'differently'. The ideology
is one of fairness for all. In the organisation, this ideology slips
at times into denying difference and finding other than direct ways
of approaching clear differences, say of experience or expertise amongst
the staff. This then becomes fertile territory for underground political
intrigue. Such a dynamic may be connected to the task of
working with disabled clients and the mandate of the organisation to
follow the government policy of integrating the disabled into the wider
work culture. Although following a worthy ideal, it is much more difficult
to get jobs for people with some disabilities than for others. For example,
what is nowadays termed 'psychiatric disability' might cover a person
with a chronic psychiatric problem who has rarely if ever been employed.
In the context of the organisation becoming more 'business-like', one
person said, 'how do you make money out of the mentally ill?' There
is an inbuilt contradiction within such a task, because aspects of it
seem quite impossible. It is as if the task idea, that is, the task
that organisation members have in mind, has become a corrupted task
(Chapman, 1996) in the case of psychiatric clients. That is, the task
of aiding them to gain work has become the task of using them for organisational
gain and political expedience. Government directives have moved the
organisation away from a prior, albeit minor, aim of helping people
gain 'independent living skills', to place a greater emphasis on vocational
outcomes. In the long term, such clients most likely will not remain
with the organisation. In the interim, staff specifically trained to
work with these and similar people, and who entered the organisation
with social justice values, find themselves caught in a bind. This is reflected throughout the organisation.
The ideology of 'everything and everyone equal' is recognised as somewhat
hollow, but is still visibly played out in the organisation. The reality
of authority and power behind the ideology is different. For example,
there are power cliques within the organisation based on geographic
regions and key roles within these. Whether or not the steering committee for this
project should be a representative body was discussed. Despite attempting
to think about what was right for this project, the established organisation-in-experience
became re-established in the steering committee. Membership was largely
representative of roles as interest groupings, rather than roles as
pertinent to the task at hand. Also, as often occurred with reference
groups, it was some months into the project before a case manager (the
direct service role) was invited onto the committee. The same dynamic of re-establishing the usual organisation-in-experience,
seemed to spill into the project activities. The number of interviews
to be conducted as part of phase 1 continued to grow as steering group
members felt that all roles should be interviewed in large numbers,
and pressure was put on the interview team to enlarge the interview
sample. There seemed to be compelling forces drawing the university
team into the culture of the organisation, rather than into a partnership.
The early meetings, whilst dealing with the pragmatics
of introducing the project more broadly in the organisation and planning
the interview phase, tended to be formal with people tentatively getting
to know one another across the partner institutions. Little processing
of group dynamics occurred at this time. The relationship at this stage was marked by:
It was mainly the overall design of the project,
the investment of hope, time and energy that the organisation had put
in, the promise of a report from the interviews, and the future working
laboratory that acted as a holding environment for the work. This seemed
particularly the case when the manager for policy and planning was ill. During stage two of the project, the university
team fed-back the results of the interviews to the steering committee.
Three half day sessions were set aside for this process. Certainly this
phase led to a deepening of the relationship between the steering committee
members. The university research team had spent a lot of time reflecting
on the results of the interviews and on their own internal team dynamics.
Whilst some of these dynamics clearly belonged to the team and reflected
other working relations that they had within the organisation-in-experience
of the university, other dynamics seemed to reflect issues that
were important to the organisation. The team members seemed to be working
within the projective identifications of the organisation. Working through
these strengthened the understanding that the team members had about
what was being said in the interviews and helped them to form several
working hypotheses about the organisation, and about the way the dynamics
involved were occurring within the steering committee. It was these
working hypotheses, together with the interview data, that the research
team were able to bring to the steering committee during the feedback
sessions. In light of the feedback, the committee was able
to address not only issues surrounding the organisation as a whole,
but also some of it's own dynamics. This was a risky process, because
what was raised threatened some of the established ways of thinking
of members. At times it worked well. For example, organisation members
began to see that what they had viewed as a message 'not getting through
to others in the organisation' was clearly not the case. The message
(concerned with changes that had to occur) was with members of the organisation;
their response to the message however was complex. At other times, the
process seemed to lead to a re-stressing of past, not particularly useful,
ways of doing things, which had to be challenged. For example, the simple
perception that the organisation was divided into those who were for
change, and those who resisted (the splitting phenomenon mentioned earlier)
kept being discussed and concretised into several metaphors despite
the evidence that the situation was more complex. This would lead to
ideas of resolution that acted on this imagery of an organisation split
between good and bad elements. For instance, metaphorically 'pruning
out the bad', or 'putting bombs' under some people. Such a perception
was held by many throughout the whole organisation, becoming a self-fulfilling
prophecy, even though many individuals recognised in their own experience
that the situation was far more complex. Interestingly, since the commencement of the project,
the senior managers have changed the composition of the major decision
making group in the organisation. It now has a far wider membership,
including an administrative officer - a role that many saw as important
but with little authority or power. It is this new body that is approving
the action learning projects. Currently the steering committee is discussing
its own expansion, not to better represent interest groups or structural
configurations, but more to include people appropriate for working on
its current task. In both cases, this move from the idea of political
representation, to selection for task, seems to have been influenced
by the work within the project. This paper is not the place to explore such
dynamics further. Suffice to say that at this stage, the steering committee
was a good-enough container to allow these issues to be raised, for
different members to take different stands, and for the collaboration
to continue through the challenging of some well established dynamics.
The working laboratory was the place where some of these dynamics could
be addressed more broadly. This will be discussed below. Negotiation of Tasks and Roles We have said that maturity in work relations depends
on a capacity clearly to negotiate task and role. This is an ongoing
process not an initial point nor an outcome. Hirschhorn (1988) describes
a retreat from the role boundary (with a task or with another role)
as a defence against the anxiety generated by the task. For example,
an employee may draw back from reporting or discussing something that
he or she regards as a mistake made by an organisation 'superior'. The
anxiety aroused by crossing someone in authority (and, of course the
perceived or imagined repercussions) leads the person to withdraw from
interaction or perhaps from carrying out a rectifying action. The outcome
may be loss of quality or production or initiative for doing something
perhaps new and creative within the work. The withdrawal is protective
of the individual, at least in the immediate sense. They 'pull their
head in'. We believe that such a retreat from the role boundary means
that the ongoing task is not renegotiated. Nor is there a chance to
renegotiate and change the nature of the roles involved. In this case
the superior has not been given the chance to learn from a mistake.
Moreover, the fantasies surrounding authority have not been tested in
reality and are likely to continue unabated. This provides a situation
likely to increasingly support a culture of not challenging. If, on
the other hand, the employee does take up the full authority of their
role, questions the superior and receives a rebuke, then the roles have
been renegotiated with a little more certainty, perhaps to the detriment
of the work. That is the risk. However, given ongoing circumstances
- one being the reality that continual mistakes, or being non-competitive
will cost the company or organisation in one way or another - risking
renegotiation of task and role brings the people involved closer to
the realities of their work and closer to a more satisfying working
relationship. Such dynamics and choices are present in the organisation
studied, and in the university. The experience of the project steering committee
has involved many renegotiations of the tasks and roles of its members.
Although the overall tasks were of designing, steering, monitoring and
evaluating aspects of the research in an ongoing way and in light of
the progress of the project, the operationalisation of this was complex. An early indication of the need for continual role
negotiation occurred in the university research team several weeks after
the project had been 'launched' in the wider organisation and when the
steering committee was beginning to make decisions about the interviewing/data-gathering
phase of the research. The two members of the team who were full time
academics (SL and JN) became concerned about the contribution of the
third member (JD). Their concern emanated from his relative silence
in discussions and his lateness or absence at short notice from scheduled
meetings. The senior researcher (SL) broached the matter with him and
through discussion it emerged that he felt treated as less than equal
with the two university based members. As evidence he stated that in
introductions to members of the collaborating organisation his status
as a sessional lecturer at the university had not been mentioned and
during the project launch he had been reduced to the role of chauffeur
when visits had been made to various regional offices. Subsequently,
he believed that he was being treated as a junior rather than as an
equal member of the team. This issue brought up for mutual consideration
the multiple roles which could be manifest or latent within the team
and which were contributing to the differing organisations-in-experience.
For instance, the researcher (JD) who was relegated the 'junior' status
was concurrently enrolled as a postgraduate student at the university
and being supervised on a separate research project by his sometime
colleague (JN). JD's personal research project was proving to be a challenging
and painful experience yet it was his initiative and risk taking as
a 'student' which had stimulated the invitation for him to join the
collaborative research team. He had been given the opportunity because
he was a student of the university who was seeking to learn more about
psychodynamically oriented action research and because he had the capacity
to undertake particular tasks within the the collaborative project.
The tensions between the roles of teacher, student and research colleague
could not be defined away but had to be brought into the relatedness
of roles and task; most particularly in this case, because the university
team was seeking to develop a relationship of co-researchers with the
members of the organisation. It may be that the desire of JD to be recognised
as a sessional lecturer at the university was not just about his status
within the research team. It reflected too the very positive transference
from organisation members onto the university representatives. At the
launch of the project many organisation members expressed a sense of
pride and importance that they were going to be involved with a university
on a government funded research project into the future of their organisation.
And there were expressions of relief that this was not to be another
short term consultancy with foreseen conclusions. It was to be conducted
by independent, outside researchers. The power of this transference was reflected by
the feelings of JN who assumed without discussion that only he and SL
could fully represent the university and who, by his actions, left little
space for JD to take up the fuller role previously assigned to him in
the research. This relationship was complicated further by the fact
that SL and JN were seen by some of their colleagues as a strong 'pair'
in their university work and JD was struggling to find his role as a
colleague in the face of this. The negotiation of multiple roles and tasks within
the university team was parallelled in the organisation. A striking
example is the role of Senior Adviser, a senior professional role, with
professional responsibilities and accountabilities, and with the additional
role of internal consultant to all line levels within the organisation.
The complexity of the role means that there are often conflicts between
the differing role aspects where, for instance a senior adviser might
have to do file audits with the direct professional staff (seen as a
policing role within the organisation) whilst also acting as a consultant
to the work of a case manager, or to the case manager's manager at the
unit level. People working in this role are constantly having to negotiate
the tasks that they take up, the authorities they hold and the role
relations that they have with others. Also, the role of Administrative
Officer, whilst seen as invaluable, leaves its encumbents feeling as
if they are 'juniors' within the organisation. Issues of heirarchy,
relative power and exclusion, then, were reflected in both the organisation
and the research team. A further complexity within the organisation is
the fact that many individuals have moved from role to role within a
period of a few years: for example, from case manager to senior adviser
or business development officer, or from regional manager to senior
adviser and vice versa. Often, but not always, the role moves are associated
with promotional rewards and may be into acting positions, the substantive
position being returned to after a period of time. When this is considered
alongside the earlier mentioned need within the organisation to make
sure all are treated equally, one begins to imagine the complexity of
the relations between people in the organisation. We will return to discuss how role and task
negotiations occurred within the steering committee at the working laboratory
after describing the place of the latter in the project. The Working Laboratory The working laboratory, first designed for the
initial research proposal, was modified and more fully developed by
the steering committee. All members of the steering committee attended
along with many of those organisation members who were interviewed as
part of stage 1 of the project. The one exception to full attendance
was the state manager who was absent for the first day and a half of
the working laboratory. This had effects that we will discuss later. Designed to take place over three days, the working
laboratory included an opening plenary session followed by a day and
a half of an experiential intergroup event (stage 1, see below). Some
reflection and plenary time was provided to process the experiential
work. A second day and a half consisted of a workteam event, (stage
2) designed to enable self-selected teams to begin the design of action
learning projects that could be carried out within the organisation
over the next fifteen months. The steering committee met during this
event, with the task of selecting five or six of the projects, which
would then be recommended to the organisation's decision making body
for implementation. Teams presented their projects to the steering committee
during the final session of the workteam event and the committee then
made its decision. During this latter day and a half, time was also
available for relection and for plenary discussion. The three days ended
with a final plenary for reflection and discussion of the working laboratory
as a whole. The task of the Working Laboratory was 'to explore and
study the emergent dynamics of the organisation in relation to the issues
facing it in terms of quality work and organisational learning.' The
notes given out to members went on to say: 'The task will be worked
at in two main stages. The first will be through an examination of current
and (anticipated) future role identities, and the dynamics of transition
between these identities.....The second stage will involve the development
of working hypotheses about the organisation and its movement toward
an anticipated future, and from this, the initial development of action
learning projects.' This design was developed by the working laboratory
staff group and approved by the steering committee, who took an active
role in questioning the design and making additional suggestions. The
main role for the committee, though, tended to be in its promotion.
During the two to three months prior to the working laboratory, the
steering committee devoted much time to ensuring that as many as possible
of the interviewees from the first stage of the project would attend.
Individual members of the committee took on the task of 'chasing up'
various people, especially when the date loomed and then passed for
responding to the document which had detailed the working laboratory
and had called for applications. The university team had attended the
area network meetings of the organisation to explain the working laboratory
and its importance to the project. They learned at one of these meetings
that members were sceptical of 'residentials' that simply put findings
on sheets of paper which were never again consulted, and that many believed
the 'residentials' were only for management; the usual yearly residential
being for management. As indicated earlier, the first half of this event
was devoted to having organisation members work in self chosen small
groups on a 'here and now' task. The task set was of 'exploring aspects
of organisational identity'. This was done first within the small groups
and then between small groups through an emergent process of representation.
Staff of the working laboratory acted as 'facilitators' to this process
with each staff member working with one small group. These staff were
the three members of the university team, plus two of their associates
(JC and CL) recruited to work in the laboratory and CF, the manager
of planning and policy for the organisation who acted as administrator
of the working laboratory.. This first task proved to be extremely difficult
for the members to grasp and their efforts generated a volatile emotional
climate for the shift to the second stage of the working laboratory.
It had also proved very difficult for the staff to concur around the
aim and method of stage one during the design of the working laboratory.
All the staff had experience of group relations conferences conducted
in the Leicester tradition and it took some concentrated negotiating
to distinguish personal meanings of the difference between these and
what they began to recognise as a 'double task laboratory'; that is,
a working laboratory with two major tasks: to study current dynamics
and to work on the development of action learning projects (Bridger,
1990). Similarly, it took some time to clarify the role of 'facilitator'
to a here-and-now task, as distinct from the role of a Leicester style
'consultant' the latter having the express brief to work with and interpret
the transference of members. The issue of authority within the laboratory experience
was also vexed. The working laboratory staff had accepted responsibility
for its overall management but its place in the project was authorised
by the steering committee. During the 'workteam event' of the working
laboratory that same steering committee would be taking up its management
responsibility for the formation and selection of the ongoing action
learning projects. The staff of the working laboratory discussed their
concerns about the complexity of their own design and raised some of
these issues within the steering committee. In retrospect we wonder
whether the design was too ambitious and/or whether we expected too
much of the organisation representatives on the steering committee.
In effect we were asking them to think about and to authorise a design
which was supposed to elicit the dynamics in which they were embedded.
It is significant that the state manager informed us indirectly and
only shortly before the working laboratory that as a consequence of
some family responsibilities he would not be participating. He had formed
the idea that his absence would not be important since he assumed everyone
would be out of their usual organisational roles anyway. After some
strong persuasion from his male colleagues on the steering committee
he reconsidered his commitments and made himself available for the second
stage of the working laboratory. Thus he arrived during the lunch break
between stages one and two. In the second stage of the working laboratory members
were requested to form self selected groups on the basis of there mutual
identification with a dilemma facing the organisation and their willingness
to develop a proposal for an action learning project to tackle this
dilemma. It was understood that the steering committee would assess
the merit of these proposals and select some of them for recommendation
to the organisation's business strategy committee for support and implementation.
It was stressed that competition between projects for selection was
viewed as a desirable means of improving their quality. The steering
committee wanted to have some choice. As these small groups formed and went about the
set task the steering committee met to clarify and then communicate
emergent project parameters and to decide the number of projects it
would select for ratification. The potential action learning groups
formed quickly, perhaps relieved by the focus of a definable future
project rather than the intensity and uncertainty of here and now issues.
The steering committee however had enormous difficulties in doing effective
work. Its organisation members, who had been involved in exploring their
'transitional identity' during the previous day and a half, now had
to resume their roles as members of the project steering committee.
Part of the difficulty in doing this stemmed from the very dynamics
which had been surfaced. Inevitably the exploration of 'transitional
identity' had raised opinions and feelings about leadership, power,
gender, risk taking and change within the organisation. The power relations
between formal organisational roles influenced what was said and heard.
Also the attempts to communicate between small groups had proven difficult
since it was discovered that different groups had taken up the stage
one task in different ways. Some members of the steering group were
exhilarated by recognising their own organisation-in-experience
enacted in the event whilst others were bewildered and angry. The university
researchers too had to make a role transition from small group facilitators
back to membership of the steering committee. The two associate staff
(JC and CL) were given different roles. JC was asked to consult to the
work of the steering committee whilst CL took the role of consultant
at large to the work of the action learning groups. The staff of the
working laboratory were thus in a variety of different roles, holding
their staff roles in abeyance. It is hard to imagine how the steering committee
could have survived these transitions without the presence and work
of an 'outside' consultant provided by the staff of the laboratory.
The regular chair of the steering committee (the state manager) had
arrived only an hour or so before the first stage two session. In that
time a number of organisation members who had been disturbed by stage
one had expressed their feelings to him. He seemed hesitant to resume
the role of chair at this time and it felt to the university researchers
as if the other members of the steering committee were waiting for them
to take charge. It became apparent that each member had differing understandings
of the methods and design of the working laboratory, if not it's aims.
What had seemed to be a mutual understanding, evaporated. In reality,
there was an enormous amount of work to be done, under severe time constraints,
in order to assist the other organisation members to design and develop
meaningful and realistic action learning projects, let alone establishing
the selection process. It certainly felt like the experience of working
in the organisation that members had told us about during the initial
interviews: that is, time pressured work devoted to supporting jobless
people gain work. The consultant to the steering committee (JC) reported
later that initially she felt bewildered and anxious at the sight of
so many competent people in the room acting as though they had never
before worked on a group assignment. As she struggled to take up her
role she found that her interventions needed to be very basic and explicit:
to clarify the tasks; to establish realistic time lines; and to identify
the necessary roles within the steering group to do this work, including
relations with action learning groups. When it became clear that the state manager might
best be deployed in visiting some of the action learning groups, to
clarify organisational constraints to their proposals and to reaffirm
his support, it was necessary to have another person take the role of
chair of the steering committee. The manager of policy and planning
(CF) agreed to assume this role, as he had done on prior occasions,
but this time he had one of the most disturbing episodes in his work
with the organisation. In later discussion he found it almost impossible
to understand or describe what had happened. He was an experienced senior
manager with well developed group skills who, in the midst of the working
laboratory, found himself suddenly bereft of any capacity to focus himself
or the steering committee on the tasks at hand. Reflecting on this during
the writing of this paper, he wondered whether members of the steering
committee had a sub-conscious desire to punish the state manager for
not being at the event for the first day and a half, by sending him
into the groups to face questions he could not answer, and which may
have arisen from the previous sessions. Feeling disturbed about his
part in such a dynamic might well account for his difficulty in taking
up the authority of the chair, vacated through the process. Two of the steering committee's tasks were to think
about the extent of the competition they wished to generate between
action learning groups and the process to be employed in selecting the
'winning' proposals. Such explicit promotion of competition was counter-cultural
for this organisation but it was deemed fitting now given the need to
prepare the organisation for its movement into a competitive marketplace.
The consultant JC kept pressing this point as steering group members
voiced concerns that there was not enough time to do justice to the
action learning proposals and that people could be hurt and the project
damaged if expectations were dashed. When the state manager returned to the room and
resumed his role as chair some decisions eventually were made. The courage
was found to have an open selection process led by the state manager
and the principal researcher. The members responded to this by producing
a high level of competitive bids for projects, which were outlined by
team representatives within strict time limits. Working within the competitive
environment was stimulating and the steering committee were faced with
difficult choices about which projects should be endorsed. There was
a lot of enthusiasm generated. At the conscious decision making level,
some of the projects seemed to hold synergies that suggested they be
brought together. This would allow each of the ideas formed to find
expression. This meant at an unconscious level, that the effects of
competition were avoided by the merging of some projects so that everyone
'got a guernsey', again reflecting the organisational dynamic of equality
for all. Yet one proposal, suggested by a single person, 'fell off the
end' of the process by not surviving, nor really becoming amalgamated
with any other. The organisation-as-a-whole really didn't know quite
what to do with this. It was as if a firm rejection could not be given
to anyone. However, in its absense, a firm approval did not seem to
be forthcoming either. Nonetheless, the committee was impressed by the
amount of work done by the teams and their capacity to present quite
detailed working hypotheses (about the organisation) and possibilities
for projects within a short space of time. Learning and efficiency seemed
to be occurring together. Was this despite some of the confusion in
the steering committee? Was it because others were able to take up their
authority in the face of an uncertain management which, however, also
gave them a new space and a new organisation-in-experience? Certainly
steering committee members found that they still had a lot to learn
about working together under pressure. The capacity of members to represent
the work of the group-as-a-whole was challenged throughout the event.
It was under these circumstances that a new level of judgement and trust
was developed. Members had a strong basis on which to judge each other.
After the working laboratory, it was not so much that steering committee
members trusted each other more per se. However, when differences arose
between members in the course of their organisational work, these began
to be talked about and resolutions sought through open discussion. For
instance, one project led by a member of the steering committee began
to proceed without consultation with another member of the committee
who had line responsibility for the region within which the project
was to take place. This led to difficulties and hostilities in meetings
where both were present. Yet it was within the steering committee that
they were able to discuss and begin resolving this. It seems that the
holding environment of the committee has yet to be extended to the broader
environment of the organisation. The description we have given records one aspect
of the working laboratory only. Our focus is on the collaboration for
learning. The holding environment was provided, in this instance, by
the consultancy to the steering committee. This consultancy was predicated
on the laboratory aims and primary task, viz, to explore and study
the emergent dynamics of the organisation in relation to the issues
facing it in terms of quality work and organisational learning. The committee, in turn, provided containment for
the other groups, through the process for selection of projects which
was slowly and painfully developed. When the guidelines were developed,
the workteams creatively worked within them. The holding environment
for the laboratory as a whole, turned out to be provided by the plenary
reflection sessions. These sessions became partly reflective, partly
working on here-and-now experience and partly attempts to conceptualise
the experience. They provided quite a powerful space, where some members
were able to put into words their own organisation-in-experience
in ways they had been unable to previously. Most importantly, this work
was done openly, in public. For example, one member said, with difficulty
and evident courage, that she didn't know how to do business and often
felt that she would prefer to remain within a public service that provided
her with a secure job rather than have to work within a competitive
semi-autonomous body. Furthermore, this really couldn't be said within
the organisation given current rhetoric, despite her belief that many
felt as she did. We are increasingly learning from this project
that the bringing of ideas, thoughts and experience into the public
arena of the organisation is extremely difficult, although believed
to be important. We suspect, however, that for such processes to occur
successfully the state-of-mind associated with discovery and
learning must be engendered. However, this would be antithetical to
the state-of-mind associated with the covert politics that underly
the defensive 'we are all equal' stance. Describing the collaborative relations in the working laboratory Given what we have said, how might the collaboration
within the working laboratory best be described? Three sets of dynamics
seem relevant to this question. 1. First, we have pointed to the issue of complex
authority relations. The working laboratory staff, mainly comprised
of the university team, held authority for the working laboratory, yet
they were accountable to the steering committee. Moreover, the results
of the workteam event - the proposed action learning projects - could
only be recommended to the organisation's prime decision making body
for implementation. The final decision lay with the organisation. The
work of the laboratory was somewhat split, almost in a parallel way
to this complex set of authorities. The here-and-now experiential work
was led by the university team, with the principal researcher as director.
The workteam event was led by the steering committee, with the state
manager as chair. 2. Second, although all members of the steering
committee had a major interest in the development of a design for working
within the laboratory that would advance the work of the project, the
university team had a special interest in developing their own capacities
to work within such a design. They were interested in designing and
implementing a new method of experiential learning appropriate for organisational
research, whereas the organisation members were more interested in specific
outcomes for the organisation than in methodologies. 3. Third, the plenary sessions that took place
on each of the three days and which we have indicated played an important
role in the 'containment' of the laboratory dynamics, were led by the
principal researcher in her role as director of the working laboratory.
A noteworthy dynamic was that both her research associates (JN and JD)
had great difficulty working within the plenaries. They rarely spoke
and stated later that they were having difficulty thinking about what
was occurring. The organisation members of the steering committee were
also remarkably different in their engagement. The state manager did
not speak in the plenaries, and whilst his male colleagues engaged actively,
the two women on the steering committee were relatively silent. Although
gender dynamics were clearly involved, it was hard to understand this
more fully. Most importantly, on reflection, it was as if an unconscious
parallel process was occuring on the one hand between the research associates
and their leader, and on the other hand between the organisation members
on the steering committee and the state manager. In the case of the
university team the associates were silent, whereas in the case of the
organisation, the leader was. How these three sets of issues relate to
the collaborative process will be discussed after we have presented
some concepts that help throw light on the latter. Section 3: The Collaborative
State-of-Mind The questions that we wanted to address in
this article surround the nature of collaboration. Our interest here
is that although the collaborative action research project in which
we are engaged has a major research task, that is, a substantive task,
the social setting for the research, we believe, is as crucial to the
completion of the task as the methods employed in the research. Types of Relatedness As the research has proceeded, we have come increasingly
to see the process of collaboration as complex. Bion (1970) outlines
three types of relatedness between the genius and the establishment:
the new idea and the established set of ideas available to a group.
These may be relevant to relatedness between any two entities. The three
types, taken by Bion from biology, are commensal, parasitic and symbiotic.
Commensal relations allow the two entities to develop alongside one
another, perhaps sharing some aspect of the environment or the relationship
but basically leaving each other alone. Parasitic relations involve
one entity subsuming the other in both an instrumental and destructive
manner. Symbiotic relations indicate the possibility for creative development
of both entities. Each forms part of the environment of the other in
such a way that mutual benefit can be derived. Together they form a
micro-climate, beneficial to both. We can think of collaboration in these terms. 1. Collaboration could involve development of the
parties in a common climate where each derives benefit from that climate
but essentially the two develop independently (commensal). In terms
of the collaborative research project, both the organisation and the
university might gain from the research occurring. Both might be able
to meet their needs within the project, without really affecting what
the other is doing. 2. Collaboration might involve the subsumption
of the needs of one partner by the other. It might do this to the extend
of so using the other, that it's needs become met to the detriment of
the other (parasitic relations). 3. Collaboration might involve the development
of a mico-climate where the development of one party actively promotes
the development of the other (symbiotic). Alongside this typology of relatedness, we
find useful the Weberian distinction between instrumental reasoning
and value reasoning (Weber, 1968). A relationship may be forged for
instrumental reasons or for reasons of promoting a particular value
or set of values. As the initial values of the two parties in a collaborative
venture differ, it seems that any collaboration of the symbiotic type
will require a renegotiation of values on both sides. This is exactly
what would happen were the parties to learn from each other. A merely
instrumental relationship might occur within parasitic (destructive)
relations, or within commensal (benign) relations. Values may shift
as a result of these latter relations, but we suspect that learning
would be of a type that simply reinforced past or current prejudices,
rather than higher order learning. Toward an understanding of co-labour Earlier we described the working laboratory as
illustrative of co-labour between the university team and the organisation
members. We came to focus on three sets of issues which underly a description
of the collaborative relations in the working laboratory: viz., authority
relations, interest in methodology vs. interest in outcomes, and, unconscious
dynamics (see above). Here we will look again at these three issues,
in light of the distinctions we have drawn about different types of
relations between organisations. An hypothesis might be formed that the collaborative
relations within the working laboratory were primarily commensal. The
evidence would be that first the authority relations illustrated not
so much joint as divided authority. Sometimes this felt split, as between
responsibilities for the first and second halves of the laboratory;
sometimes closer to co-labour, as within the plenaries. Second, the
separate interests of methodology vs outcomes seemed to run in parallel.
This became closer to a symbiotic relation the more the steering committee
took up its responsibility for the overall success of the working laboratory.
For example, several of the steering committee members and other members
of the organisation worked hard to convince their colleagues that it
was worth persisting with the working laboratory at those times when
the experiential work became taxing or confusing. Third, both the university
team and the organisation members seemed to be working unconsciously
on the relations between followers and leaders in their respective groups.
This was evidenced in how they were or were not able consciously to
take up work in the plenaries. Once again this seems evidence of commensal
relations, where both partners work side by side on their own issues,
sharing an environment but not necessarily affecting one another greatly. Looking beyond such initial impressions, however,
signs of symbiotic relatedness are also present. In looking at the process
of collaboration and in trying to better understand it, we must pose
to ourselves the question: what would be evidence of the two organisations
learning from one another? Might it be, for example, that the laboratory,
or perhaps the project-as-a-whole, is providing a micro-climate
within which issues of leadership for both institutions may be worked
on at an unconscious level? Might it be that in the presence of
the other organisation, each is able to try out new ways of thinking
about what leadership means for them? Certainly leadership and its effects
have been important for each of the university team (within the team
and more broadly in the university), the organisation (at all levels)
and the project steering committee. The questions of what is being learned,
by whom and from whom are not easily answered, especially when much
of that learning is tacit and not easily accessible for reflection.
Just as much of what we learn as infants in the presence of our parents
is unconsciously internalised, so might much of what organisations learn
in the presence of each other occur in ways that are difficult to study. We are reminded of the many times the university
team members have learned about the situation facing the university
from drawing parallels between the political and business environments
of the government organisation and their own. In particular, the environment
of increasing independence from recurrent government monies with an
associated pressure to develop full cost recovery programs from a competitive
market. This has led both the health sector and the education sector
to strategically organise with a stronger customer focus than previously
held, and to operationally organise in terms of cost cutting through
staff rationalisation, faster 'throughput' and the implementation of
flatter management structures. In particular, we have noted the increasing
stress and accountability placed on frontline workers who seem to carry
the hope for increased productivity, yet who seemed most stretched by
the changes. This parallels the increased pressure put on frontline
teaching staff at the university who are expected to work with larger
groups in shorter timeframes, and yet increase the quality of programs
in order to compete with larger more established universities both in
Australia and overseas. Both organisations face these pressures from a
traditional value base of professional services, where the professions
have had prime authority in deciding what is required for their clients
or students. They now face increasing pressures from a variety of stakeholders
in the provision of services, not least of which emanate from the needs
of industry, itself competing under a free market philosophy. Both organisations
contain ambivalence about the changes occuring within them, and contain
members who believe that the primary tasks of human service or of education
have been compromised quite seriously. The opportunities for examining the effects of
various responses to these pressures have been numerous. Members of
the steering committee have reflected, for example, on the uses and
abuses of information technology in change processes. In particular,
the difference between 'information' given over the electronic mail
system and its interpretation by organisation members is vexed. Increasingly
the government organisation is moving into a network mode where e-mail
and teleconferencing will provide as much interchange as face to face
meetings. In line with this, it is apparent that new spaces and forums
are required for the expression of organisational experience and for
the renegotiation of the roles emergent from the new organisations-in-experience.
This need was rather poignantly expressed by one of the regional managers
who found himself having to chair a statewide meeting. A statewide meeting
employs huge organisational resouces in terms of time and travel, and
members expect to get strong paybacks for that in terms of learning
from others the broad state of play. This manager felt that somehow
he had to conduct things in a way that was right for their current needs,
and yet the agenda he had didn't seem to allow for this. Such a mismatch
aroused an enormous amount of anxiety in him and he felt responsible
for meeting a nascent need, felt but not articulated in the organisation.
Some of the action learning projects that have
been developed out of the working laboratory are grappling with these
issues. For instance, one project aims at establishing a forum with
members from all organisation levels which would meet monthly as a kind
of 'listening post' (Khaleelee and Miller, 1985). Another project seeks
to develop new ways for workers at farflung units to communicate with
one another. Currently they spend many hours travelling long distances
between country towns. Yet another is looking at the renegotiation of
workloads and roles within units, whilst another project, despite several
setbacks, aims at restructuring work teams each with a focus on specific
customer groups. Despite most going ahead, these projects are running
into difficulties. This is not surprising. They had their birth in the
working laboratory which was itself a radically different forum for
the organisation and which provided the opportunity for groups of members
to develop a new state-of-mind with respect to their work. Back
under the normal pressures of work, the old state-of-mind takes
over. A major problem seems to be that the frontline workers, the case
managers, are having difficulty committing to the projects because this
means more work for them in an already overloaded schedule. This is
reflected in the steering committee. When the case manager withdrew,
one of her stated reasons was that she felt unable to be absent from
her direct frontline work. The paradox is, of course, that the intent
of many projects is to improve work practices to make case management
easier and of a better quality. Moreover, right now, it feels dangerous
to be involved in experiments which could waste time and effort, and
at the same time, it feels imperative to make changes because to stay
in one place would mean the organisation would not survive. These feelings
often underly the ambivalences that members have about the project,
and that get acted out. Our experience in the project described in this
paper confirms the need for a suitable ongoing forum where the collaborative
process can be continuously renegotiated and monitored. This is important
for maintaining good working relations, but it also throws light on
the substantive work of the project. Discovering parallel processes
in the collaborative partners can aid in the further understanding of
how the effects of these processes are differentially handled. Framed
in this way, the collaborative partners may come to see their relationship
as systemically linked to issues in the organisations that they represent.
Focus on the relationship can then be regarded as a tool for understanding
broader organisational issues. We said earlier that learning may occur unconsciously in the presence of the other. It seems to us that collaborative learning occurs when the other is present to us in a state-of-mind compatible with our own - perhaps there is something about the nature of trust in this. Another way of putting this, is that symbiotic collaboration only occurs when the partners can be in the presence of the other, that is, they can bear to listen to each other in a way that makes them available to each other for learning. Moreover, in order for this learning to be available for reflection and further conscious learning, and in order for the collaboration to be linked to the task at hand rather than a collusion around unspeakable dynamics, the collaborative process requires ongoing scrutiny. Finding the space to explore this at both conscious and unconscious levels, we believe, leads to a deepening of the relationship and its possibilities. One of the managers described his experience of the collaboration as having quite a degree of intimacy, yet maintaining a separateness between the two partner groups. This had helped his learning and, as he put it: 'I never did understand what was meant by a strategic alliance. The idea of collaboration seems more real.' Notes 1. In writing
this paper, 'we' refers to Susan Long and John Newton. Our collaborative
partners in the writing process have added a lot to the thinking, and
have helped us with many details, for which we are grateful. However,
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