The use of metaphor and less traditional methods such as games or role
plays in Management Education for professionals always run the risk of
being seen as crazy and unrealistic. Such reaction should be seen as
normal because people in organization with a controlling function are
skeptical to creative ideas. It becomes an art for us as OD practitioners
to help them open up their mind and test these ideas.
I have been using metaphors for management education and involving
professionals in less traditional approaches for management education.
One of my experiences which is documented in the Australian Journal of
Human Resources management recorded the use of images of organizations to
assist manager understand the power of this technique for bringing about
organizational changes. It was an occasion in the Human Resources
Management Conference in 1991 to challenge the participants by asking them
in groups to form an image of their human resources function in the form
of a model, a metaphor or a picture by giving them pins, straws,
polystyrene and markers to represent their perception.
Amongst the 50 participants in my workshop, many of them are people with
technical and science background but holds a human resources
responsibility. Their initial reaction was the showing of doubts and
puzzles. They also wondered whether it was a waste of their time. The
trying out ended in their working out of four different models:
The Goddess of Mercy Model, The Fire-Fighter Model,
The Balance Model and the Two Functional Model.
They were asked to present their production and explain what it stands for
to the other groups. The model/metaphor is their image to explain how the
organization is perceived. They were led examine why they resisted to
participate in constructing the model and later their recommendations and
plans for changing the existing model in the organization.
For those who are interested in further details, part of the above
experience is contained in the article, Hong Kong : Managing Human
Resources in a Turbulent Environment in the Asia Pacific Journal of Human
Resources, 1992, 30 (2) p. 10-13 by Aaron SL PUN & Keith Taylor.
The difference of the approach used by me and that of Ralph Meima may be
that I did not introduce any images of organization to them in the first
place but asked them to work out their own images. I am not too sure
whether because they own such images that they buy in the process. Ralp
may have perfect good reason for introducing Gareth Morgan's ideas in the
first place.
Actually,I had the opportunity to talk to Gareth Morgan two weeks ago at
OISE when he presented his ideas of using images, mataphors and models for
OD. I trust this is an workable approach. But like the use of any activity
based learning, participants will show resistance or blocks at different
stages of the experiential learning cycle. I think there can be great
skepticism for more creative approaches for management education. But no
risk, no gain. They are entitled to their protective mechanism, and once
they buy in the process, the gain is incredible. I hope people will still
be positive to the use of images and metaphors as a way of introducing
change in OD or in management education. At least, I find it powerful,
positive and workable.
Aaron PUN (DPhil)
Speaker, Writer and OD Consultant
Ontario
Fax: (905) 881 7275
On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, Ralph Meima wrote:
> Replying to LO4918 -- was: LO & the New Sciences
> [Subject line changed by your host...]
>
> Regarding the recent message from John Zavacki on the difficulty of using
> the concept of metaphor in management education:
>
> I just used Gareth Morgan's list of 8 metaphors for organization in the
> introductory lectures of a course in Environmental Management (Master's
> level) here at Lund University. It confused the hell out of the students,
> most of whom have technical, science, and legal backgrounds. Saying that
> we see organizations as fundamentally different "things" depending on our
> points of reference, and that this plurality of images should be used
> consciously by researchers and managers to avoid being trapped by what we
> otherwise take for granted, resulted in a debate which became rather
> hostile at times. Some charged that I was "wasting their time" with
> "philosophy that is only relevant to academics." Some of the irritation
> seemed to have something to do with the fact that I could easily relate
> language which they used in the discussion to various metaphors (e.g.
> "top-down," "chain of command,") - which was experienced as a kind of
> verbal entrapment by a language they had never heard before but which was
> somehow nasty because it was "only about language," while deeper down "we
> all know what we're talking about" when we discuss thinmgs like
> organizational structure.
>
> The emergence of irritation and anger in practitioners when confronted by
> the postmodern, interpretive paradigms is itself a very interesting
> subject. It has been 17 years since Burrell & Morgan's seminal book -
> what is going on?
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Ralph Meima
>
> Ralph Meima <ralph.meima@fek.lu.se>
-- Aaron Pun <apun@oise.on.ca>