A fascinating comparison of professional views emerged at this morning's session of the H.O.T. Conference when two top name speakers presented very different experiences of organisational culture.

Michael Breen led an engaging presentation on 'Why Training?' in which he questionned the automatic assumption that training was a solution, and pointed out that all too often the client is uable to define the problem and intended outcomes to which they expect training to be a solution. His final quip: "What's the difference between organisations and yoghurt?" Answer: "Yoghurt has culture" underlined his basic theme. Only through a series of perceptive questions about what is actually happening within an organisation, why this need has arisen, whose problem it is, what the output changes required might be, etc. is it possible to start to define the change requirements - and often these requirements point to a need other than Training.

Dave Snowden, Director of the Institute of Knowledge Management, was the next speaker on the topic of Story Narratives and their use in organisational development. He presented a fascinating insight into the collection of stories from staff which can be used to build metaphors and imagery about the real cultural life of organisations. Describing real organisations as 'complex' not 'complicated' he argued that no tool was capable of capturing their complex dynamics but that story narratives could be used to reveal the underlying messages and characteristics of the organisation.

A fascinating contrast in styles and approaches. Day-tickets are still available to the H.O.T. Conference in Birmingham, running until Thursday.