7 Responses

1. What would i do without books?
   Hi Graham

   I personally have learnt masses from academic literature in the past 10 years. For me some of the key texts / models have been the Vanguard model (Freedom from Command and Control by John Seddon), We, Me Them and It by John Simmons, the Lancaster Cycle (& whole cycle design) by John Borgoyne, Righting the Education Conveyor Belt by Michael Grinder, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte, Management F-Laws by Russel Acckoff among others. Even some old texts such as Management of Organisational Behaviour by Hersey and Blanchard (infinitely better than the one-minute manager!) have been fascinating. I find even the ‘decades old’ models provide an interesting challenge to translate into the modern working world. To be fair, I also have books on my shelf that fit the ‘too ethereal, narrow and pointless’ description.

   As a colleague once told me; “if everyone read books, we’d be out of a job”. Mind you he also said that “learning wasn’t the experience or activity but the reflection afterwards”. So I’m not out of a job yet…

2. Organisational Psychology changed me forever!
   I don’t often wax lyrical about much, but I spent time at Birkbeck studying for an Masters in Organisational Psychology and it was the best three years I’d ever spent.

   I did come in for a hard time; lecturers were scathing about consultants (less about practitioners) who sold what they knew, rather than what would fix the problems, and who implemented “solutions” when there had been little or no evaluation of how successful they were. They talked of the complete fallacy that is Maslow, and halfway through the course I began to wonder whether I’d made a huge mistake in being a consultant, given that so little actually WORKED in terms of solutions, according to the lecturers.

   However, towards the end of my studies, I began to realise that regardless of the academic debates, managers and business still need action and advice; and that the cross referencing of models against academic research can often serve a very good purpose, by enabling you identity possible weaknesses and to plan for problems, or avoid them altogether.

   I’ve been influenced by some of the stunning cultural studies by Van Maanen, impressed by the lucidity of Schein and the intelligent explorations done by David Guest on commitment. These have made me look again at “turn key” solutions. They have also enabled me to have some more honest conversations with clients about what might work – but also, what might not.

   There is a debate going on in academic literature about the gap between research and practice, and they’re still puzzling over what causes the rift. From my own observations, senior management often don’t want to know the shades of grey – they want black and white answers which give them a course of action, a definite solution. This is despite the fact that people are not machines and you can’t just flick a “management” switch to make them behave in a certain way.

   Until business leaders are willing to talk in shades of grey, in subtlties, I think the gap between practitioners – who have to make things work – and academics – who look at what is happening in close up reality – is unlikely to close. It is not only practitioners who have to be more honest about potential failures, and academics who have to be less precious, but managers and leaders who need to listen more, and more intelligently.

3. It’s that time lapse
   I am busy with an MA in Education at the moment, and find that academic literature tends not to keep pace with technological advances. I am told that the time lag between a manuscript being accepted for publication in a peer reviewed (print medium) journal and actually appearing in print can be 24 months! In my field, technologies and approaches can be rendered obsolete in less time than that. The trouble is, though, that one has to cite peer reviewed material in all one’s submissions. Tricky if you want to focus on current emerging technologies and approaches and have a 2-year wait for the literature to appear! I find myself increasingly dependent on ejournals.

4. Definitely useful – probably essential
   I feel it is important to keep in mind how theories and ideas develop. For example, if Maslow were still alive he would no doubt be continuing to develop his theories. Whether you agree with him or not his work forms part of the whole and has stimulated and advanced the debate. I recently came across the work of Vygotsky (Zone of Proximal Development) – which was written in the early part of the 20th century but hidden from the rest of the world by the Iron Curtain and cold war. However, Vygotsky’s work has a relevance to current learning practices – the fact that his work is several decades old doesn’t make it less useful.

   I have also found the work of Lave and Wenger (Communities of Practice) is very relevant to working in the learning sphere. I don’t agree with Lave and Wenger’s theory in its entirity, but I do think it helps when you see it as part of the spectrum of learning theories. To use an analogy – if you were encouraging someone to look at the history of art, would you tell them not to bother considering abstract art or impressionism because you didn’t value it yourself? Looking at the abstract inevitably makes you see other art differently.

   Time lag? Academic research is, more often than not, based on research. It takes time to gather, analyse and present that research. The lag can be a result of the depth and breadth of the work.

   The one issue I have with academic work is that it can be written in ‘excluding’ language. I understand why this happens, and most theories are very well translated into plain English as they filter through to practitioners. I also think it is valuable that practitioners put the practical spin on theories – this, in turn, informs the theory writers.

   Don’t know if this has been any help Graham, but I suppose my conclusion is that it depends on how you approach the academic world what you get out of it. It is rare that reading a theory doesn’t result in some kind of reflection on my practice – must surely be the point?

5. Academic literature?
   Wow! – what a fascinating thead!

   I was disturbed at the narrowness of mind of Karen’s academic tutors , supportive of the complaint about lead-times for academic publication, and warmed by fellow-recognition of the great work by some past academics that has valuably informed us all, whether as practitioners, consultants or even academics.

   But overall? With only a few wonderful exceptions, I feel personally as a past MD of a large international company and founder of quite a sizeable management consultancy subsequently, I have frankly learned far more from my own and my colleagues’ practical experiences than from most academics in practice.

   I fear academic papers often seek to know more and more about less and less, they often lack the hands-on senior practical experience to understand truly their possible contextual relevance, and are adjudicted by other academics who may have even less hands-on experience and indubitably have quite different academic goals to pursue.

   Inevitably, I find such academic papers are bound by the evidence of very few tame research-respondents, that may inevitably not be fully representative of such a complex world, and you may also well think that some authors do indeed seem to fly kites to support their own special interests that do not always seem to resonate with the known world, experienced by hard-bitten practitioners?

   So Graham, I fear that academic literature has indeed largely ‘lost the plot’ as you wonder, and you may well be right that in its superfluity, many practitioners may well have lost the thirst to sort out the valuable meaty wheat from the utterly naff chaff!

   Your real enquiry however is perhaps what influences me?

   Actually my clients, multiplied up, sorted by sector, status and segment, and then generalised as helpfully as I can for their benefit. And then, with everyone treated as a completely new situation…

   A lot of this work is people-oriented, neither task nor process-dominant, and inevitably factors in far wider organisational pressures and imperatives that may be of interest in their huge diversity to any ambitious young researcher.

   To be more positive however, if I were to guide any new research work, I think I would strongly recommend working further on the existing frameworks of understanding that seem to work well and to refine them. This would not be at all my own natural inclination personally in KAI terms! – but it may well have far greater value, relevance and interest more widely to new researchers?

   With kind regards

   Jeremy

6. HRD Resource
   Graham
   in response to your query,an excellent publication worth looking at is Human Resource Development,Randy L. DeSimone & David M . Harris. ISBN:0-03-024612-1.
   I have used this resource in an Education & Training environment for students at degree level and workplace trainers. The value of this resource is that it is structured in such a way that each chapter starts with learning objectives, then an opening case study relevant to the subject matter, the body of each chapter then covers theory and key terms and concepts. The end of each chapter then poses a series of questions to stimulate thought.
   I have also found this resource particularily helpful when teaching adult learners in the HRD environment to transfer theory into practice.
   CheersTT.

7. HRD Resources
   Graham
   in response to your query,an excellent publication worth looking at is Human Resource Development,Randy L. DeSimone & David M . Harris. ISBN:0-03-024612-1.
   I have used this resource in an Education & Training environment for students at degree level and workplace trainers. The value of this resource is that it is structured in such a way that each chapter starts with learning objectives, then an opening case study relevant to the subject matter, the body of each chapter then covers theory and key terms and concepts. The end of each chapter then poses a series of questions to stimulate thought.
   I have also found this resource particularily helpful when teaching adult learners in the HRD environment to transfer theory into practice.
   CheersTT.