The best paper relating jazz improvisation to organization theory I've read

Exploring the Empty Spaces of Organizing: How Improvisational Jazz Helps Redescribe Organizational Structure
Mary Jo Hatch
Organization Studies, January 1999 vol. 20 no. 1 pp. 75-100

The paper uses improvisation as a "redescription" metaphor (Rorty) of organizational structure. It has strong ties to writing on experience, sensemaking and aesthetics. It's full of theory relating the art and performance of jazz improvisation to thinking about organizational structure, but even more has understanding for the jazz nuances, evidenced by her writing about groove, feel, etc. One of many examples: "Groove and feel in jazz terms involve making structural aspects of performance (e.g. tempo and rhythm) implicit, which jazz musicians accomplish by rendering them subjects of their emotions and physical bodies (i.e., by literally feeling tempo and rhythm in an emotional and physical sense)." (p. 89)

The paper way extends what I was trying to talk about in this post. The writing is exceptionally clear and evocative for an academic paper, without losing authority (funny how that can be).

A few excerpts below.

A very nice description of tacit communication and intuitive "moves" in improvisation, especially soloing:

Soloists encourage the exchange of ideas by leaving space in their playing for other musicians to make suggestions, for instance they may leave gaps between their melodic phrases, or play their chords ambiguously by leaving out certain notes that would distinguish one chord from one or two others. Of course, they do not explicitly think, 'Okay, now I will leave a space for someone else to fill.' Space-making and filling are more spontaneous than this. Jazz musicians listen to the playing of the other musicians and, in listening, spaces are created and filled by a logic that emerges as part of the interaction of the musicians. This simultaneous listening and playing produces the characteristic give and take of live jazz improvisation and also provides the conditions for conflict that can introduce the unexpected that inspires performance excellence, but also risks disaster. (p. 79)

Ethical choices in listening in improvisation:

Ideally, each musician listens to all the other players all the time they are performing a tune. Nevertheless, many musicians freely admit that they reach this ideal only once in a while, primarily when they achieve peak moments of jazz performance. At other times, the musicians will concentrate on listening to one or two of the other players intensely, often shifting their focus from one player to another as the tune develops. (p. 80)

The experiential component of communication:

The jazz metaphor suggests that whenever we interact, communication rests as heavily upon emotional and physical feeling as it does on the intellectual content of the messages involved. (p. 89)

The way we can (sometimes) spontaneously and instantly connect and "groove" with co-workers on projects, even if new to each other, if the situation and communication are right:

Just as jazz musicians assign tempo and rhythm to the emotional realm and communicate on this basis to one another as they improvise (even when they have never played together before). workers may equally depend upon their ability to emotionally communicate as they coordinate their efforts for organizational achievement in the context of temporary teams or fluid networks. ... communication does not necessarily depend upon self-disclosure, but rather is an intimacy based in shared action. That is, we are as capable of using our emotions to form working relationships as we are of using them to form friendship or familial relationships, and this capacity can extend to those with whom we have no relationship at all apart from the opportunity to act together at a particular moment in time.... Rhythm, harmony, groove and feel have emotional and aesthetic dimensions, and when these aspects of work processes are engaged we may likewise find the experience of flow that Csikszentmihalyi claims constitutes peak performance. (pp. 89-90)

I see Hatch has other intriguing articles -- e.g. Hatch, M.J. and Jones, M.O. (1997) Photocopylore at work: Aesthetics, collective creativity and the social construction of organizations. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Society , 3(2):263-287. [ISSN 1024-5286]; Hatch, M.J. (1996) The role of the researcher: An analysis of narrative position in organization theory. Journal of Management Inquiry , 5(4):359-374. [ISSN 1056-4926] -- but these will have to come AT (after thesis).

There is other excellent writing relating jazz improvisation to organizational and similar issues -- Sawyer and Schön come to mind -- but this paper is my current fave.

And one of the most useful on mediation

Complementing this post, here is another excellent paper that looks at dispute mediation from a reflective practice point of view.

It's titled "Mediating Ethically: The Limits of Codes of Conduct and the Potential of a Reflective Practice Model" by Julie Macfarlane (Osgoode Hall Law Journal 49, 2002), and lives up to its title.

The article criticizes reliance on codes of conduct to guide professional practices such as mediation where ethical considerations are paramount. Codes of conduct are too abstract, and it's not possible to actually separate them outside of the "context and circumstance" (p. 60) of professional action:

Codes reduce ethical choices to a set of generic principles, fastening on relatively uncontentious virtues for the mediation process, which appear in a virtually identical form across numerous codes of conduct. Ethical issues are identified as discrete topics such as mediator impartiality, conflicts of interest, and self-determination; ethical dilemmas are those that threaten the integrity of these principles. Codes of conduct for mediators also assume that it is possible to describe and regulate the process of dialogue and the content of dialogue quite separately. Principles for process management dominate codes of conduct for mediators and often precede the commencement of dialogue (p. 60)

Even apparently "functional" choices can have ethical consequences. The article provides good examples of ethical choices on the move-by-move level:

Even the most mundane and mechanical decisions have a habit of turning into issues of principle in the volatile climate of conflict. For example, the plaintiff’s refusal to meet during the daytime is characterized by the defendants as “typical of their uncooperative stance.” Thus the question of scheduling, and how the mediator deals with it, is transformed into an ethical dilemma. The mediator must decide whose preference shall prevail and what values are implicated. Deciding whether or not and how to quiet Party A thirty minutes into his or her monologue raises fundamental questions about the role of parties and mediators in a facilitated dialogue. (p. 57-58)

Practitioner choice-making is constant:

The reality of mediation is that ethical judgment making occurs constantly, intuitively, and often unconsciously. (p. 59)

The article argues against thinking only in terms of outcomes, and promotes the need for understanding such micro-choices on the move-by-move level:

Mediation is as much a process, replete with ongoing negotiated understandings, as it is a result. The “snapshots” represented by beginnings and endings which dominate standard-setting in codes of conduct for mediators are but a fragment of this process. Instead, the expanded definition of what amounts to ethical choices suggested in this article shifts the focus from an evaluation of end result, or proper procedure in mediation set-up, to the choices made in the course of micro-managing the dialogue between the parties. (p. 67)

The article provides two lengthy case studies from the author's own experience as a mediator, analyzing them from a reflective practice viewpoint. Macfarlane stresses the importance of taking such an approach for 'young' fields like mediation:

The reflective-practice model seems especially appropriate to a field such as mediation that is at an early stage of professional and self-conscious development, and to a form of intervention that is so diversified, unregulated, and context-dependent. As an examination of “practitioner cogitation,” it focuses on teasing out the values and assumptions behind the choices often made intuitively by mediation practitioners when they face ethical dilemmas in the course of their practice and the values they imply. These values can then be debated, critiqued, and diversified across different frames of action. (p. 73)

and lays out what this will require from practitioners:

putting the principles of reflective practice into practice requires the conscious nurturing of a collaborative professional environment in which personal experiences and choices are shared in a continuous, self-critical, non-defensive, and open dialogue. It needs practitioners—new and old, experienced and less experienced—to talk and write analytically and self-critically about their approaches to ethical dilemmas. (pp. 85-86)

Following such an approach for practitioner education and development could result, among other things, in making practitioner choice-making, and its ethical and sensemaking characteristics, "first class objects" in both the research and professional practice communities.

One of the most useful papers on facilitation I've come across

For my research, anyway, in terms of research methods chosen, subject matter, and clarity:

Jean-Anne Stewart (2006). High-Performing (and Threshold) Competencies for Group Facilitators. In Journal of Change Management, Dec 2006, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p417-439.

Based on her doctoral thesis, it describes a qualitative study of UK facilitators with the aim of identifying the key competencies for effective workshop facilitators. It lays out a convincing justification for qualitative research in this area and provides clear diagrams of facilitation roles, processes, and competencies. The "motives and traits" identified are similar in kind and aim to my "framing model" attributes.

Her competency model is strong on communicative and ethical characteristics, though mentions almost nothing on aesthetic capabilities except references to skills with audio-visual aids. The simultaneity of being able to apply the various types of competencies was seen as characteristic of more expert facilitators:

...high-performing facilitators were frequently described as ‘being able to do it all at once’. The research review group referred to the acronym of LEAPS (listen, empathize, ask, paraphrase, summarize) as an example of how the facilitator uses a group of competencies almost simultaneously.
(p. 431-432)

Finally, the list of potential benefits of such research will be a useful reference for when I come to my conclusions/future work chapter (soon enough):

Facilitator training could be designed to ensure effective competency development

It would provide a framework for skills development for facilitators

Qualifications could be designed based on the competency model

Clients would be able to select facilitators with the appropriate competencies to meet their workshop requirements

The competencies would provide a common language for facilitators and clients

Workshops would use the most effective facilitator to ensure the desired outcome, thus avoiding wasting people’s time in unproductive sessions
(p. 438)

One-paragraph description of my dissertation research

How to make participatory visual representations (pictures, diagrams, knowledge maps) coherent, engaging and useful. I study the ways that fourteen practitioners using a visual hypermedia tool engage participants with the representations on the screen and the ways they make the representations matter. I'm especially interested in the sensemaking challenges that the practitioners encounter in the heat of their sessions, and in the ways that the form they give the representations (aesthetics) relates to the service they are trying to provide to their participants (practice ethics).The thesis places this in context of other kinds of facilitative and mediation practices, especially those involving some sort of crafted representation or artwork, as well as research on reflective practice, aesthetic experience, and participatory design.

Logically, aesthetics and ethics are identical (Leach 1954)

I saw this quote:

Leach (1954) claimed, "to understand the ethical rules of a society, it is aesthetics that we must study."

in Deb Orr's dissertation*. I Googled it to its original appearance in a 1954 essay titled "Ritual as an Expression of Social Status." Here's the surrounding text, all of which is worthwhile (boldface added):

From the observer's point of view, actions appear as means to ends, and it quite feasible to follow Malinowski's advice and classify social actions in terms of their ends -- i.e. the 'basic needs' which they appear to satisfy. But the facts which are thereby revealed are technical facts; the analysis provides no criterion for distinguishing the peculiarities of any one culture or any one society. In fact, of course, very few social actions have this elementary functionally defined form. For example, if it is desired to grow rice, it is certainly essential and functionally necessary to clear a piece of ground and sow seed in it. And it will no doubt improve the prospects of a good yield if the plot is fenced and the growing crop weeded from time to time. Kachins do all these things and, in so far as they do this, they are performing simple technical acts of a functional kind. These actions serve to satisfy 'basic needs'. But there is much more to it than that. In Kachin 'customary procedure', the routines of clearing the ground, planting the seed, fencing the plot, and weeding the growing crop are all patterned according to formal conventions and interspersed with all kinds of technicall superfluous frills and decorations. It is these frills and decorations which make the performance a Kachin performance and not just a simple functional act. And so it is with every kind of technical action; there is always the element which is functionally essential, and another element which is simply the local custom, an aesthetic frill. Such aesthetic frills were referred to by Malinowski as 'neutral custom', and in his scheme of functional analysis they are treated as minor irrelevancies. It seems to me, however, that it is precisely these customary frills which provide the social anthropologist with his primary data. Logically, aesthetics and ethics are identical. If we are to understand the ethical rules of a society, it is aesthetics that we must study. In origin the details of custom may be a historical accident; but for the living individuals in a society such details can never be irrelevant, they are part of the total system of interpersonal communication within the group. They are symbolic actions, representations. It is the anthropologist's task to try to discover and to translate into his own technical jargon what it is that is symbolised or represented.

Ritual as an Expression of Social Status (1954)
pp. 153-154 in The Essential Edmund Leach
Volume 1: Anthropology and Society
Edited by Stephen Hugh-Jones and James Laidlaw
2000. Guildford: Biddles Ltd.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KC4FiQsBszkC

If I can do the right things in my thesis, it will show the indissolubility of aesthetics and ethics in participatory representational practice, at least in one small corner of it. Nice to have some backup from 1954.


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* Orr, D. E. (2003). Aesthetic practice: The power of artistic expression to transform organizations. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Benedictine University

Making public policy visually clear

A great example of demystifying and de-gobbledygooking a public policy document, on Jeannel King's site. It would be very interesting to hook it up with a web-based visual discussion system like DebateGraph or Cohere, and even more (from my perspective) to map a live discussion based on it with Compendium.

Engagement in face-to-face meetings

A helpful post from Susan Nurre on the IAF forum points to an article on meetingsnet.com that in turn points to a Cornell University School of Hotel Administration white paper (free registration required) on "The Future of Meetings: The Case for Face-to-Face," by Christine Duffy and Mary Beth McEuen of Maritz*. I'd never thought about looking at this area of literature (hospitality studies), but it might actually be fruitful for my research.

The article focuses mostly on "large-group meetings and events", which are not my area of focus. But the concept of "engagement" is threaded through the article in ways that are applicable to the (primarily small group) kinds of phenomena I'm looking at, tying them to specific organizational benefits:

Amidst the phenomenon of ever-increasing information overload and ever-decreasing speed cycles, attention is scarce and fleeting. In this environment, the lack of a focused and attentive human mind is one of the greatest limiting factors in effectively executing business strategy.

and (citing John Medina):

... when people are engaged with information in multi-sensory environments, they are more likely to remember the information (compared to single-sense experiences) and creatively come up with solutions.

Some interesting (and true in my personal experience) observations on the disadvantages of virtual meetings for particular purposes:

Participants stated that the significant temptation to multi-task during virtual meetings was distracting and had an impact on the meeting objectives being achieved. While this may not be a significant problem when the goal is to share information to which people can refer later, it is a real problem when the goal is to initiate something new, whether that is new learning or a new set of priorities that require a shift in attitude and action.

Since my day job is working primarily on the design of new user interfaces, I have seen over and over that getting designs off on the right foot really does require face-to-face interaction. It somehow does not gel right without that.



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* Way back in the beginning of my career, when I lived in St. Louis, I almost did a video and writing project with Maritz. It would've been my first freelance project and was quite exciting. It didn't pan out (for reasons I don't recall).

Paying attention to a representation -- or not

An interesting photo and comment from Eugene Eric Kim about participant attention (or the lack of it) in a graphic facilitation session. Of course the photo depicts just one moment out of a session that might have had periods of direct participant engagement, but it's a good illustration of the main questions I am trying to get at with the research:

• What (and when, and how, and why) does a practitioner do to promote engagement with the representation?
• How do they make it of value to the participants?
• What makes the difference between something that (however virtuosic) is just background to the main discourse, and something that is (or becomes) integral?

Great posts on improvisation & visual practice, and dialogue mapping from child's point of view

Two posts that both, in different ways, take a child's viewpoint that illuminates a) 'rote' practice, skill development, improvisation, and graphic facilitation, and b) dialogue mapping.

a) from Jeannel King in her blog Process Arts and Facilitation: The Practice Will Set You Free

b) from Kailash Awati in his blog Eight to Late: What should I do now? A bedtime story about dialogue mapping

Making Representations Matter -- a mini-workshop at the Knowledge Media Design Institute (5 Aug 2010)

I recently gave a talk and mini-workshop at the Knowledge Media Design Institute, University of Toronto, titled "Making Representations Matter: The Practice of Shaping Participatory Media Artifacts." The session started with a review of the research to date (see slides below), but the bulk of the evening was spent with the attendees doing a collaborative exercise followed by a discussion using some of the presented concepts.

For the exercise, the participants broke up into two groups and were assigned to pick facilitators and engage in a collaborative representational task of their choosing, using markers and whiteboards, for about 30 minutes. I roamed back and forth and took notes on facilitator moves and participant responses. We followed this by over an hour of reflection and discussion. The audience, composed of researchers, grad students, and practitioners (including a few people from the community with no direct tie to KMDI), seemed to really engage with the ideas.

Participants working on their collaborative representations

One helpful idea that came out of the discussion was to make an explicit distinction between the "interactional" aspects of facilitation -- e.g. those having to do with facilitator actions that create better communication and discussion among participants -- and the "representational" aspects, particularly those that have to do with ensuring direct participant engagement with the representation and how facilitators can help ensure that the representation itself ends up with suitably "persistent" qualities -- that is, that it can serve for future audiences as an evocative representation. If this distinction isn't made clear, the discussion tends to veer towards the interactional aspects rather than the representational.

For future work, it's encouraging that giving people an opportunity to experience and reflect on shaping participatory representations, in combination with presenting some of the concepts and findings from the research, seems to work well. This was my second direct attempt to do this, following last year's initial foray at the IFVP conference. I had learned from that to make sure there was enough time for both the experiential and reflective portions of the event (and not too much time given to the initial presentation), and this time that worked well. In fact, the discussion went way over the allotted time and on into the following dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant. It's good to see that the constructs from the research can apply to non-software-based representational forms, like whiteboards and markers.