I felt surprised and saddened to read of Don Schon's death in Bob
William's post. Bob was certainly right to call him a giant in the field
of organization learning.
I got to know Don as a grad student in the late 1970s. I went to Harvard
in part because it was easy to cross-register into Don's courses at MIT.
This was the time his collaboration with Chris Argyris was in high gear,
and they built on their work in theory-in-practice to jointly produce the
book that launched the organizational learning paradigm.
Don was a good complement to Chris. His warm and nurturing nature served
as a great foil to Chris' sometime prickliness. Though, as their students
got to know them better, we often found superficial appearances were
deceiving. Chris could certainly be extremely warm and generous, and Don
rigorous and judgmental when the situation called for it. I can still
remember bringing to Don Schon my "theory' about how learning occurred
within one of the large strategy consulting firms, expecting an
interesting chat and a quick approval for a research project. Instead he
grilled me without mercy to see if I understood the difference between a
predictive and a descriptive theory (I was clueless at the time), spent
hours helping sharpen my research method, then - now that he thought I
might be ready - got on the phone to an old friend who had founded the
Boston Consulting Group and said some magic words that made it possible
for me to have carte blanche to spend the year studying the firm's inner
workings.
After grad school Don's example made my career choice easier. I followed
his path and joined Arthur D. Little, figuring that any major consulting
firm that found room for Schon's broad ranging curiosity and creativity
couldn't be all that bad.
Schon added a lot to the early development of organizational learning.
His big picture orientation - he was a philosopher, consultant, government
official and MIT prof - helped keep the fledgling field from becoming
mired in micro-issues (analysis of linguistics and conversational
patterns).
When some of the Argyris/Schon grad students took their mentors to task
for oversimplifying organizational dynamics into Model 1 vs Model II, Don
pulled us aside and shared his perspective on how the World War II
clear-cut fight between good and evil had a strong formative influence on
Argyris, McGregor and many of the other founders of OD. Don said it was
fine to criticize what he and Chris were doing, but he implored us to do
it with our eyes open, and some understanding of the experiences and world
views behind the theory builders.
Ever since Don explained how "dynamic conservatism" really works, I've
been unable to accuse any client of "resistance to change" when they
failed to see the wisdom of my recommendations.
Schon's ideas are as relevant now as when he first wrote them. They are
well worth keeping alive through our work.
Bob Tomasko
RMTomasko@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>