Malcolm Burson wrote:
> This is my experience, also. I had the opportunity in a company I
> once worked for to nurture several small CoP's [in a very modest
> sense of the phrase]. The very process TJ describes [in an earlier process]
> of "slipping around the boundaries" in order to pursue what the participants
> saw as crucial to their ongoing learning and success almost
> inevitably brought them into conflict with those higher in the
> organization who found that the group was "out of control" from
> their point of view. In one case, management was ruthless in
> closing down the group as punishment for exceeding their
> mandate; in others, the groups withered for lack of support.
>
> Isn't this just another example of what's likely to happen when the
> commitment to self direction and empowerment confronts the
> reality of management's control needs?
>
> Sorry to sound cynical.
Malcolm,
I do not think that you sound cynical. Maybe experienced. ;-)
However, I want to be clear that while a management team might push back
against the overt expressions or manifestation of a CoP they will not
eradicate a CoP. CoPs even as learning communities may still have (again
to use Etienne Wenger's phrases) forms of memory available to constitute a
practice, common learning, different reifications (as specific as notes to
each other on how to do 'stuff', as whimsical as cartoons and jokes that
are distributed informally), forms of participation, shared repertoire,
shared meaning, etc.
So there is hope. I believe, for example, in the famous Xerox service
technicians case documented by John Seely Brown that if the petty
bureaucrat who wanted to stop them from meeting in long coffee breaks HAD
been successful that the group would have found a way to get around any
such restriction. CoPs exist and thrive under difficult circumstances
because the members want the sense of community, sense of learning as
doing or practice, the meaning or way of "talking about our [changing]
ability -- individually and collectively -- to experience our life and the
world as meaningful", and identity " a way of talking about how learning
changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the
context of our communities."
--T.J. Elliott Cavanaugh Leahy & Company tjell@mail.idt.net Mind On The Job newsletter http://idt.net/~tjell 914 366-7499
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