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Organizing Reflection. A working definition - reflection as a tradition in management learning. - shifting the focus from individual to collective. Possible pitfalls - and as a suggestion for discussion - Organizing reflection in practice
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Organizing Reflection • A working definition - reflection as a tradition in management learning. - shifting the focus from individual to collective. • Possible pitfalls - and as a suggestion for discussion - • Organizing reflection in practice - what does it (could it) look like?
Reflection – some definitions • Reflection in action – on-the-spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring and testing of intuitive understanding of experienced phenomena. Often it takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation. (Donald Schön) • (Reflection is) making thoughtful and productive use of otherwise uncoded experience. (Robin Usher)
Why all the fuss? • A fundamental change in emphasis in thinking about how people learn • Reflection is the key in linking learning with action and experience – a challenge to the academic tradition • Learning from experience opens up possibilities of learning from peers
What’s the problem? • Does reflection have to be only an individual process? • Could it not be the basis of organizational change as well as personal/professional development? • What ideas do we draw on in the process of reflecting?
Reflection as an organizing process - variants • Individual reflection on organizational experience. • Individual reflection as organizationally supported – apparently collective. • Reflection as collective = organizationally situated.
Ideas and perspectives Brah and Hoy (1989) on experiential learning: ‘Can experience ever be constituted outside of social relations? We do not think so. Each of us, though unique as individuals, are positioned within society alongside hierarchies of power constructed around such factors as class, caste, racism, gender, age and sexuality’.
Ideas and perspectives Schools of thought which emphasise a social perspective: - Systems psychodynamic theory - Discourse Analysis - Activity Theory - Situated Learning Theory Or as Gabriel and Carr (2002) put it: ‘Organizations, as parts of society, become sites where broader social and cultural dynamics are enacted’.
Questions! • What might organizationally situated reflection look like? • What structures are there to support it? • Does it engage with organizational and emotional politics? • Who is included and who isn’t? • Is this ‘management by stress’ in the guise of organized reflection?
For discussion • Examples from our experience. • What makes them collective (as in organizationally situated)? • What ideas and perspectives are drawn on? • Do they work?