A Complexity Perspective

Antonie van Nistelrooij
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Antonie van Nistelrooij: VU University Amsterdam

Chapter 8 in Embracing Organisational Development and Change, 2021, pp 287-324 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Complexity science is studying the nature of dynamics in interacting people and suggests that order emerges without any central or governing control or intention when the whole is operating in ‘edge of chaos’ conditions. This way of thinking invites us to stay in the movement of communicating, learning and organising, to think from within our living participation in the evolution of forms of identity. In this chapter, we explore the complexity perspective regarding the practice of consultancy and intervening. In doing so, we will introduce and explore the following: The historical background of this field, how it relates to change and changing, the contemporary debate in the consultancy literature and its main components as a scientific field of research. How to look at change from a first-person perspective by introducing a narrative, with which we try to make a personal experience meaningful in such a way that the reader can stand in a consultant’s shoes and relate to their own experiences. How research practices such as autoethnographic research and community inquiry can be used as an approach to research to describe and systematically analyse personal interactive experience in order to understand cultural experience in relation to other perspectives regarding this experience. Looking into the first encounters between a consultant and a client, by taking a closer look at the particular challenges and dynamics that are part of the conversations regarding a contracting and the preliminary scoping of the system between a consultant and a client. The concept of a ‘pseudo exploration’, which can cause things to be really complex, giving rise to insurmountable obstructions.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51256-9_8

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