Jan 27 2009
Interpretation is key.
I finally finished reading the assigned chapters in Burke’s text, Organization Change, Theory and Practice, and I must admit I was a bit distracted by my roommates TV while wrapping up chapter 5. I found many of the examples and theories Burke talks about interesting, especially the topic of sensitive training. The example given by Kurt Lewin describes something that seems as if it would be quite beneficial in any organization or setting. It was interesting to read how the supervisors were discussing the behavior of one of the participants, but as that same participant listened in, she had a completely different interpretation. This is where if she had not been observing the staff discussion, the supervisors would never have truly known what her true or real behavior was. To be quite honest, they probably never would have asked or cared to know her own interpretation. Lewin then goes on to discuss how important the intrusion was by the participant, and in the end the three-way discussions occurred and “the feedback the participants were receiving about their daytime behavior was teaching them as much as or more than the daytime activities were.”
As I read this the one word that stuck in my mind was interpretation. We all interpret things that happen on a day to day basis differently. I see this some in my job because I’m surrounded by many people and these many people form 4 different labs. Since each lab is like its own little family, I think sometimes they begin to form opinions or pin-point specific behaviors to some of the others in different labs. I guess what I’m trying to say and relate to is that if occasionally they all would step out of their lab and collaborate with the others, they may learn to interpret what goes on differently, instead of forming attitudes or bias’s before they have the facts. That may sound like a jumble of thoughts, but like I said in an earlier blog, I’m really trying to pull from our readings and class discussions and relate them to my job.
Also, in our first class I said that I didn’t think I had been through an organizational change, either good, bad or ugly. Well, I don’t think I have yet, but our department is growing, so I can see where if we hired a new faculty member and a whole new lab, it may change the dynamic of the department and organization. If this does happen with the construction and addition of our new dentistry building I’ll keep everyone posted.
