CO-CREATING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE CONVERSATIONS

THROUGH SYSTEMIC CONSTRUCTIONIST LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Abstract

This paper explores the connection between discursive approaches to change and
systemic constructionist leadership training. Data from a Danish drug treatment
were collected and analyzed exploring the way that systemic constructionist
leadership training can facilitate organizational change. Our research suggests: (1)
the communication model that informs leadership training directly influences the
possibility for organizational change, (2) change agents and researchers operating
from a discursive perspective need to give attention to the ways that Discourses are
appropriated during change processes and the ways that the conversational
ecology within and among ongoing conversations are orchestrated, (3) evaluation
research from a systemic constructionist perspective needs to more thoroughly
conceptualize the relationships among social construction, experiential outcomes,
and performance effects, and (4) engaged scholarship elaborates the complexity
and nuance of our stories and explanations connecting systemic constructionist
leadership with organizational change.

Key words: organizational change, discourse, social constructionism, leadership,

training

CO-CREATING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE CONVERSATIONS

THROUGH SYSTEMIC CONSTRUCTIONIST LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Imagine you are a member of a management consultancy company that provides

leadership training from a communication perspective; an approach your
consultancy company calls a systemic constructionist approach that integrates
ideas from systems thinking, social construction, and appreciative inquiry. You
receive a phone call from the head of CARE (a pseudonym), a drug treatment
center that works with the ambulatory treatment of adult drug abusers. The head
tells a story of an organization in chaos where no common approach to treatment
exists for drug abusers which results in poor service to clients. Her managers and
staff members are distressed and she contracts your company to provide some
training sessions with managers and staff that focus on how to talk about how to
work appreciatively within organizations and how to create a sense of curiosity
about their organizational experience by asking good questions. After conducting
three sessions, you feel that the managers are continuing to experience the same
difficulties and their level of distress remains high. You suggest that more extensive
training is warranted if systemic constructionist ideas and practices are to take root
in the organization. The head agrees and the following year you provide five
additional two-day training sessions for the managers about systemic
constructionist ideas and practices.

After the fourth training session with the managers the following year, the head
requests a meeting and solicits a proposal to train the entire drug treatment center
staff. Over the next four years, your company provides training to the entire
organization in systemic constructionist ideas and practice and creates a series of
courses that deepen peoples abilities to work systemically and appreciatively.
Along the way, you feel that something magical has occurred. You hear several
stories from managers and staff members that this training has helped them change
the culture of the organization, how they connect and relate to each other as well as
clients. Since this is the first time your company has ever been involved with wholesystem training, this feedback strikes you as being important and you begin to
explore the connection between the training and the stories CARE members tell
about their experiences with changes in the organizations culture.

This was the experience of a group of consultants with MacMann Berg, a Danish
management consultancy company that works from a systemic constructionist
approach to leadership development. They have worked with CARE providing
leadership training, coaching, and supervision since 2001. The present study
emerged when two of the consultants shared their experience with an academic
colleague who conducts leadership research from a systemic constructionist
perspective. What surprised and impressed their academic colleague was the care
the MacMann Berg consultants took in systematically documenting their practice by
maintaining detailed notes and notebooks from the training, soliciting written
assessments by CARE personnel, as well as conducting individual and group

interviews with CARE managers, staff, and clients. Their academic colleague also
became intrigued about the experience of the CARE employees during the training
and a collaborative research project developed focusing on what differences the
training may have occasioned in the evolution of CAREs organizational culture.
The present project is grounded in the notion of engaged scholarship (Van de Ven,
2007), an approach that emphasizes collaborative research between scholars and
practitioners which leverages the unique knowledge that each party brings to the
inquiry.

The present study explores the connections among communication training,

organization change, and conversation. While the organizational change literature
acknowledges the role that training plays in fostering change (Kraiger, 2003), this
research has tended to focus on the way that job training facilitates and reinforces
change as opposed to exploring the way that communication training fosters
organizational change. The importance of communication training and its
relationship to organizational change becomes quite important when one considers
the emergence of discourse-centered change models that emphasize change
occurs when the forms of conversation, communication, and language within
organizations are altered (Marshak & Grant, 2008; Oswick, Grant, Michelson, &
Wailes, 2005; Tsoukas, 2005).

If change occurs through and in conversation, then

communication training programs, which are designed to transform existing

conversations among organizational members, become an important contributor in
fostering organizational change. We begin by situating our study in the emerging

literature on organizational change, change conversations, and discourse and then

explore how these ideas connect with systemic constructionist leadership training.

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE, DISCOURSE, AND CHANGE CONVERSATIONS

The linguistic turn in organizational studies emphasizes the importance that
conversation, communication, and discourse play in the constitution of organizing
(Putnam & Nicotera, 2008). Conversation is more than mere talk that occurs within
a fixed and stable context aimed at creating shared meaning; rather, conversation is
an animating force for the way that organizational actors make sense of their
experience, create social arrangements such as identities, relationships, and
cultures, and construct forms of organizing that facilitate accomplishing tasks and
pursuing goals. A growing number of organizational change theories have
embraced the constitutive role of communication acknowledging that [c]hange is
recognized and generated through conversation and other forms of communication
(Austin & Bartunek, 2003, p. 314). Conversation is more than the medium through
which change occurs; it is in conversation that change occurs as shifts in language
and communicative performance create different social arrangements.

Change theories that embrace the constitutive flavor of conversation and

communication are typically subsumed within a discursive approach to change
because they focus on how change is created when forms of talk, patterns of
utterances, and linguistic vocabularies are altered, transformed, or redirected within
organizations. A discursive approach to organizational change represents a
dramatic shift from cognitivist and behaviorist perspectives. First, change is

conceptualized as continuous versus episodic. Weick and Quinn (1999) observe

that most organizational change models are premised on Lewins (1951) notion of
freezing and unfreezing whereby existing patterns of cognition and behavior must
be unfrozen, making them easier to be reshaped, and then refrozen into a new
more desirable pattern. Stability is viewed as the normal state of affairs for human
systems as they undergo long periods of inertia that are periodically interrupted and
transformed by some kind of triggering event, that subsequently lead organizations
to engage in replacement where one set of policies, strategies, and structures is
substituted for another. Replacement allows organizations to return to a state of
punctuated equilibrium until another triggering event emerges.

A discursive approach reverses the stability-change relationship embraced by

cognitivist and behaviorist perspectives and suggests that change is the normal
ontological state of human systems whereby organization is an attempt to order
and stabilize the intrinsic flux of human action (Tsoukas, 2005, p. 101). The notion
of continuous change shifts our focus to a more micro perspective that directs
attention to the way daily conversations are managed, how stories and narratives
emerge within and migrate through the organization, and how various
communicative activities are performed in the service of editing, adjusting, and
modifying practices to allow organizational actors to respond appropriately to
emerging situations. As Orlikowski (1996, p. 66) observes:

There is no deliberate orchestration of change here, no technological inevitability, no

dramatic discontinuity, just recurrent and reciprocal variations in practice over time.

Each shift in practice creates the conditions for further breakdowns, unanticipated
outcomes, and innovations, which in turn are met with more variations. Such
variations are ongoing; there is no beginning or end point in this change process.
(cited in Weick & Quinn, 1999)

Changes at the micro-level, in the daily conversations and interactions that

organizational actors have with one another, are not trivial or unimportant; rather,
the changes created in micro conversations may scale-up to the organizational level
as minority languages and practices become dominant and institutionalized (Ford,
1999; Simpson & Gill, 2008)

Second, a discursive approach to organizational change transcends the Cartesian

duality of mind and body that is reflected in cognitivist and behaviorist change
theories by emphasizing the importance of meaning and its social flavor. Cognitivist
change theories embrace Descartes idea Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I
am), arguing that the mind, in the form of individual organizational actors scripts,
schemas, and cognitive framework, dictate the organizational body. From this
perspective, it becomes important to map the individual thoughts of organizational
actors and develop change interventions to facilitate cognitive restructuring. On the
other hand, behaviorist change theories emphasize objectively mapping the
behaviors of individuals, groups, and organizations, and determining a better set
of behaviors that more readily meet the challenges that organization is confronting.
Through managerial directives, persuasion, and other appeals based on managerial
authority, a program of behavior modification is created (Tsoukas, 2005).

Cognitivist theories foreground the role that cognition plays in determining behavior
and background the importance of behavior and its role in the construction of sense
making while behaviorist theories foreground the importance of modifying existing
behavior and downplay the influence of meaning making on behavior.

A discursive approach focuses on the way that meaning making and behaviors
intertwine to form an integrated unit for analysis. Meaning making is conceptualized
as a social communicative process that draws upon the forms of life constituting a
human system that have been co-created by members of a linguistic community.

We cannot understand human behavior unless we grasp the meanings informing it.
But meaning is now understood to be not just in the mind, in the way people think. It
is manifested in the way people act. The basis of thinking is concepts, and
concepts are expressed in words that derive their meaning from the way they are
used in specific language games, which are located in distinct forms of life.
(Tsoukas, 2005, p. 98)

Wittgenstein (1953) refers to forms of life as the activities that individuals engage in,
the way that they act and how the rules that constitute a particular language game
enable them to derive meaning for words and actions. Unpacking forms of life from
a discursive perspective and grasping what makes particular linguistic utterances
sensible requires understanding both macro-level narratives or what have been
termed big D Discourses and micro-level discourses, the local interaction, or what
has been referred to as little d discourses (Marshak & Grant, 2008). Macro-level

narratives, whether generated by the organization or the larger societal culture, help
make local interaction interpretable for organizational actors and enable their
participation in a distinct form of life that is co-created by them. At the same time,
local micro-level narratives hold tremendous potential for altering macro-level
narratives. It becomes important to explore the interplay between micro- and
macro-level narratives and to recognize that change can occur at multiple levels
within micro- and macro-discourses (Heracleous & Barrett, 2001).

Third, the motor for change within a discursive approach is encapsulated in the
mantra, changing the conversation. Changing the conversation creates fresh
opportunities for meaning making and making change within organizational life
(Marshak & Grant, 2008). From a discursive perspective, a key issue is what kinds
of conversations enable transformative change. Barge and Little (2008) contend
that conversational forms that affirm the meaning making potential of utterances,
versus forms of talk that obliterate the possibility for meaning making through
negation, enable change, forward movement, and the elaboration of new meanings
and interpretations. Drawing on the work by Gergen, Gergen, and Barrett (2004),
they argue that generative dialogue creates the space for new meanings to emerge.
Generative dialogue is based on a logic of affirmation whereby a conversational
utterance picks up on a discursive thread from a preceding utterance and affirms it,
while simultaneously introducing a difference that creates new opportunities for
meaning making. For example, if an individual says, We need to get our team on
board with this new program, a generative response that is affirmative may be
something like, What would it take to get our team on board?

Such a response affirms and connects with a particular element from the others
utterance (get our team on board) while simultaneously introducing a difference
that moves the conversation forward (inquiring as to what activities now need to be
performed). Generative dialogue creates a conversational space for playing with
differences in meaning making that allows participants to collaborate with each
other and engage one anothers views in a productive fashion.

The notion of generative dialogue suggests that a particular kind of change

conversation is required, a kind of conversation that keeps multiple voices alive but
coordinated. However, Jabri, Adrian, and Boje (2008) observe that most change
conversation models emphasize the fusion of multiple voices into a singular voice.
Several models characterize effective change conversations as being top-down
where a leader sets a vision and other employees fall in line. An alternative model
emphasizes using an inclusive participatory form of conversation where employees
negotiate a consensus regarding future directions and actions. While one model
emphasizes the contribution of senior-level management within an organization to
foster change and the other emphasizes collaboration among people throughout the
organization, both models stress the importance of creating a singular shared vision
and direction that will guide the change. Important differences in the way that
various people make sense of change and interpret it are erased as a shared
horizon of seeing, feeling, and thinking is created by fusing distinct perspectives.

Similar to Gergen et al. (2004), Jabri, Adrian, and Boje (2008) connect change to
dialogically-structured forms of conversation that emphasize the participation of

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fully-voiced embodied persons. The reality of change is that people need to be

able to recursively communicate and connect with people (Jabri, Adrian, & Boje,
2008, p. 669). This suggests that as organizational members ability to recursively
communicate and connect with people grows, transformative change is more likely
to occur within micro conversations as new possibilities for meaning making
emerge. Moreover, as the number of people in the organization become better
equipped to communicate recursively and connect with people, it becomes more
likely that micro conversations will scale-up and institutionalize organizational
change. This involves organizational actors developing conversational abilities that
allow them to connect with and create difference within conversations and to spot
the emergent in-the-moment possibilities for meaning making, a process that
scholars have variously called developing ones ability for reflexive agency
(Fairhurst, 2007), acting with sensibility (Barge & Little, 2008), and ontological acuity
(McKenna & Rooney, 2008). One important factor in developing peoples ability to
invite conversational forms that create new meaning making potentials is
communication training.

SYSTEMIC CONSTRUCTIONIST LEADERSHIP, TRAINING, AND

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Beebe (2007) observes that communication training is aimed at developing the
communicative skills and competencies of organizational actors. We would argue
that the communication perspective which informs training makes a crucial
difference as alternative outlooks toward communication emphasize teaching
people particular kinds of communicative skills and competencies and not others.

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From a discursive perspective, creating the kinds of change conversations that

manage difference in ways that enable joint action foreground the relationallyresponsive aspects of communication where organizational actors invent responses
in the moment to move the conversation forward and are active authors in the
construction of the situation. Shotters (1993. 2003, 2005, 2006) relationalresponsive approach to communication views organizational actors as existing in a
linguistic landscape of enabling constraints that they respond to from within the flow
of communication, while at the same time recognizing that organizational actors are
co-authors of the emerging situation as their response to one another alters the
linguistic landscape to which they subsequently must respond. This requires
organizational actors to develop abilities which allow them to be sensitive to the
situatedness of language use and its consequentiality and to create positions from
within the flow of communication that connect with other organizational actors in
order to move the meaning making process forward. This suggests that
organizational actors need to develop their ability to work with the evolving ecology
of discourses and relationships within organizations.

A network of training centres in Europe including the Kensington Consultation

Centre Foundation (London), MacMann Berg (Denmark), Humap (Finland), and the
Gothenberg Consultation Centre (Sweden) design leadership development
programs aimed at teaching organizational actors how to anticipate and reflect on
the way language socially constructs reality and how to construct affirmative forms
of communicative practice to generate new ways of working and organizing.
Grounded in systemic thinking and social constructionism, these training centres

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locate their work in a systemic constructionist approach to leadership. This

approach conceptualizes leadership as a co-created, performative, contextual, and
attributional process where the ideas articulated in talk or action are recognized by
others as progressing tasks that are important to them (Barge & Fairhurst, 2008, p.
232). This definition is important for two reasons. First, leadership is viewed as a
process that can be engaged in by all organizational actors and is not restricted to
either formal management or a small number of informal leaders. While some of
the training provided by the aforementioned centres focus on the formal
management within an organization, many of the engagements undertaken by
these centres involve working with intact teams or line and staff employees in
addition to managers. Second, this definition foregrounds the emergent quality of
conversation and views appropriate linguistic action as being contextual or situated.
While a primary intent of these training programs is leadership development within
the organization; leadership development occurs within a perspective toward
communication that places emphasis on developing an individuals ontological
ability to be in the moment and to work with language and action that creates new
possibilities for meaning making. Therefore, the communicative practices
associated with a systemic constructionist approach to leadership closely resonate
with dialogic change conversations.

Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of systemic constructionist leadership

is provided by Barge and Fairhurst (2008). They argue that a systemic
constructionist approach integrates systemic thinking with social construction.
Systemic thinking is grounded in Batesons (1972) work that emphasizes exploring

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the patterns of communication that constitute human systems. The primary concern
is to understand how a human system operates and changes over time by exploring
the pattern that connects members of a human system through their reciprocal
feedback to each other. The addition of social constructionist thinking shifts the
focus from feedback processes to meaning making (Dallos & Draper, 2000;
Hedges, 2005). Situating social construction within a systemic frame creates a
focus on how discourse creates meaning within human systems.

Value commitments provide a sense of orientation to organizational actors

regarding how to approach and manage their conversations with others. A systemic
constructionist approach to leadership is grounded in a set of five value
commitments:
1. Communication: Leadership actors co-create identities, relationships,
and cultures through linguistic performances.
2. Connection: Understanding leadership within a human system depends
on articulating the connections among persons-in-conversation, action,
meaning, and context.
3. Uniqueness: Leadership actors operate within unique contexts defined
by time, place, people, and topic.
4. Emergence: Focuses on new possibilities for meaning making and action
that are continuously co-created.
5. Affirmation: Leadership actors are encouraged to connect with each
others moral orders and grammars in order to affirm others lived
experiences. (p. 233)

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The configuration of these value commitments emphasize the way that

organizational actors connect with others through language from within the
unfolding stream of utterances recognizing that each conversational moment is
dynamic and unique. Moreover, affirmative conversations are the fuel for forward
movement and development as organizational members lived experience is valued.

Barge and Fairhurst (2008) are careful to point out that any number of discursive
practices might characterize a systemic constructionist approach to leadership and
serve as the basis for developing leadership training. They suggest that three
discursive practices appear particularly promising for developing systemic
constructionist leadership training: (1) sensemakinghow individuals and larger
collectivities such as teams and organizations develop resources to make sense of
the system they participate in, (2) positioninghow individuals use language,
stories, narratives, and other linguistic and non-linguistic devices to create social
arrangements, and (3) playhow a sense of discursive openness is sustained in
human systems through the management of differences in meaning making
activities and how this is connected with creating and generating energy during
organizing. Previous work has highlighted a variety of methods and techniques
associated with these practices including systemic story making (Barge, 2004a),
context setting (Barge, 2004b), affirmative framing (Barge & Oliver, 2003; Barge,
2007), circular questioning (Campbell, Colidicott, & Kinsella, 1994), and reflecting
processes (Campbell, Draper, & Huffington, 1989).

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Given that discursive approaches to organizational change maintain changing the

conversation creates new meaning making potentials for organizational actors
thereby creating change, and a systemic constructionist leadership approach
emphasizes the importance of affirmative meaning making and trains people to use
conversational practices that facilitate the development of new meanings and
interpretations, it seems reasonable to explore the connection between
organizational change and systemic constructionist leadership training. Most
research within discursive approaches to change has tended to explore how
planned change processes that employ dialogue (Isaacs, 1999) and Appreciative
Inquiry (Cooperrider & Whitney, 1999) models are associated with organizational
change. Such research, however, tends to explore how the creation of
conversational architectures in the form of meeting agendas and protocols facilitate
communication in relatively fixed and formal settings as opposed to exploring how
communication training creates resources for individuals in emergent and informal
settings. The present project addresses this gap in the literature and poses two
research questions:
RQ1 What difference does systemic constructionist leadership training
make in the working lives of organizational members?
RQ2 How does systemic constructionist leadership training facilitate
change in organizing?

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CONSULTING WITH CARE

CARE, a Danish drug treatment center that works with the ambulatory treatment of
adult drug abusers, began working with MacMann Berg in Autumn 2001 to develop
a systemic constructionist leadership training program. This particular case was
selected for three reasons. First, the MacMann Berg consultants were struck with
the positive feedback they received about the training and the frequency and
intensity of CARE members comments regarding the influence the training had on
the organizations culture. They became curious about these comments and
wanted to systematically explore the ways that training may have occasioned these
changes in CAREs organizational culture. Second, CARE was the first
organization where MacMann Berg had trained all the organizational members in
systemic constructionist leadership. Given that large-group interventions have
grown in popularity and use over the last decade (Bunker & Alban, 1997), there was
a curiosity around the differences whole-system training may make in creating
organizational change versus limiting training to only mid- and top-level managers.
Third, the engagement with CARE has lasted over an seven-year period beginning
in 2001 until the present which allowed us to explore the way the training evolved
over time and to assess what changes, if any, were created in CAREs culture. We
begin by describing the processes and structures that characterize CARE and then
provide an overview of the training process.

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Description of CARE
CARE provides a variety of out-patient services within a large Danish municipality to
approximately 750 adult drug abusers including counselling and methadone
treatments as well as psychological and physical therapy. CARE employs
approximately 100 people including managers, administrative staff, medical doctors,
psychologists, physio-therapists, social workers, and nurses. Drug abusers are
initially referred for treatment by private general practitioners, other municipalities,
as well as the CARE street team, a team of nurses and social workers that work
with homeless drug abusers. Once admitted to CARE, clients may receive internal
referrals to see doctors, psychologists, and physio-therapists depending on their
psychological and physical needs. Given the complex combination of social,
economic, and health problems experienced by many clients, treatment is typically
provided by a cross-professional team.

CARE is divided into seven departments or centres: (1) there are two centres in the
largest city CARE serves, (2) a street team also located in the largest city, and (3)
centres in four other cities within the municipality. Each department is organized into
a cross-professional team to provide treatment and is supervised by a department
manager. A separate Consulting Staff consisting of specialized social workers,
project workers, medical doctors, and psychologists, is housed in one of the centres
located in the largest city and provides support to all seven centres. An
Administrative Staff consisting of a head and vice-head is also housed at one of the
centres in the largest city. The head is responsible for providing supervision over

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the seven departments, overseeing the overall agencys financial performance,

fostering organizational development, and managing external relations with other
agencies within and outside the municipality. The vice-head focuses on human
resources and education within the agency.

Initial Referral and the Evolution of Training

The training conducted at CARE by MacMann Berg began in Autumn 2001. As of
Autumn 2008, MacMann Berg continues to provide 10-day courses in systemic
leadership for new hires in order to facilitate employees working systemically. Table
1 provides a timeline of the various training activities for the six-year period we
studied. The evolution of training can be divided into six phases: (1) introductory
training, (2) management training, (3) staff training, (4) supervision sessions, (5)
advanced training, and (6) new hire training.

Initial referral and introductory training. In Spring 2001, CARE contacted MacMann
Berg and asked them to conduct a series of 1-2 day sessions for staff and
managers that would introduce them to systemic appreciative ideas. A member of
staff, who was familiar with MacMann Bergs work, suggested to the new head of
CARE who had been on the job since January, that she contact them regarding her
concerns with CAREs levels of performance and motivation. During Autumn 2001
and Spring 2002, MacMann Berg consultants held three sessions for managers and
two joint sessions where managers and staff both attended. 7 managers and 90
staff members participated.

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The focus for each session was working appreciatively within organizations and
creating a sense of curiosity about peoples organizational experience by asking
good questions. Inspiration for the training was drawn from Tomms (1988) and
Hornstrup, Loehr-Petersen, Jensen, Johansen, and Madsens (2005) work on
questioning as well as Cooperrider and Srivstavas (1987) and Hornstrups (2001)
writings on Appreciative Inquiry. A typical day would start with input regarding some
key ideas about how to work appreciatively and with curiosity which would be
followed by a series of exercises and interviews aimed at putting these ideas into
practice. The exercises and interviews were designed to facilitate discussion on the
participants issues and concerns regarding their experience at CARE. The
sessions simultaneously fulfilled two purposes: (1) teaching systemic ideas and
practice, and (2) creating a conversational space for discussion and reflection on
the issues people experienced at CARE using individual and group coaching.

After meeting with the management group three times, the MacMann Berg
consultants sensed little progress. According to one consultant, Every time we met
them, we felt that they had the same difficulties, the same level of distress. Given
their experience, the MacMann Berg consultants approached the head of CARE
and voiced their belief that more solid input, in the form of extended training, was
needed if systemic ideas and practices were to take root at CARE. The head
agreed, solicited a proposal from MacMann Berg, and sent the proposal to other
agencies in her municipality to gauge their interest in participating. She received
positive feedback regarding the content and scope of the training and a training
program in systemic contructionist leadership was created.

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Management training. In Autumn 2002 and Spring 2003, all seven department
managers and the head of CARE participated in the training as well as 9 other
participants representing five other agencies within the municipality. The managers
participated in five training modules. Each module was conducted over a two-day
period with 4-6 weeks between modules. The content of each module emphasized
the following topics
Module 1: Autopoesis, Appreciative Inquiry, context, and neutrality/curiosity
Module 2: Questioning skills and domains
Module 3: Reflecting teams and Coordinated Management of Meaning
Theory
Module 4: Emotions, difficult situations, and conflict management
Module 5: Positioning & evaluation of the training

The modules were designed to introduce the managers to important ideas regarding
social construction, autopoesis, Appreciative Inquiry, and the social construction of
emotion as well as provide an overview of key practices such as questioning skills
and the use of reflecting processes. Further information regarding the specific
content of the modules is available upon request from the authors. Prior to each
module, managers were asked to read relevant material from relevant books and
articles. A major part of this reading was a series of articles later published in
Hornstrup et al.s (2005) book, Systemic Leadership. During the module, the
training was divided into three primary activities: (1) thinkingpresenting and
discussing systemic ideas, theories, and practices, (2) actingusing and applying
systemic ideas, theories, and practices in small group activities and exercises,

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and (3) reflectingcontemplating the consequences of the exercise and the

learning it produced as well as application to the participants professional practice.

Between each module, managers were given exercises or projects to complete.

The exercises or projects were designed to further their understanding of systemic
ideas and practices by using their work experience as material for developing their
everyday practice. Managers sometimes were asked to repeat some of the
exercises from the teaching module with members of their staff team. Other times,
managers were asked to use questioning and reflecting processes to coach one
another regarding work problems and issues when they met as a training group
between formal training sessions. At these training group meetings between
sessions, they also were asked to discuss the reading and teaching from the last
module, to reflect back on their understanding of theories, and to connect this to
their practice and the given exercises. At these meetings, they were also asked to
share their learning from their own practice and asked to prepare for the next
module by formulating questions based on the reading for the next module.

After the fourth module with the managers, CAREs head requested a meeting with
MacMann Berg and solicited a proposal to train the entire CARE staff. After
participating in the training with the managers, she felt that the ideas and methods
were useful and remarked to one of the consultants but if we really want to change
the whole organization internally, then it would be necessary to train both the
mangers and staff. A staff training was then planned for Autumn 2003 and Spring
2004.

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Staff training. The basic five-module format from the management training was
replicated with some slight alterations in the reading material and course content.
All seven department managers served as training facilitators for the staff members
during the training sessions and what were called network meetings between
sessions. CARE divided the 90 staff members into three groups with intact crossprofessional teams from each centre participating in a particular group. CARE also
assigned two to three managers to each training group to assist the trainer from
MacMann Berg. This meant that a particular manager may have one or more of
his/her cross-professional teams participating in the training s/he was helping to
facilitate. Following each module, managers typically met with their staff to discuss
ways they could implement the learning from the modules into the work-groups.
During these network meetings they would facilitate exercises and discuss the
reading. These exercises were very much like the exercises the leaders had tried as
part of their training. Therefore, they could act as helping teachers as the training
groups practiced these ideas as they worked in the organization between the
teaching modules.

Supervision sessions. MacMann Berg provided group supervision with each team
(manager and team) during Autumn 2004 and Spring 2005. The purpose of the
supervision was threefold: (1) to help them implement systemic ways of working,
(2) to discuss day-to-day problems, and (3) to keep momentum in integrating
systemic ideas and practices into CAREs culture. The supervision sessions
included both input, highlighting systemic ideas and practices aimed at helping
managers and staff to make sense of their experience and take action, and

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coaching sessions. Roughly 25% of the time was spent providing input and 75% of
the time coaching. The inputs were designed on the behalf of the wishes of the
group in focus typically going back to and elaborating on some of the issues
presented during the teaching sessions. The team and the MacMann Berg
consultant typically met every 6 to 7 weeks.

During the supervision, CAREs head and the managers had several conversations
with MacMann Berg about how to sustain the work they were doing up to now and
how they could do this as a team of managers. MacMann Berg proposed advanced
training that would focus on ways managers could design and implement systemic
constructionist training in their organization. The basic notion behind the training
was that managers would read original source material in order to gain a richer
understanding of the thinking informing systemic ideas and practices. The
managers would then develop sessions and exercises that proposed new practices
using the original reading as well as the ideas and practices from the original
training for inspiration. In Autumn 2005, Spring 2006, and Autumn 2006 the
advanced training was conducted.

Advanced training. The seven managers received additional training and 1-2
people from each department were selected to participate and designated as
resource people. The hope was that by receiving more in-depth training into
systemic ideas and practice, the managers and resource people could further the
development of the staff and the organization. The training consisted of reading
primary materials that informed systemic theory and practice including original

24

literature from a variety of systemic and social constructionist writers including

Cooperrider (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), Bateson (1972), Barge (2004b),
Maturana (Maturana & Varela, 1992), Wittgenstein (1953), Pearce (1994), Shotter
(1993), Gergen (1999), and Hornstrup et. al. (2005). A major focus of the training
was to provide participants with more detailed insight into the ways that interviewing
and reflecting processes could be developed.

In consultation with the participants, the MacMann Berg consultants co-created

exercises on how the participants could develop new ways of working or elaborate
the different ways of working presented as part of the basic training program. The
purpose of these exercises was to help participants learn how to develop exercises
that could be used in the daily work at CARE. This gave them a deeper
understanding of systemic practices and simultaneously built their capacity for
facilitating training and learning in systemic ideas and practices in CARE. The
typical format for developing these exercises was to have the training participants
divide into groups of 4 to 5 people and design an exercise. Each group set-up the
exercise they had designed for the group they were paired with. Each group then
tried the exercise and subsequently provided feedback to the group that had
designed the exercise.

New hire training. Beginning in Autumn 2007, a new hire training program was
established that placed newcomers to CARE into training groups and provided them
10 days of training using the five-module program that had been used previously.

25

The training introduced newcomers in systemic constructionist ways of working and

helped socialize them into CAREs culture.

METHODS
The present study is based on data that was collected over a 7-year period from
training evaluation surveys as well as individual and group interviews with CARE
managers and staff, CARE clients, consultants from MacMann Berg, and other
practitioners working from a systemic constructionist perspective. For ease of
presentation, we divide the way the data was used to create our analysis into two
categories: (1) consequences of training, and (2) responses to the training process.

Consequences of training
Data generated regarding the consequences of the leadership training were
collected at three different times soliciting perceptions of CARE managers and staff
as well as their clients. This data was collected by members of MacMann Berg as
part of their ongoing training evaluation process.

First, managers and staff (n=88, 95% of managers/staff at CARE) completed a

survey assessing the effect of the training two-three months following the
completion of the staff training in November 2004. The survey contained a variety
of open- and close-ended questions that asked participants to articulate the effects
the training had on them and the workplace and what they had learned from the
training. Open-ended questions were coded by the consultants at MacMann Berg

26

and thematic categories for each question were generated. Tables 2 and 3 display
the items and responses by CARE managers and staff.

Second, two focus groups with CARE clients, four clients in each focus group, eight
clients total, were conducted in April 2005. The two focus groups with drug abusers
focused on how they perceived their experience with CARE staff and whether they
had noticed any changes in the quality of service and care. A two-step qualitative
analysis was conducted: (1) the focus group transcripts were initially read through
and important ideas and striking examples were noted, and (2) the important ideas
and striking examples were then subjected to an inductive thematic analysis using
open and axial coding as suggested by grounded methods (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002).

Third, a follow-up quantitative evaluation of the effects of the training was conducted
in Spring 2007. A 30-item survey was distributed to all members of the organization
asking them to assess the consequences of the systemic training. 82 people
returned the survey (Total number of CARE employees = 100). 22 surveys were
returned by people that did not go through the earlier training and were not included
in the analysis. Of the people that were still members of CARE that had
participated in the training, 77% returned the survey (60/78). Survey respondents
answered each question on a 10-point scale indicating the level of effect the training
had on a particular element of their working relationships or the overall organization
(0 = No effect at all; 10 = Very big effect) in the following areas: (1) cooperation
with close colleagues, (2) cooperation with leaders, (3) cooperation with clients and
their relatives, (4) effects on peoples work situation, (4) overall organizational

27

effects, and (5) general effects on job satisfaction in relation to job and colleagues.
Table 4 presents the items and the responses by CARE managers and staff.

Responses to the training process

As we designed our research, we were inspired by the growing literature on
engaged scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007). An important idea emerging from this
literature is that research should be collaborative among academic researchers and
practitioners and the different perspectives that various individuals and groups bring
to the research process as a result of their various positions can create valuable
insights that enrich our designs and analyses and make them practical and usable
for academics as well as practitioners. We drew on engaged scholarship in two
ways as we generated and analyzed our data.

First, we used the idea that it is important to keep difference alive in our data
generation which led us to solicit three different groups regarding their reflections on
how the systemic constructionist leadership training may have contributed to
changes in CAREs organizational culture. We identified and interviewed three
different groups operating from different positions in relation to CARE: (1) Inside
the organization: Interviews with three CARE managers and six employees were
conducted by one of the MacMann Berg consultants, (2) On the edge of the
organization: Four individual interviews with MacMann Berg consultants involved
with delivering and evaluating the training were conducted by the lead author who is
an academic, and (3) Outside the organization: Three interviews with experienced
systemic constructionist practitioners who were not connected to the CARE training

28

or members of MacMann Berg were conducted by the lead author who is an

academic. Both the interviews with CARE personnel and the MacMann Berg
consultants focused on articulating their involvement with the training, what
differences in CAREs culture and practices they had noticed that they attributed to
the training, and what they perceived about the way the training was commissioned,
designed, and executed that may have generated these differences.

We felt that it was important to interview individuals from the systemic

constructionist community that were not affiliated with the project or MacMann Berg
in order to bring an outsider view to challenge our analysis. In a sense, these
individuals could serve as critical friends as they work within a systemic
constructionist tradition yet can bring a different voice to the analysis. Since these
practitioners had not participated in the training, a detailed 18-page single-spaced
case study describing the evolution of the project, the way the training was
conducted, and the data regarding the consequences of the training was created.
The idea was to create a descriptive timeline of the events and the training that the
systemic practitioners could respond. Once the practitioners had read the case, the
lead author interviewed each one focusing on their general reflections on the way
the training was commissioned, designed, and executed and solicited their ideas
about what it was about the training that may have contributed to the changes in
CAREs organizational culture. We also made two workshop presentations to
groups of systemic practitioners regarding our project and solicited feedback.

29

Second, the resources and differences provided by the lead authors academic
position as well as the MacMann Berg consultants practitioner position were used
to challenge each other as we analyzed the data. Based on a grounded
methodology (see Charmaz, 2000 & Lindof & Taylor, 2002 for a general description
of grounded methods), we used the following analytical protocol:
1.

The interviews were read several times by one of the authors with an
eye toward what the interviewees said contributed to creating these
effects. An emphasis was placed on identifying and recording those
striking moments that caught the coders attention.

2.

These striking moments were then clustered into themes by the

coder. Definitions for each theme and concrete examples illustrating
each theme were generated.

3.

The coder then revisited the interviews and read through them
carefully to see if s/he noticed any new examples in light of the
emerging thematic analysis and whether any new examples were
noticed that might challenge the analysis. The themes and relevant
examples were then revised.

4.

The analysis was then shared with another author. The idea was to
have an academic and practitioner perspective on the analysis and to
use the differences provided by each to enrich it. For example, the
initial analysis generated for the CARE personnel was conducted by a
member of MacMann Berg who was then paired with the academic
author to reflect on and challenge the analysis. The academic author
conducted the initial analyses for the interviews with the MacMann

30

Berg consultants and external systemic practitioners and was then

paired with a consultant from MacMann Berg. The analyses were
discussed and differences between the two parties addressed.

By leveraging the different perspectives offered by the academic and practitioner

authors, we hoped to generate an analysis that was both theoretically rich and
enabled practice.

ANALYSIS
RQ #1: What difference does systemic constructionist leadership training make in
the working lives of organizational members?

Both written surveys completed by CARE managers and staff in 2004 and 2007
suggest that CARE managers and staff perceived the training as having a positive
effect on the organization and their working lives. In the 2004 survey (see Table 2),
the majority of participants indicated that they felt the training had either a large
(39%) or very large positive effect (28%) on the ability of the organization to do its
job. Moreover, the overwhelming number of participants indicated that the effect
from the course in relation to CARE as an organization was developing a common
language (48%) followed by seeing CARE as one organization (16%), and using the
diversity of their colleagues (11%). The top three organizational changes that
participants perceived following the ending of the training include placing more
focus on a systemic way of thinking and using Appreciative Inquiry in their daily life
(37%), using more collegial supervision (21%), and changing the client conferences

31

(16%). Client conferences are meetings of the cross-professional teams at each

centre to create treatment plans for clients. This emphasis on using systemic
thinking (31%) and Appreciative Inquiry (18%) is also reflected in the changes that
managers and staff made in their working lives. In terms of service delivery, 29% of
participants thought the training had a very big effect on the service they provided
clients and 67% felt that it had a good effect.

Three years later the written survey revealed that those CARE managers and staff
members who had participated in the earlier training saw the training as having
moderate positive effects on cooperation with colleagues, leaders, and clients and
relatives (see Table 4). Similarly, they saw the training as having moderate effects
on the own everyday work situation, their general level of job satisfaction, and the
overall organization. By moderate, we mean that 28 of 30 items had a mean
average of 6.11 out of a 10-point scale (0 = no effect, 10 = very big effect). The two
lowest rated items were health relatedthe level of stress on my work (5.38) and
sick days in the organization (4.50).xxxx

Both written surveys indicated that managers and staff members perceived that the
training had a good effect on the way they met and worked with clients. As one
manager put it:
I think the clients perceive being in CARE as more secure now, because they know
that they arent being punished if they are unable to stay out of side addition. They
feel appreciated in being in a difficult position. Of course we dont clap our hands,

32

but we try working with what happened that made you go into addiction, and what
strategies can you choose next time to avoid it.

The focus groups with the drug abusers conducted in 2005 also suggest that they
have seen a difference in the way that CARE employees work with them.

First, the focus group data suggests that clients see CARE staff members as
fostering a positive atmosphere in the house. Consider the following statements by
drug abusers:

Theres definitely been a better atmosphere in the house. No one is

going and being negative. The staff has become better at listening.
Maybe they have attended a listening course. It makes me want to talk to
them. And in general, people have been more motivated for their
treatment.

Theres a much more positive atmosphere in the house. Youre not

nagged as much as you used to be. Its hard to put a finger on what it is
that makes a difference, but there is definitely another atmosphere.
Especially in the way the staff communicates to us clients. I have
experienced significant change the last year. There are much fewer
quarrels and conflicts in the house both among clients and clients and
staff.

I feel much more respected. Earlier, lots of us went around with a feeling
of not being counted for being anyone. Now I feel treated like a human
being, more equal. They arent standing there with a raised finger like
mother or father. In connection to my treatment, it means I believe more

33

in myself, that Im going to make it. And hopefully meet the goals I have
set up for myself.
Clients attribute the change in atmosphere to CARE staff members constructing a
different kind of working relationship with them. Rather than cultivate a relationship
where the staff member adopts a superior position to the client where they treat the
client in a subordinate position by telling them what to do and criticizing them, they
invite a respectful relationship where they treat clients as equals listening to their
concerns.

Second, CARE staff members are viewed as having adopted a more open
communication style which facilitates creating respectful relationships. This open
communication style is associated with improvements in listening skills and the
ability to provide good explanations regarding treatment.

Theyve been better at asking questions of the individual and they listen
more to you. If youve not been there one day, they ask why. They ask
about my drugs, networks, and treatment. It does something for me. I
feel like I want to keep coming here every day. And it means something
for my treatment. Im not just going home and sitting in front of the
television and thinking about drugs.

They give better explanations about the treatment. Things that I might
not have thought of myself and why they do what they do.

What is particularly interesting is how they connect changes in staff communication

to changes in CAREs drug treatment policy. Toward the beginning of the training,
CAREs drug treatment policy emphasized getting drug abusers completely clean of

34

drugs and would kick abusers out of the program if they failed. After the training
began, CARE changed its drug treatment policy to helping drug abusers learn how
to do drugs in a less harmful way and maintain that behavioral pattern through the
development of treatment plans. The following statement by one of the focus group
members connects the change in communication with the change in CAREs
treatment policy: They said things more directly to me. Before, you were called to
the office and heard a long sermon. Its much nicer now; theyve become better at
communicating. They say things more directly, more open. They are less
controlling now, more open. Weve gotten rid of a lot of the anxiety for being thrown
out if were not being completely clean.xxx

Third, collaboration between the CARE staff members and drug abusers has
changed. One drug abuser talked about how clients now had more influence
regarding their treatment and had input into CAREs hiring process and creation of
policies such as smoking regulations. They perceived a closer connection between
the stated policies of CARE toward clients and what they actually experienced. In
Denmark, clients are given a business plan, a written statement of the professional
principles that inform the way the staff and organization will work with the client.
Commenting on the shift toward collaboration between CARE staff members and
drug abusers, one drug abuser said, I must admit that when I read the business
plan yesterday, it actually was what I experienced. What we tell the staff is actually
taken into account.

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Research Question #2: How does systemic constructionist leadership training

facilitate organizational change?

How systemic constructionist leadership training facilitates organizational change

depends on ones position. In this section, we present accounts from three different
positions regarding how the leadership training may have contributed to the change
in culture at CARE: (1) Inside the organizationCARE managers and staff
members, (2) On the edge of the organizationMacMann Berg consultants, and (3)
Outside the organizationthe systemic practitioners.

CARE Members: Creating a Systemic Appreciative Framework. The dominant

storyline from the interviews and the 2004 survey regarding how participants
experienced the content and process of the training (see Table 3) suggest the
changes in CAREs organizational culture can be attributed to the creation of a
shared systemic appreciative framework that subsequently informed CAREs
practice.

CARE managers and staff members frequently cited the establishment of a

common framework and shared language as being crucial in changing the
organizations culture. In the 2004 survey, the top two responses regarding the
effect of the training was that 48% of employees said they shared a common
language and that they now saw CARE as one organization (16%, see Table 2).
One CARE staff member put it quite simply, The language is the same. When we
talk and use these terms then we know what we are talking about and we know

36

what it means. I think it runs down through the system. The notion of having a
shared framework and language also made it easier for organizational members to
share their practice with others publically and reinforce that this is the way that
CARE will treat clients, I also think the systemic has made the treatment of clients
less private. We now have a specific way of treating the clients, and we insist that
the staff members use it, and they are trained in it (Manager). The systemic
constructionist framework was viewed as attractive by CARE managers and staff
because it allowed them to retain knowledge and tools from previous training and
education while providing a coherent framework according to systemic
constructionist ideas of when and how to use these tools. Using the metaphor of a
house, one CARE manager explained the connection between the systemic
framework and other drug treatment tools:
If we normally say that you imagine the organization as being a house, then the
systemic is the foundation and the pillars, which carries the houses walls and roofs.
This means that systemic is not only something that permeates our approach to
treatment but it also permeates the way we are together. When you stand inside
our systemic house, there are lost of rooms you can enter. Of course, there is a
room with systemic tools, but there is also a room for working with other relevant
tools related to drug abuse treatment. You have lots of places you can enter and
stay in, but it is all times within the systemic frame.

Learning how to use affirmative tools that value the experience of others was
credited with creating a more positive, developing, and forward looking
organizational culture. In the 2004 survey (see Table 3), CARE managers and staff
members listed the top three learning points from the training as:

37

(1) Appreciative Inquiry (34%), (2) questioning skills and abilities (16%), and (3)
cultivating a sense of curiosity regarding their communication with others (15%).
The use of affirmative tools such as Appreciative Inquiry, questioning, and curiosity
were often mentioned in the context of working in client conferences:

When I started in CARE the client conferences were pure hell. It was
uncomfortable, people were afraid to let their cases be in focus, they hid
and found good excuses of doing something else. [Now], at the client
conferences there is curiosity and we use the question types. It is easy to
hear when it is being used. (Staff member)

When I started in CARE, the organization doesnt look like it does today.
There was no appreciation at all. You couldnt be in a client conference
and tell that you had a problem with a client without someone criticizing
your professional skills. Or the lack of professional skills. It was very
very healthy for the organization to look at appreciation and look at what
is good and what could be better. (Staff member)

What happened when people got more secure was that they werent
afraid of doing something stupid. You werent afraid of being in a client
conference and say that I dont know this or maybe I didnt do the right
thing. (Staff member)

Affirmative tools embrace the value of ideas and perspectives that others bring to
the situation and create ways for people to connect to them and work with them.
Working affirmatively does not aim for creating shared agreement among
organizational members regarding the situation and possible lines of action; rather,

38

the aim is coordinating the collective efforts of organizational members in a way that
moves the conversation forward, fosters creativity, and is collaborative.

A key factor in helping establish this common framework and shared language was
the expressed commitment from senior management to work with systemic
constructionist ideas:

We chose in CARE to do this all the way not just making an education
and then leave some of the staff members to themselves. No, we made
an education and had all the leaders go through it first, have all the
leaders participate on the staff members education as resource persons,
select resource persons in all departments and have new offers of
education for the staff members at all times. (Manager)

It gets useable for me when we say that it isnt only the leaders, it is all
staff members. However, they leaders get it first, from the top down. Both
the concept and the way it works. (Staff member)

Offering systemic constructionist leadership training to all CARE personnel over a

multi-year period indicated to CARE staff that senior-level management was
committed to this way of working and was willing to devote significant financial
resources and time to making it a success.

Finally, the MacMann Berg consultants were able to create a training space where
the participants could appreciate the importance of theory and play with the ideas
and practices associated with systemic constructionist thinking in a safe
atmosphere.

39

Beebe (2007) suggests that most communication training foregrounds practice and
backgrounds theory. However, CARE members felt that there was a productive
relationship between theory and practice as 98% ranked the level of theoretical
content as good and 50% experienced a good connection between theory and
practice with 14% experiencing an optimal connection. One of the major reasons
that CAREs members may have valued theorys contribution to practice is the way
that MacMann Berg structured the training. Consider the following comment by a
CARE manager:
The consultants were able to, in a trustworthy way, introduce a new, and probably
for many, a very different way of thinking. The consultants played with the
concepts, played with the tools and I think it has had big influence. The times I have
participated, they have had short presentations. There has been lots of work in
groups and jointly. To really get the course participants working. This is not class
teaching it is a product we create together. And practise, practise, practise. It has
been very good to all the time get tutoring on the way you use it. The big element of
creative teaching has been very good.

This comment highlights several aspects that come together to create an effective
training experiencecultivating a sense of play, short theoretical presentations,
active experiential learning, the collaboration among CARE members and the
consultants, and continuous ongoing practice. One of the most important factors
that CARE personnel cite as facilitating their learning the ideas and practices was
the permission to play and make mistakes:
Because we were on a systemic education it was legitimate to practise, and
mess up all that you wanted. Go to the drawing board, nothing is taboo we
succeeded to bring that culture home to the department, and do what we say. It is

40

okay to mess up and it is okay to be curious. Because curiosity was something

negative before. (Staff member)

MacMann Berg Consultants: The importance of working professionally. An

important thread that connects the accounts provided by the MacMann Berg
consultants is professionalism. First, in an effort to improve the professionalism of
CARE, senior management created buy-in by setting a clear context for the training
initiative. All the MacMann Berg consultants discussed how this training initiative
was connected with improving CAREs professional reputation and performance.
Therefore, it became critical for senior managers to create a context so CARE
personnel would take this initiative seriously. Consider the following quotations
from two of the consultants:

[The senior-level managers said] this is the change we are going to

make.we are going to work with systemic ideas and appreciative
inquiry.that it is the waya lot of the teacherspedagogues had other
ideas and some other stories about it..a lot of people dont work there
anymore, because they didnt agree with those systemic ideasI think
that this is also an important story to tell, along the way you have a choice
of staying here or going somewhere else.

The fact that it comes from the top managers is very important because it
makes it possible for middle managers and employees to be grounded
and believe in it. A part of the fact that it was so successful is that it
started at the top, managers were educated first which gave them the
knowledge to help get the employees grounded.

41

The consultants connected setting the context with creating a choice by CARE
personnel of whether they wished to stay with or exit the organization. Using a
cognitivist or behaviorist model of change (Tsoukas, 2005), one way to read the
way that senior management set the context was as a power move by senior
management to persuade people to restructure their thoughts or behavior.
However, the MacMann Berg consultants constructed this move as being consistent
with systemic constructionist commitments of treating people ethically and being
transparent. They indicated that the decision had been made by senior
management to work systemically and that it was not negotiable. Therefore, it was
critical to be transparent about the decision and give people a choice of whether to
remain or leave the organization.

Second, the training helped foster changes in CAREs culture by emphasizing the
integration of theory and practice as a way to enhance managerial and staff
professionalism. One of the MacMann Berg consultants said, Professional is about
combining theory and practice. They are able to connect the systemic base to their
practice and are able to handle practice and develop it much more. They have tools
of action, reflection, and epistemology. Given that the members of the crossprofessional teams received professional vocational education grounded in
medicine, psychology, and social work, constructing professional as entailing an
ability to connect theory with practice and to be able to reflect on this connection fits
well with their previous professional training. Developing self reflexivity, the ability
to reflect on how ones assumptions influences practice (Barge, 2004b), becomes
critical to developing ones sense of what it means to be professional. When

42

describing what he considered to be an exciting moment during the training, one

MacMann Berg consultant said:
The most exciting moment was when they say they had to go into this
metaperspective if they were to succeed, to look at their own communication. When
they were working with drug addicts they were too near the problem, when they saw
that they needed to keep a distance, that made a big difference.

This quotation highlights how becoming self-reflexive in the moment by employing a

metaperspective toward the situation can help CARE members navigate
professional issues such as how close or distant they should be with their clients
and their problems. All the MacMann Berg consultants articulated a variety of
training structures that were used to enable theory-practice integration and self
reflexivity including the network meetings, the learning cycles of thinking-actingreflecting embedded in the training sessions, and frequently asking reflective
questions during training sessions such as, How can you use this in your everyday
life?

Third, systemic constructionist ways of working enable change by respecting the

professional identity of others and validating their differing expertise. The MacMann
Berg consultants were quite clear in what they saw as their expertise and what they
did not, The MacMann Berg consultants said that we have some tools that are
useful, but we dont know about drug treatments, so lets see how this connects. It
shows respect. The consultants didnt come in with a goal. They MacMann Berg
consultants came in humble about the way that CARE employees work, and that
made it easier for CARE employees to listen. By creating a position of respect and

43

humility, the consultants constructed a situation where they could co-create the
training with the CARE employees whereby each could offer their expertise as a
resource for the other to use.

This notion of respecting the expertise and experience of others is also embedded
in the philosophy informing systemic constructionist thinking. Consider the following
two examples:

This systemic way of thinkingthe content of the course already

connects with what they already know in their experience. It connects
with their experience. They have had trainers that focus on cognitive
psychology, we dont say forget it. We say, what have you learned from
this, what have you learned, what can you take from this? What is your
experience from other areas? We dont have to throw out our previous
training, but we can use the systemic thinking to connect the different
parts.

I remember the first group I had, there was a doctor. He was very
negative. He didnt say anything. I looked at him sometimes as I was
telling stories and I tried to catch his eyes and he wouldnt look at me.
But at the end of the first dayhe was starting to open up. He said that
the theory about autopoetic systems interested him because he was a
doctor of biology.and his story was that he was tired of some of the
others [previous trainers] always talking about psychology, the medical
was his worldthis was an eye opener for him because he could connect
the biology with the communication. He never thought of it in that way.

44

The systemic constructionist approach respects the knowledge that others bring to
the situation and attempts to find ways to connect with it. As the example from the
medical doctor clearly highlights, the conversation about autopoetic systems
connected with his background in biology, which moved him to a position of trying to
determine how biology could connect with communication versus having to reject
his biological training in order to learn about communication. This process of
connection is similar to models of continuous change which are based in logics of
attraction, finding ways to connect different elements together, versus replacement
(Weick & Quinn, 1999).

Systemic Practitionesr: Connecting with Multiple Conversations. The systemic

practitioners began by assuming that the training sessions were professionally
designed and executed. Moreover, like the CARE managers and staff members as
well as the MacMann Berg consultants, they also recognized the importance of
having a strong commitment by senior manager. The focus of their accounts
regarding how the training may have affected CAREs culture centered more on
what conversations occurred outside the training sessions versus what went on
during the actual training sessions and how they were delivered. There was a
consensus among the three systemic practitioners that organizational conversations
prior, parallel and in support of the training contributed to the effects generated by
the training.

It wasnt the training but the different kinds of conversations. I think

theres a lot going on in the conversation that might not actually have
been in the training sessionhow about the commissioning of the

45

training. So if you think training as in a very literal sense as people

starting to deliver information and you receive it, actually, a whole
package of training, is conceptualized, negotiated developed, and
planned way before training starts in the room.

One could look at the funding situation, who is there to connect with and
how did they make a connectionwith the council (the politicians who
approve funding).who else was interested in the process and was
supportive. How did they go about keeping the funding going? And what
parts of the municipality did they have to connect with?

Need to look at stories of origin and how they connect task and how they
connect to people in the beginning.
These two quotes highlight a number of conversations to consider when
constructing an account of the trainings contribution to changes in CAREs culture
such as how the training was initially commissioned and negotiated, what
conversations the head had to have with the politicians in order to secure and
maintain funding, and who else in the municipality needed to be talked to in order to
create a supportive climate for the training.

The quality of the conversations that constitute and surround the training needs to
be considered in addition to mapping the connections in the network of
conversations. The systemic practitioners suggested that the affirmative tone of the
conversations created ripple effects that could contribute to culture change. As
one of the systemic practitioners put it,

46

And I think that one of things thats interesting and my hunch is that the systemic
approach has a very clear language about it. Its optimistic, it honors individuals,
and what strengths theyve got now, and what weaknesses. And it stresses the
ideas that people can be collaborative.all the kinds of values which are mentioned
in the domains paper.my hunch is that learning to articulate those values and use
them have given people an enormous boost.

Affirmative processes create a sense of energy in the organizational conversation

and can create ripple effects that multiply the effect of affirmation. The term ripple
effect is used by two of the three systemic practitioners.

I think its because you have similar effects in the training context, people
in the training session would have been feeling more positivethe ripple
effectthey have always had a sense of purpose, but now they had a
method to enable them to put their sense of purpose into actionand see
the effects of their action, a whole positive sense of feedbackthe more
that stuff happens the more it goes onthey can have fun with it, play
with it, its a nice place to be a leader, a recursive effect, if the staff is
nicer then the managers are nicer.

How are the differences that they are co-creating with the clients feeding
back into the organization and having a ripple effect throughout.

The idea is that affirmative processes not only turn back on themselves and create
more affirmation, but that they also reverberate throughout the organization. As
Gill and Simpson (2008) suggest in their discussion of discursive change models,
micro conversations can scale-up into larger organization. What the notion of
ripple effect suggests is that affirmative practices in micro conversations may be

47

likely to scale-up to larger organizational change due to the positive energy they
create.

The systemic practitioners also noted that the co-creative flavor of the
conversations may have contributed to changes in CAREs culture. Co-creation
involves people working collaboratively and can generate enthusiasm and identity.
The notion that co-creation can lead to a sense of we-ness and new identities is
reflected in the following quotations:

They (the trainers) co-created exercises with the participants. That

excited me. They were working with you, who are we commissioning
with, who are the players here, the voices here, what is it you are wanting
to work towards. It actually showed that the participants in this part of the
training in the advanced training, we are actually going to work with you to
develop new ways of working, elaborate the different ways of working.
And I just loved that. I picked this out as very powerful. You get change
when you do that we bit. I was really struck with at what point you are
joining and who are you joining with.

Whats being generatedthis openness to conversation, there was lots of

coaching and people sitting in rooms together, theres a whole heap of
ideas.lots of different opportunities for conversationHow often do they
get the opportunity to forge relationships that I suspect that they may
have not had. So it could be from being together, not simply about the
knowledge and skills, it could be something as tangible as like

48

relationship, the opportunity to forge their conversations and relationships

together. It could also be what happened was a co-creation of an identity.
Co-creation enables fit. In the first quote, the trainers and the participants
constructed training that fit with the needs of the participants by co-creating the
training together. In the second quote, the CARE managers and staff members
found a way to fit together; by working together, they created a new set of
relationships which generated a new identity.

As we developed our analysis, we also presented our preliminary findings at two

workshops attended by systemic practitioners. While many of the reflections that
we have presented in this analysis were voiced at the workshops, our preliminary
findings regarding the effects that the training were strongly challenged. In our
preliminary analysis, we had included data about performance outcomes and sick
days. The systemic practitioners challenged our analysis questioning whether we
could draw claims linking the systemic constructionist leadership training with hard
outcomes. What became quite clear from these conversations is that the ability to
connect processes of social construction, leadership training, and change with
performance outcomes was tenuous at best and was therefore eliminated from the
final analysis. This inspired further thinking about the kinds of outcomes that need
to be documented when conducting research using a systemic constructionist
approach and what kinds of knowledge claims can be made. We address this issue
as well as other learning and possibilities for future research in the discussion.

49

DISCUSSIONxxxx
A discursive approach to change focuses on the ways micro conversations are
altered, edited, and transformed to generate new possibilities for meaning making
that address emerging situations and how they may scale-up to more macro
organizational change. The present study explored the connection between a
discursive approach to change and systemic constructionist leadership training.
Several reflections emerged from our analysis that may inspire future research
regarding a discursive approach to change and systemic constructionist leadership
training: (1) the communication model that informs leadership training directly
influences the potential for organizational change, (2) change agents and
researchers operating from a discursive perspective need to give attention to the
ways that Discourses are appropriated during change process and the ways that
the conversational ecology within and among ongoing conversations is
orchestrated, (3) evaluation research from a systemic constructionist perspective
needs to more thoroughly conceptualize the relationships among social
construction, experiential outcomes, and performance effects, and (4) engaged
scholarship elaborates the complexity and nuance of our explanations connecting
systemic constructionist leadership with organizational change.

First, the communication model that informs leadership training can strongly
influence the process of organizational change. What is striking about the accounts
that the CARE managers and staff members, MacMann Berg, and the systemic
practitioners offer is the central focus on affirmative conversation. The notion of
affirmative conversation shows itself in a variety of contexts including: (1) the

50

respect that CARE managers and staff members show each other and their clients,
(2) the acknowledgement by MacMann Berg that the expertise of the CARE
managers and staff needs to be valued and incorporated into the training, and (3)
the confirmation that various drug treatment methods can be integrated into a
systemic framework. Though each example is different, it highlights the importance
of working dialogically and relationally. As Gergen et al. (2004) observe generative
dialogue is about picking up a pre-existing element from previous utterances,
confirming it, and extending it. Similarly, Jabri et al. (2008) emphasize the
importance of dialogical conversation stressing the importance of creating
connection among persons within conversation without generating a fusion of
perspectives. Affirmative conversations work the same way by valuing elements of
the others expertise and experience, connecting with it, and extending it. As Seo,
Putnam, and Bartunek (2003) suggest the strategy of connection among people and
processes may be crucial for fostering organizational development and change. We
suspect that a model of leadership training based an information transfer model of
communication would not achieve the same kinds of effects because it is does not
pay close attention to fostering collaborative working relationships. Future research
is needed that explores the connection between other leadership training models
rooted in dialogic and relational models of communication and organizational
change.

Second, change agents and researchers operating from a discursive perspective

need to give attention to the ways that Discourses are appropriated during change
process and the ways that the conversational ecology within and among ongoing

51

conversations is orchestrated. The analysis demonstrates that the CARE members,

MacMann Berg consultants, and systemic practitioners draw on cognitivist and
behaviourist Discourses regarding change but place them in a systemic
constructionist frame. All three groups use language that is clearly located within a
systemic constructionist Discourse. They use discourse that highlights the
importance of co-creating a shared framework and language to guide their
professional activity, that foregrounds the significance of appreciative tools in
fostering creativity and innovation, that connects the social construction of
professional identity with theory-practice integration, that values and validates
multiple expertises, and that recognizes that it is crucial to explore the ways various
conversations weave together in the specific context to foster, support, and sustain
organizational change. Prior research suggests that the vocabulary associated with
systemic constructionist Discourse includes language such as social construction,
identity, appreciation, conversation, multiplicity, context, and co-creation (Barge,
2004a, 2004b, 2007), words that are used in varying degrees by the CARE
members, MacMann Berg consultants, and systemic practitioners depending on
their level of experience with systemic constructionist ways of working and thinking.

What is also striking about the discourse of the three groups is that they
simultaneously appropriate language and arguments from cognitivist and
behaviourist change Discourses in their accounts of why the leadership training
seemed to work well at CARE. For example, cognitivist and behaviourist change
Discourses emphasize the importance of strong leadership from the top (Kotter,
1996; Schein, 2004), making training content relevant and meaningful to

52

participants job experience (Noe & Colquitt, 2002), and working with the wholesystem (Bunker & Alban, 1997) as key factors in promoting organizational change.
These themes are also present in the accounts given by CARE employees, the
MacMann Berg consultants, and the systemic practitioners, but they are placed
within a systemic constructionist framework thereby changing their meaning. For
example, given that cognitivist and behaviourist Discourses emphasize Lewins
(1951) model of unfreezingreshapingrefreezing, buy-in from top leadership
within these Discourses is typically conceptualized as an important tool to persuade
organizational employees about the necessity for change and to overcome their
resistance. What is interesting is that the MacMann Berg consultants and systemic
practitioners do not appropriate the language of power and resistance from
cognitivist and behaviourist Discourses; rather, they connect the buy-in and
commitment of top management to clarifying the context and enabling
organizational members to make choices. By setting a strong context that systemic
constructionist ideas and practices will inform how the organization will work, top
management creates a choice point for organizational members of whether to
remain at the organization. Similarly, cognitivist and behaviourist Discourses
emphasize creating relevant training that is grounded in a well-conducted training
needs analysis and is professionally delivered. While the language of professional
delivery and execution is a key theme in stories told by all groups, it is connected
with words such as co-creation and fit as opposed to the language of training needs
analysis, a staple of cognitivist and behaviourist Discourses with its attendant
emphasis on task and person and analysis and the execution of a training plan.
Professional delivery is associated with the consultants working collaboratively and

53

creatively with CARE members to leverage each others respective expertise. What
this analysis suggests is that cognitivist and behaviourist Discourses to change
should not be viewed as being replaced by a discursive model of change. Rather,
our discursive analyses need to pay attention to how various Discourses
constituting change are picked up and used by organizational actors and how they
resonate and contradict each other.

Change agents and researchers operating from a discursive perspective also need
to give attention to the ways the conversational ecology within and among ongoing
conversations is orchestrated. The systemic practitioners point out a significant
conversation that no other group mentions as being important in the transformation
of CAREs culturethe funding conversations between the head manager and
important stakeholders such as the local politicians. Given the amount of
investment required to sustain this multi-year project, the systemic practitioners
were interested in how the head manager was able to secure and maintain funding.
This highlights that the conversation which happens when the participants are in the
training room with the consultants is only one of many ongoing conversations
regarding the training within the organization, and that the multiple ongoing
conversations may intersect in ways that support or hinder the ability of participants
to incorporate the practices and ideas from the training into their daily working lives.
Consider some of the various conversations that CARE members, the MacMann
Berg consultants, and systemic practitioners highlight: the funding conversations
between the head manager and key stakeholders, the conversations between the
MacMann Berg consultants and CARE personnel during the initial and ongoing co-

54

missioning of the consultancy, the conversations among the consultants and

participants in the training sessions, the conversations in the learning groups
between sessions, the conversations CARE personnel have with each other in their
daily conversation both individually and in team meetings, and the conversations
that CARE personnel have with their clients. The traditional advice from cognitivist
and behaviourist change Discourses is that it is important to align people,
processes, organizational structures, and strategies if change is to be encouraged
and sustained (i.e., Kotter, 1996). From a discursive point of view, however,
change agents and researchers needs to explore how various conversations within
the organization are orchestrated in order to create an enabling context for change.
This means that future analyses of organizational change from a discursive
perspective need to pay close attention to the conversational ecology of
organizational lifethe way that various conversations within organizations are cocreated and weave togetherand whether they create a sense of coherence,
dissonance, or contradiction regarding change.

Third, evaluation research from a systemic constructionist perspective needs to

more thoroughly conceptualize the relationships among social construction,
experiential outcomes, and performance effects. As we developed and presented
our analysis to other systemic practitioners, they consistently questioned whether
drawing any claims regarding the connection between the leadership training and
performance outcomes such as number of sick days, employee turnover, and cost
savings was warranted. Their concern centred on isolating the leadership training
as the main driver of changes in performance outcomes versus a number of other

55

potential contributors such as changing client demographics, formal organizational

restructuring, or strategy development. At the same time, they seemed quite
comfortable with claims regarding the experiential outcomes from the training
perceptions of how the training affected peoples work and stories of how it altered
the climateas these claims were directly tied to the stories and accounts
organizational members expressed in the interviews or surveys. This raises an
important question for evaluation research into leadership training conducted within
organizations from a systemic constructionist perspective about how performance
outcomes and effects can be discussed and assessed.

This concern parallels a growing concern in discourse studies regarding the

connection between materiality and social construction. Materiality refers to the
directly observable description of substance or concrete facts which people would
agree is physically present in the situation. Oswick, Grant, and Iedema (2008)
suggest that one way to address materiality in discourse studies is to begin with an
event analysis and then use this analysis to create a set of stories about what
transpired in the setting. In their study, they created an objective timeline of the
events leading up to and following the sacking of a football manager such as the
win-loss record, key public interviews with team personnel, and the actual sacking.
Based on the material present within the event timeline, they created a story about
the manager getting sacked based only on the events which could then be
compared to various discourses constructed by the organization and the public.
The objective events became one source of material for constructing a story about
the situation. In the present study, this would suggest the importance of creating a

56

timeline that captured significant events in the organizations life before, during, and
after the time of training as well as documenting trends of key performance
indicators such as financial data and employee sick days and creating a story from
that event analysis. This story could then be compared to the performance and
outcome stories organizational members tell regarding their experience to explore
divergence and resonance between the stories. Additional methods and techniques
such as event analysis need to be developed in future evaluation studies of training
to capture the accounts and stories constituting performance discourses grounded
in the material sequence of events as well as the stories organizational members
tell about them.

Fourth, our analysis confirms the argument that engaged scholarship elaborates the
complexity and nuance of the stories and explanations we create in our analyses.
Van de Ven (2007) highlights that engaged scholarship involves leveraging the
unique insights provided by different participants to generate a more detailed and
rich picture of the phenomenon of study. The current analysis suggests that a
variety of themes and ideas gain richness and depth when reflections from different
positions are generated. For example, the theme of co-creation and joint
collaboration are mentioned by all three groups. However, CARE employees tend
to construct co-creation as occurring among themselves in team meetings and with
clients while the MacMann Berg consultants tend to construct co-creation in terms
of the joint work they perform with CARE members during training. The systemic
practitioners are similar to the MacMann Berg consultants as they construct cocreation in terms of what occurs in the training but broaden their conceptualization

57

to include ongoing conversations such as the funding conversation by top

management that existed prior, during, and after the training sessions. When one
considers how each group constructs co-creation, it becomes clear that multiple cocreated conversations are present, involving varied stakeholders, at different times
and places. Conducting the analysis using reflections from multiple positions
generates a more nuanced and rich analysis of co-creation than simply using the
reflections from a single group. This suggests that our research can become more
useful, exciting and insightful when perspectives from multiple stakeholders are
solicited to help design the focus, methodology, and analysis plan for a particular
project.

A discursive approach to change emphasizes that change occurs in and through

communication, conversation, and discourse. The present study explored how
systemic constructionist leadership training contributes to organizational culture
change. Our analysis suggests that systemic constructionist leadership training
creates the occasion for organizational change by fostering co-creation among
organizational actors, affirming the expertise and knowledge organizational actors
bring to the training experience, and cohering with other organizational conversation
regarding the training.

58

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Table 1
Timeline and description of training
Time

Participants

Description of Training

Autumn 2001 &

Spring 2002

7 managers & 15
staff

Five 1-2 day sessions were held for

managers and staff. Three sessions
were held for managers and two

sessions
were joint manager-staff sessions.
The
focus was to learn how to work
appreciatively in organizations and
ask good
questions.
Autumn 2002
training
Spring 2003
appreciative

8 FAB managers &

Managers participated in five

8 managers from agencies modules: (1) Autopoesis,

in the municipality

inquiry, context, and neutrality, (2)

questioning and domains, (3)

reflecting
teams and Coordinated
Management of
Meaning Theory, (4) emotions,
difficult
situations, and conflict
management, and (5)
positioning and evaluation of the
training.
Each module was conducted over a
two-day
period with 4-6 weeks between
modules.
The managers met between the
modules to
discuss their homework
assignment and to
discuss the reading.
Autumn 2003 &
managers in

64

90 staff members &

The training conducted for the

Spring 2004
for the

8 managers

the preceding year was carried out

remaining staff. The managers

acted as
helping teachers and assisted in
those sessions where their staff
teams were
present.
Autumn 2004 &
sessions
Spring 2005
managers

8 FAB managers

Individual and group supervision

were held that focused on helping
make sense of their experience and
implement systemic ideas into their

practice.
Autumn 2005,
7 FAB managers
where the
Spring 2006, & 14 staff
training
Autumn 2006
order

This was an advanced training

participants received more in-depth
into systemic ideas and practices in
to further the development of the

staff and
organization.
Autumn 2007
held that

New hires

Five 2-day training sessions were

paralleled the five module training

format
offered in Autumn 2002 and Spring
2003.

65

Table 2
Responses from 2004 survey regarding training consequences
Focus of item

CARE Employee Responses

What are the most important effects from the

(19%)
course in relation to your work?

Do better at client conferences

Have a better understanding of
other positions and colleagues way

of
doing things (13%)
Focus on resources instead of
problems (13%)
Are more curious (10%)
Have a common language and they
see themselves are more
professional (8%)
Clients respond positively back after
meeting (6%)
What is the effect from the course in relation to We have a common language
(48%)
CARE as an organization?
We see CARE as one organization
right now
(16%)
We know each other much better
right now
and use the diversity of our
colleagues
(11%)
There is much more innovation and
CARE
has become a developmentoriented
organization (8%), more
professionalism
(6%)
More energy and joy (6%)
How much positive effect has this course
Some effect (33%)
had in relation to this organizations ability to do Large effect (39%)
the job they have to do?
Very large effect (28%)
How much have you done to obtain this effect Done a little bit (9%)
(the organizations ability to do the job)?
Have done a lot (45%)

66

Have done very much (33%)

How much of a positive effect has this course Less effect (4%)
had on the clients you are responsible for?
A large effect (67%)
Very big effect (29%)
What is your experience about how much
of this systemic way of thinking has been
implemented in the organization?

A little bit (22%)

Well implemented (37%)
Very well implemented (35%)
Extremely well implemented (6%)
Not implemented at all (0%)

How has the course changed the organization We do more training and place
and what has the organization done in practice more focus on a systemic way of
after the course has ended?
thinking and Appreciative Inquiry
in their daily life (37%)
We use more collegial supervision
(21%)
We have changed the client
conferences
(16%)
We use reflecting teams in client
conferences(10%)
We use mindmaps(10%)
We educate the clients and
introduce the
clients to some of these thoughts
(4%)
These changes, what have you done yourself? Have started to use the systemic
way of
thinking in staff member meetings
(31%),
Have introduced an Appreciative
Inquiry culture in their daily work
(18%),
They have introduced the use of
mindmaps
(13%)
Responded using collegial
supervision treating colleagues as
supervisors (10%)
Started using different kinds of
questions
(5%)

67

Table 3
Responses from the 2004 survey regarding how participants experience the content
and process of the systemic constructionist leadership training
Focus of item

Participant response

Most important learning points

Appreciative Inquiry (34%)

Tomms approach to questioning

(16%)
curiosity/neutrality (15%)
context/context clarification (9%)
systemic way of thinking in general
(9%)
Which part of the systemic theory and methods We use questioning and
Appreciative
have created most effect in relation to your
Inquiry (56%)
own practice:
We use mind maps as a
pedagogical method
to map out plans for clients (23%)
Reflecting teams (9%)
Context clarification (4%)
Coordinated Management of
Meaning
Theory (3%)
The concept of autopoesis (3%)
The course as a learning process, staff members
Good level of content
(98%)
experience of the course regarding theoretical Too low (2%)
content:
How do staff members experience the connection
Little connection
(11%)
between theory and practice:
Good connection (50%)
Very good connection (25%)
Optimal connection (14%)
What could done this process be done even
better to qualify the ability of the organization
to do the job:
up

The network groups should have

continued after the course (26%)
Should have provided more followdays (24%)
Would prefer even more network

meetings

68

during the course (9%)

More training, training, training (9%)
Would prefer exercises with clients
(9%).
The level of satisfaction with the course

69

Very high satisfaction (23%)

High satisfaction (57%)
Good satisfaction (18%)
Some satisfaction (2%)
Very little satisfaction (0%)

Table 4
Results from the 2007 training consequences survey
Theme

Mean Average

Cooperation: Effects on the cooperation with close colleagues.

The effect on our ability to help each other in difficult situations. 6.76
The effect on our ability to be clear in our internal communication.
6.60
The effect on our ability to handle conflicts.
6.29
The effect on our ability to create an appreciative tone of conversation
in-house.
7.35
The effect on our ability to share knowledge.
6.41
The effect on our ability to increase effectiveness of our in-house
meetings.
6.11
Leadership: Effects on the cooperation with leaders.
The effect on my leaders to be appreciative toward me.
7.36
The effect on my leaders ability to listen to my wishes.
7.67
The effect on my leaders tendency to let me have
influence on how I do my work.
7.62
The effect on my leaders ability to use my special skills and abilities. 7.53
The effect on my leaders ability to give the responsibility for
assignments.
7.42
Clients and relatives: Effects on the cooperation with clients and
their relatives.
Effect on my communication with clients.
Ability to handle conflicts with clients.
My ability to help clients with their difficulties.
To have attention on and understanding for the perspective of
the client
On my communication with relatives (of clients).

7.19
6.81
7.03
7.34
6.95

Personal: Effects on your own everyday situation at work.

Effect on my motivation.
Effect on my level of stress on work.
Effect on my pride of my work.
My ability to appreciate my colleagues.
The effect on my appreciation of my leader.
Organisation: Effects on the overall organization.

70

6.75
5.38
6.67
7.45
7.15

Effect on our ability to do our job in the organization in relation

to the clients
6.85
Effect on cohesion among the staff members in the organization.
6.67
Effect on organizations ability to handle change processes and
external changes from outside the organization.
6.60
Effect on sick days in the organization
4.50
General: The course effect in general in relation to different themes to your
satisfaction and your work with colleagues.
Effect on the satisfaction in relation to your job
6.61
Effect on your work with your colleagues
6.80
Effect on your satisfaction in relation to your leader
7.02
Effect on how much you appreciate to come to work
6.73
Effect on your abilities to handle your work in relation to the clients
6.96

71