Narayan,
Thank you for your perspective on what I, and Linda, thought was a straight
forward response.
Phil Rutherford
-----Original Message-----
From: Narayan Pant <
npant@NUS.EDU.SG>
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Sunday, 16 May 1999 6:19
Subject: Re: [MG-ED-DV] Research Request: calling British non-conformists
>I think Phil Rutherford may have missed the point in his rather
>condescending response to Linda Perriton's original posting. Whether in
>training or in psychological change contexts, there is a lengthy tradition
>of an investigation of the entire context of the pathology as opposed to
the
>focal individual. Laing and other existentialists have used an explicitly
>social approach to address even such apparently individual problems such as
>schizophrenia.
>
>I suspect Linda's request comes from precisely such a perspective.
>
>The behaviorist view of the world is powerful precisely because of its
>simplicty and its complete abstraction from context. And it is also
>precisely there that it is fundamentally hollow. It allows us to produce
>cannon-fodder for the mills of production, not sentient beings whose
gestalt
>includes both themselves and their context.
>
>Thus the obvious reductionism implicit in Phil's statement -- "isn't an
>individual a product of his social context?" -- goes without any
questioning
>and other pithy statements that now trainers have to work for a living --
>equally dismissive and equally unquestioned.
>
>It is useful in intra-disciplinary webs such as this to call into question
>the fundamental assumptions that guide our discipline. In the field of
>strategy we have long discovered that we cannot find people who are "good"
>for their jobs for we do not know how those jobs can be best served. It is
>self-defeating and horribly blinkered to assume that we -- "the
trainers" --
>somehow can discern what the job needs best. I submit that we cannot do
this
>without some terrible simplifications and related distortions at any level
>of the organizational hierarchy.
>
>Narayan Pant
>Department of Business Policy
>National University of Singapore
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Phil Rutherford [mailto:
robnphil@OZEMAIL.COM.AU]
>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 1999 4:05 AM
>> To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Research Request: calling British non-conformists
>>
>>
>> Hi Linda,
>> Just a few thoughts regarding your message:
>>
>> Linda Perriton wrote:
>>
>> > I'm hoping that amongst MG-ED-DV subscribers there might be
>> some British
>> > non-conformists lurking. I am undertaking some research
>> into management
>> > trainers who have to some degree 'lost faith' or have a heretical
>> > relationship to the training orthodoxy and are working
>> within or with
>> > British organisations. I'm trying to establish what
>> 'heretical' practice
>> > looks like in this context.
>> >
>> > For example, if you think that:
>> >
>> > * the focus on personal experience in experiential training
>> has become a
>> > fetish
>>
>> Hmmm. I thought that 'experiential' and 'experience' went
>> hand in hand? Isn't
>> your question a little bit like saying that bathing in water
>> is much too common
>> place? How else does one bathe if not in water? How else does
>> one conduct
>> experiential training if not through the use of experience?
>>
>> > * there is too much emphasis on the individual as opposed
>> to the social
>> > context
>>
>> Doesn't the individual cause, or be influenced, by the social
>> context? Isn't
>> the individual the product of his/her society? Isn't society
>> made up of a lot
>> of individuals with a common theme or cause? And isn't the
>> worth of the
>> individual reflected in what he/she does within that society?
>> It seems to me
>> that, whichever way we look at it, we can't get away from
>> looking more at the
>> individual then at the society in which he/she works and
>> lives. Sure, the
>> society should be considered, but quite often there are
>> people who are who they
>> are despite the societal context.
>>
>> > * competences are the worst thing that's happened in
>> training in the last
>> > 10 years
>>
>> Yes. Agreed 100 percent - because now trainers have to come
>> up with people who
>> are capable of applying skills and knowledge against the needs of the
>> organisation - or society - in which they live and work. And
>> this is an
>> anethema to many trainers who believe that their sole role is
>> to turn out
>> people who have simply achieved the learning objective. Wow.
>> Trainers who work
>> for a living.
>>
>> > * the split between content and process is a nonsense
>>
>> Again, agreed. But we must remember that when assessing
>> competence we aren't
>> assessing the process, only the skills and knowledge that are
>> applied either
>> through or as a result of that process. Or maybe I've read
>> something else into
>> your meaning here.
>>
>> > or hold any other belief that would make you a pariah at
>> your local IPD
>> > branch meeting, your practice reflects your beliefs and
>> you're willing to
>> > take part in an email or face to face interview, I'd love
>> to hear from you.
>> >
>>
>> I worked within the UK system for some time and am currently
>> helping a number
>> of countries to adapt their processes to the UK system. In
>> fact I will be
>> presenting a paper at Cambridge University on this very
>> subject next week. Put
>> me on your list for discussions.
>>
>> Phil Rutherford
>> Academic Director, Lecturer and competency-based systems specialist
>> University of New England
>>
>>
>> > Linda Perriton
>> >
>> > Email:
rooster@cabsav.demon.co.uk or
l.j.perriton@lancaster.ac.uk
>> >
>> > Snail-Mail: Department of Management Learning
>> > The Management School
>> > Lancaster University
>> > Lancaster
>> > LA1 4YX
>> > United Kingdom
>>
>