New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of te... more New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of temporality, identified here as causal time. Because it emphasizes identity and state-transitions, causal time is inherently static and past-centered. An alternative view, called flow time, emphasizes the dynamic of the always arriving future. The claim is made that a future-centered temporality gives access to the knowledge change agents need to cope with accelerating and ongoing change.
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flow— or duration—is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Know-ing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real t...
The "positivist critique " of systems thinking clearly fails to gain any traction for H... more The "positivist critique " of systems thinking clearly fails to gain any traction for Hammond herself, who argues convincingly throughout her book that such a view misses much of what is most interesting in systems thought. Still, it is worth reflecting on why such a charge continues to surface (e.g., Lilienfeld, 1978; Lyotard, 1984), even among champions of a systems-theory approach (Berman, 1984).
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flow— or duration—is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems f... more The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems for democratic practice. Causal analysis must generalize and thus assign fixed identities, which inevitably encourages viewing society in terms of competing interest groups whose conflicting goals move them inexorably toward conflict. A second problem with reliance on causality is the sheer complexity of causal analysis of complex social systems, which gives the expert analyst enjoys a claim to superior knowledge and de facto authority over community members. An alternative to causal analysis is to approach systems in ‘story-centered’ terms. Treating the story that the individual or collective ‘inhabits’ as the relevant system for analysis counters the anti-democratic tendencies identified above. Since stories—understood as such—are fluid and shifting, it becomes less natural to define individuals by their interests and identities; in turn, this encourages community participants to engage...
In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third... more In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third-person methodologies — honed to a fine edge by the physical sciences — and first-person methodologies — usually associated with such disciplines or approaches as phenomenology, introspection, and meditation. Proponents of each approach tend to marvel that their opponents can be so thick-headed, so downright perverse. Third-person methodologists maintain that since physical reality is (a) all there is and (b) causally closed, consciousness will yield its secrets to inquiry that follows the scientific straight and narrow. There is simply no need to traipse off into the tangled thickets of subjectivity, where lurk the wily monsters of bias and self-deception. First-person methodologists respond that their opponents, blinded by loyalty to an inapposite research program, reject the subjective and experiential qualities that are the very essence of consciousness. Given an intellectual traditi...
Jack Petranker, MA, JD, is the director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the past dean of t... more Jack Petranker, MA, JD, is the director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the past dean of the Tibetan Nyingma Institute and sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations. An author and teacher, he is also a member of the California State Bar. ... 58 R e V ision Vol. 30 ...
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flowor duration-is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
A commitment to logico-scientific forms of knowing still dominates organization theory. Recently,... more A commitment to logico-scientific forms of knowing still dominates organization theory. Recently, narrative knowing and sensemaking have emerged as alternatives, but these approaches still identify the past as the locus for knowledge. Athird alternative, linked to concepts such as tacit knowledge, suggests that knowing can happen directly within the present but largely lacks the theoretical grounding that would make its practical implementation possible. To remedy this lack, this article introduces the future as a temporal locus for knowing. It distinguishes the told stories of narrative theory from the lived stories that shape human experience and invites a focus on the dynamic of the lived story rather than its content. A knowing open to the emerging, unknown future can be an invaluable resource for shaping organizational change, responding to a rapidly changing environment, integrating personal with organizational concerns, and exploring the ends that organizations serve.
Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, 2006
The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems f... more The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems for democratic practice. Causal analysis must generalize and thus assign fixed identities, which inevitably encourages viewing society in terms of competing interest groups whose ...
Abstract: First-person methodologies have been criticized for their inability to arrive at reliab... more Abstract: First-person methodologies have been criticized for their inability to arrive at reliable and verifiable knowledge of the contents of conscious experi-ence. Consciousness, however, is not its contents, but the cognitive capacity that makes those contents ...
New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of te... more New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of temporality, identified here as causal time. Because it emphasizes identity and state-transitions, causal time is inherently static and past-centered. An alternative view, called flow time, emphasizes the dynamic of the always arriving future. The claim is made that a futurecentered temporality gives access to the knowledge change agents need to cope with accelerating and ongoing change. The Times of Cause and Flow 2 In their introduction to the special research forum on organizational change and development published in the Academy of Management Journal, Pettigrew, Woodman, and Cameron (2001) identified time as one of six key issues about which "the organizational change literature remains underdeveloped (p. 697)," and hence that organizational change scholars should devote more attention to it. We believe a major reason that little attention has been given to time in the change literature is that students of change have regarded time as a constant rather than a variable, a belief Bluedorn (2000a) ascribes to people in general. Further, as Bluedorn notes, the belief that time is a constant is deeply institutionalized, which suggests that most people, most of the time, do not even consider the possibility that time may vary. This suggests one should speak of "times" rather than time, which means time is a collective noun (Bluedorn, 2000a, p. 118). Beliefs this firmly institutionalized make them examples of basic underlying assumptions (Schein, 1992), so they generally go unquestioned. This has certainly been true in
In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third... more In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third-person methodologies honed to a fine edge by the physical sciences and first-person methodologies usually associated with such disciplines or approaches as ...
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flowor duration-is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of te... more New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of temporality, identified here as causal time. Because it emphasizes identity and state-transitions, causal time is inherently static and past-centered. An alternative view, called flow time, emphasizes the dynamic of the always arriving future. The claim is made that a future-centered temporality gives access to the knowledge change agents need to cope with accelerating and ongoing change.
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flow— or duration—is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Know-ing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real t...
The "positivist critique " of systems thinking clearly fails to gain any traction for H... more The "positivist critique " of systems thinking clearly fails to gain any traction for Hammond herself, who argues convincingly throughout her book that such a view misses much of what is most interesting in systems thought. Still, it is worth reflecting on why such a charge continues to surface (e.g., Lilienfeld, 1978; Lyotard, 1984), even among champions of a systems-theory approach (Berman, 1984).
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flow— or duration—is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems f... more The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems for democratic practice. Causal analysis must generalize and thus assign fixed identities, which inevitably encourages viewing society in terms of competing interest groups whose conflicting goals move them inexorably toward conflict. A second problem with reliance on causality is the sheer complexity of causal analysis of complex social systems, which gives the expert analyst enjoys a claim to superior knowledge and de facto authority over community members. An alternative to causal analysis is to approach systems in ‘story-centered’ terms. Treating the story that the individual or collective ‘inhabits’ as the relevant system for analysis counters the anti-democratic tendencies identified above. Since stories—understood as such—are fluid and shifting, it becomes less natural to define individuals by their interests and identities; in turn, this encourages community participants to engage...
In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third... more In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third-person methodologies — honed to a fine edge by the physical sciences — and first-person methodologies — usually associated with such disciplines or approaches as phenomenology, introspection, and meditation. Proponents of each approach tend to marvel that their opponents can be so thick-headed, so downright perverse. Third-person methodologists maintain that since physical reality is (a) all there is and (b) causally closed, consciousness will yield its secrets to inquiry that follows the scientific straight and narrow. There is simply no need to traipse off into the tangled thickets of subjectivity, where lurk the wily monsters of bias and self-deception. First-person methodologists respond that their opponents, blinded by loyalty to an inapposite research program, reject the subjective and experiential qualities that are the very essence of consciousness. Given an intellectual traditi...
Jack Petranker, MA, JD, is the director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the past dean of t... more Jack Petranker, MA, JD, is the director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the past dean of the Tibetan Nyingma Institute and sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations. An author and teacher, he is also a member of the California State Bar. ... 58 R e V ision Vol. 30 ...
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flowor duration-is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
A commitment to logico-scientific forms of knowing still dominates organization theory. Recently,... more A commitment to logico-scientific forms of knowing still dominates organization theory. Recently, narrative knowing and sensemaking have emerged as alternatives, but these approaches still identify the past as the locus for knowledge. Athird alternative, linked to concepts such as tacit knowledge, suggests that knowing can happen directly within the present but largely lacks the theoretical grounding that would make its practical implementation possible. To remedy this lack, this article introduces the future as a temporal locus for knowing. It distinguishes the told stories of narrative theory from the lived stories that shape human experience and invites a focus on the dynamic of the lived story rather than its content. A knowing open to the emerging, unknown future can be an invaluable resource for shaping organizational change, responding to a rapidly changing environment, integrating personal with organizational concerns, and exploring the ends that organizations serve.
Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, 2006
The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems f... more The tendency of systems approaches to rely on and look for causal explanations creates problems for democratic practice. Causal analysis must generalize and thus assign fixed identities, which inevitably encourages viewing society in terms of competing interest groups whose ...
Abstract: First-person methodologies have been criticized for their inability to arrive at reliab... more Abstract: First-person methodologies have been criticized for their inability to arrive at reliable and verifiable knowledge of the contents of conscious experi-ence. Consciousness, however, is not its contents, but the cognitive capacity that makes those contents ...
New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of te... more New ways of managing change have run aground on the uncritical acceptance of a limited view of temporality, identified here as causal time. Because it emphasizes identity and state-transitions, causal time is inherently static and past-centered. An alternative view, called flow time, emphasizes the dynamic of the always arriving future. The claim is made that a futurecentered temporality gives access to the knowledge change agents need to cope with accelerating and ongoing change. The Times of Cause and Flow 2 In their introduction to the special research forum on organizational change and development published in the Academy of Management Journal, Pettigrew, Woodman, and Cameron (2001) identified time as one of six key issues about which "the organizational change literature remains underdeveloped (p. 697)," and hence that organizational change scholars should devote more attention to it. We believe a major reason that little attention has been given to time in the change literature is that students of change have regarded time as a constant rather than a variable, a belief Bluedorn (2000a) ascribes to people in general. Further, as Bluedorn notes, the belief that time is a constant is deeply institutionalized, which suggests that most people, most of the time, do not even consider the possibility that time may vary. This suggests one should speak of "times" rather than time, which means time is a collective noun (Bluedorn, 2000a, p. 118). Beliefs this firmly institutionalized make them examples of basic underlying assumptions (Schein, 1992), so they generally go unquestioned. This has certainly been true in
In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third... more In the emerging discipline of consciousness studies, the bright-line distinction is between third-person methodologies honed to a fine edge by the physical sciences and first-person methodologies usually associated with such disciplines or approaches as ...
Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous ... more Episodic attempts at organizational change have proven to be unable to keep pace with continuous change. The challenge of emergent and continuous change calls for new ways of understanding time, particularly with regards to knowing the future. This article begins by reviewing classic organizational change theory in terms of its underlying temporal assumptions along with its epistemological stance toward effecting change in time. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, an alternative view of time as a dynamic flowor duration-is presented, suggesting that linear, detached, and episodic methods lack knowledge of the future as a temporal dynamic and that popular visioning approaches that rely on future perfect assumptions fail to engage that dynamic directly. The authors propose that the future is unconditioned, what they refer to as the future infinitive. Knowing the future directly through deep improvisation bypasses sense making in favor of cultivating presence and acting in real time.
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