Wednesday, September 24, 2008

change management through language?

What would it look like if you encouraged all constituents to "story" their relationship to an enterprise? If the words we use are 'literal' reflections of our social orientation, illustrating how we relate to ourselves, others, situations, objects, etc., then what types of words-- and variations--- would we see in the conversations of an organizations' constituents? Furthermore, would we see blatant transformations, for example, from first person singular to plural as the enterprise embraces social connections? 
Moving from "I" to "We" is no simple, linear task. It's going from a monologue to a dialogue. It requires a new level of transparency. It's a very postmodern transformation-- nay mutation: removing the Grand Narrative in favor of many narratives, or going from disorder to greater disorder, as my friend Ryan says. I think there are a lot of learnings in the postmodern movement for today's enterprise. Collaborative technology is begging online architectural metamorphoses akin to our offline architectural evolution from functionalism. Does this framework offer any useful guidance?


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