Description
Study Reports on Collecting Poetical Definitions of Management: Personal per formatives:- Formative assessment or diagnostic testing is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures employed by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment.
Study Reports on Collecting Poetical Definitions of Management: Personal per formatives
Abstract
In this paper I present personal performative definitions of management that I collected from a group of students of the Warsaw University's School of Management. The definitions have the form of short poems. They are rooted in their everyday life and observations: taking part in management education in Poland, encountering alternative (non-mainstream) ways of looking at organization and management, and the transition to market economy.The poems are ironic and express the authors' need of creative reconstruction of reality.
1
Poetry and business administration
The idea to learn about management (and organizations) from literature and literary experience is not new. It has its roots in narrative science (see e.g. Czarniawska-Joerges, 1995), and especially the proposition to read fiction in order to learn better management (Czarniawska-Joerges and Guillet de Monthoux, 1994), and to write fiction with the purpose to understand more about organizational realities (Knorr Cetina, 1994).
The inspiration to explore the private and expressive of emotions, the sublime, derives from Pierre Guillet de Monthoux' fascinating book Det sublimas konstnärliga ledning: Estetik, Konst och Företag (1993). From that book I learned that management has a lot to do with the sublime, and the experience of beauty is highly relevant for widening and broadening of our notions of management. Aesthetics is becoming a current topic of interest for researchers of organization and management, and rightly so (see e.g. Sandelands and Buckner, 1989; Strati, 1992; Linstead, 1994)
Also the relationships between the poetical and organizational realities has been a subject of writings in our field. Claire Cohen (1995) speaks about sudden poetry in management textbooks, and emphasizes the positive influence it has on learning. Heather Hopfl (forthcoming) addresses the relationship between the poetic and the rhetoric, and the role of ambiguity in (organizational) life.
This paper is about poems defining management.
The Authors
The authors of the poems are all participants of a rather special lecture. It is an elective, authored by myself and Aleksander Chrostowski, the only non-functionalist lecture given at the School of Management of Warsaw University (as far as we know). The course covers 45 teaching hours and lasts one semester (spring 1995). It was intended for students of the fourth and fifth year, but as it started a very differentiated company formed, ranging from students of the first year to students about to have 2
their master's dissertation. Some started to attend and changed their mind. Others joined us later. A faithful group of about 20 students assembled after awhile.
The lecture covers briefly many non-mainstream fields and topics, such as constructivism, narrative science, organizational aesthetics, etc. Many of these topics were entirely new to the participants. Some of them heard about them for the first time ever. The lecture was partly traditional in the form, e.g. a lecture (monologue), and partly a conversation, in which all the participants joined, with their ideas and contributions. It was not only a discussion, but rather a joint construction of images and understandings. On one of these occasions, the students were asked to write poems about management. Some allowed us to collect their poems, while others did not.
The students are definitely not representative of "students of management", nor "students of the School of Management". I think they are quite un-representative - I see them as a rebellious group of very imaginative and creative people, not necessarily non-positivists (there are at least two self declared functionalists among them), but nevertheless very critical. Many of them are busy within some creative activities outside their studies: two are co-creators of the School's spontaneously formed students' monthly, some are active within an alternative theater, some write, etc. Most of them are intensive readers: of both scientific texts and various genres of literature.
The occasion when we asked our students to write poems was neither artificial nor planned as "data collection". It was a part of the learning process. After having collected the poems and read them, I decided that they say some really interesting things - about the authors, the context and management, in a way that is impossible to achieve in the case of most other types of definitions.
It would like to stress that the whole point with such definitions is the exceptional unobjectivity, lack of distance, their coming close to subjectivity. It is exactly what I see as interesting, a strong missing voice in our "data collections", even the intersubjectivist ones: that of private feelings. I do not think that it would be quite as interesting if the authors were asked to write their poems for the purpose of "data collection". The formality and distance such an occasion ordinarily means in terms of interpersonal relationships does away with much of the personal and subjective in people's voices. I do not claim it is necessarily so. My method of collection of definitions may be used in more planned and pre-arranged research. I would, however, like to discourage from a manipulative use of this method: the 3
case of the distanced, calculated researcher making people reveal their "inner feelings", but not giving them anything of the kind in return. Any "psychoanalytic" use of this method I would regard as a misuse. Reading people's mind I see as immoral. But I believe in reading people's poems, if there is a sharing relationship between them, and if there is confidence.
The poems in this paper are written as a more or less natural expression in a conversation between myself and the authors, published with their permission.
The poems
Performative definitions
Austin (1962/ 1993) distinguished a kind of statements that define the state of things. This statements he labeled "performatives": they not only communicate but also "perform". Latour (1986) has proposed, based on Austin's concept of performative, a distinction between two definitions of society: the ostensive and performative. Czarniawska-Joerges (1991, 1993) analogously differentiates between two ways of defining culture, and organization. According to her, the ostensive definition is based on the assumption that it is in principle possible to detect the qualities characteristic of the phenomenon. These characteristics "are there", but in practice they may be difficult to identify. The phenomenon should be approached "from the outside", by the objective researcher. The performative definition is based on an admission that the description characterizing the phenomenon is impossible, but in practice it might become possible. The actors themselves construct such definitions, in order to make action possible. They do this for themselves, as well as for others. While the researcher looking for ostensive definitions will be convinced that there are "objective methods" to employ in order to learn about the essence of the phenomenon, the researcher collecting performative definitions believes that the definitions of the 4
actors are neither "better" or "worse" that her or his own. Therefore the latter researcher treats the actors as legitimate authors of the definitions, and thus concentrates on local knowledge (CzarniawskaJoerges, 1991; 1993).
The knowledge of the actors is important, because it is the foundation of their actions. They are not absolute and can be many and varying. They are pragmatic and thus neither "false" nor "true", but instead they can be accurate, beautiful, important, etc.
Error! Bookmark not defined. Ostensive definitions - formulated from outside - "objective" - found in order to describe the "essence" of a phenonenon - the aim is to find the rules
Performative definitions - formulated from inside - "working" definitions - formulated in order to enable action - the aim is to explain practices - participants are authors
- participants as informants
Tab. 7. Ostensive and performative definitions. Based on Czarniawska-Joerges (1991; 1993)
I collected performatives, and special ones: personal, expressed in the form of poems.
The poems were originally written in Polish, except one. I have translated them into English, and the authors had the possibility to make corrections. Rhymes (where they were used)1 were translated into blank verse.
The poems the students have written express their personal definition of the subject, their own local knowledge. They explain practices, but also private ways of taking part in the experience of studying management in Poland during transition and intensive change, and of
1
Rhymes were originally used in 3 poems. 5
encountering a new way of thinking and feeling about organizations and management. These experiences together are in my reading the ground on which all the authors have built their definitions. The theme they concentrate on varies, however.
On management practice
Some of the authors addressed the contemporary management practice, and when they did it was a strongly ironical picture. One of them, YGA, tells the story of two pals who decided to start a business together, and how it came they had to hire and "expert".2
Once Zdzisiek said to Waldek - To make a little business would be nice we'll take some bucks out of the Polish Bank - They'll give us? - Sure! our brains are OK I'll be the boss and you'll be the vice our beautiful wives will do fine as secretaries - And what will we be doing? - And what goes now? - It doesn't wanna go? Goddammit! Have we forgotten something? lost something on the way? go get an expert do it fast let him fix our dear business fine so that it will no more run out of tune YGA
2
Polish original used rhymes.
6
Another author, Jarek D?browski, paints an equally ironic picture of the practice of management, although this poem is different to the first in that it introduces a cynical, self-conscious narrator, an observer in the text. The first poem is an ironical portrait painted by the author. In the next, the author lurks in the text, waiting to trap the reader. To the candid reader he reveals the news: management is chaos.
O wrath of the almighty come give the eye, agitate and then please let live long and well off the last is not What is first Profit is an intersubjective phenomenon I'll be bored to death if I don't shake this enterprise up What is important is to perceive, to be perceived perceiving, perceived, do not FORGET Chased, deprived I DO NOT WANT TO attempt at note about modesty Marketing is an art of mystification Craft or Artism?!? The most important is when THE CASH is OK the class of managers Away! you white mouse! "Specialists drink" (or rather, the trained do) Jarek D?browski
On management education
Another wide topic for reflection is management education. What are we being educated in? What is the meaning of this? The following poem addresses this problem with a frank irony: learning about management is like learning about pharmacology. The aim is to pick up recipes, which should be "effective". Recipe Take: 7
half a glass of sociology 2 glasses of psychology one half kilo of statistics a spoon of economics optionally dried fruit a pinch of fiction (imagination) Shake Keep in a cool, dry place a certain time... P.S. Should be effective Anonymous
Another author expresses his doubts about the meaning of traditional management education, the education aiming at "teaching the practices". The practices are something that cannot be taught - it is something a person "is":
Once upon a time there was a king he wanted to tell his son what it means to be king The son listened. about wars conquers taxes dreams. He fell asleep. Forgot about wars conquers taxes deals In his dream he did not have the time for this. He was king. P.K .
Irony is present in both the above poems: the "journalistic" recipe, the parabolic historical narrative. It is also strong (even though different) in a third poem, composed like a text of fantasy fiction. Here we are presented with a metaphorical narrative about the process of learning itself: how the author feels about it and about its meaning.
I. In the beginning, there was emptiness well, perhaps some crumbs of information then the space of earth, ready yet empty 8
II. The sowing men threw the seeds onto the soil Some fell where they should not the wrong time, the wrong place on soil that was inhospitable, infertile III. The seeds rested long on the soil Time could not touch them They lacked help, impulse? IV. When the right time came the act of will, carried with it the helping rain Some of the seeds developed fast, suddenly V. A majority remained there, waiting for their time The growing already developed branches Some were arrested in their growth VI. Thus emerged wastelands, some weeds Here there are meadows, some savannas, a few woods Maybe some day they will embrace the whole earth Maybe... Adrian Szumski This poem is quite optimistic. It ends on a hopeful note. A fourth poem, which I also read as defining the situation of taking part in management education, is a darker text. Irony is present here too, but as a force, springing from the text, stabbing the reader. The whole poem is in my opinion an attack, an aggression, not necessarily always directed at the reader, rather to some oppressive forces with which the author has to fight.
Management grows and entours. It slides through the brains and sticks the sensitive Approaching of the ear will not "increase the volume" of the buzz Intransparent does not make a whole ... Those who do not understand flee they can stumble but the meaningless aggression will demolish even the doubter ... Unused brains are like disgraced bodies. 9
Magda Kozlowska
Next author is aggressive too, and the aggression is partly directed toward the reader. The irony is bitter - there is probably no sense in the whole business of management education, what is "new" will be "outdated" soon enough. What happens is like processing that the students are subjected to, processing for its own sake, with little or no respect to the students. The non-mainstream lecture is no different in that - it is just another version of the processing.3
I'm sitting in a small room I see Ford, I see Sloan and so what, I think to myself I'll end up as a jerk anyway Obviously already Weber created something and Ko?minski remade it they won't come up with anything new those who are processing us here How do they process us? My dear they make us write, they make us read and what's more my pal we are supposed to write poems here Is management art? perhaps not, but it will be you have to study with eagerness all that won't be up to date Porter is the mentor of Ob?ój and Ob?ój is the mentor of Kostera and all those guys together are supposed to be sacred for you Without this, my dear your efforts will be vain it will not be your fate to become a good manager Anonymous
3
Polish original used rhymes.
10
The next author experiences chaos, probably much because of the new ways of thinking about management he is learning about. The poem is energetic, serenely ironic - it ends with a tone I read as personal liberation. He discovers that things he believed in formerly, like motivation, can be seen as something entirely different and less benevolent. He shouts it all out, and he feels relieved. It feels good to be a rebel.
A MESS IN MY HEAD MOTIVATE MANIPULATE JUST DON'T BE SURPRISED THAT ALL THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MANAGEMENT Igor Bielobradek
On personal liberation
There are a few authors who speak explicitly about the feeling of personal liberation, not necessarily in connection to the process of education. Anna Antczak talks about herself, her experience of not being willing to be locked in the walls of concepts which are really a whole life style. She is not a part to that life style, she is different, and she enjoys it. Her rebellious poem is full with strength and optimism in which she wants invite the reader to join her:4
Enterprise and machine knowledge, science and discipline Dictators, workers And walkers on the street... Procedures, technologies and structures To me they are like walls, so let us look down on them from above!
4
Polish original used rhymes.
11
Anna Antczak
The following author talks about the cosines of the past, when ambiguity was absent. It was peaceful, sleepy and safe. Out of these comfortable regions "they" made him enter the turbulence and uncertainty. "They" are most probably the teachers and other students. Who knows where it all leads?, it is painful and dangerous. But what Dariusz Jasi?ski sees is beautiful and his poem ends with strength, an "empty space" (Hopfl, forthcoming) which he powerfully and ostentatiously leaves unfilled.
From a peaceful depth of heavy waters they made us sail out on the stormy sea and they drag me, maybe into nets, towards the endless horizon Dariusz Jasi?ski
Personal vision: Metaphors
Other authors are not willing to give away their reactions and feelings explicitly. They produce ambiguity themselves, they create a space for the reader to feel and to reflect.
One of these poems is producing a feeling in me (the reader) of establishing relationships to others, and also between domains of life.
A young missionary stumbles over his complex before the harvester. Anonymous
12
The anonymous author of the next poem is presenting chaos producing an own chaos. The mess is meaningless, but cheerful - the author feels comfortable with it, much more than the reader is supposed to feel.
-DA bicycle - a screw - a heart - a note
- a rew - a hrew - a screwcycle
- kidney - screwcle - flyo - cheesy - pipote - ote - te - CLE
- a little screw - a little bicycle - a little heart - a male note - a verse - harnote
- barrel - a frame -+D
Agata Miotkowska
Here is another poem by a chaos producer. The author feels more confused with it than the former, but she also enjoys the confusion the text generates in the reader. The chaos of this poem is aggressive and ironic, also self-conscious. It witnesses a certain habit with the chaos, it is nothing new, although it is confusing, it is something the author may - with some self-conscious superiority - declare she is familiar with since quite long.
*
Pandemonium
** I
lack inspiration
LOOK FOR A MUSE - ENLIGHTENMENT!
On management as reflection (science)
The following poem was written after I have put down my meditations in the form of draft and shared them with the students. I then also presented my own poem to them (with which this paper ends). The
theme - reflection, science - was until then absent in the collected poems (I also expressed this absence in my own poem). This is also the only poem (apart from my own) written directly in English.
My reading
My reading of the poems is, inevitably, as idiosyncratic as the poems themselves. As I said before, I see this as a strength, not a weakness. I would like to emphasize, however, that the reader of this text of mine may read the poems differently. Reading my reading, she or he produces yet another text.
I have divided the poems into four (plus one) themes. As I said before, they are all more or less concerned with the situation: the deviant lecture the authors participate in, within the broader context of management education and the Polish economic transformation that they perceive 14
from within the situation. The themes: management practice, management education, personal liberation and own metaphors, are overlapping and present in almost all poems simultaneously. Though, I have divided the texts according to what I read as Leitmotifs.
Students concentrating on management practice wrtite about their future profession, how they see the current stereotype of the Polish manager. They do not feel like becoming that. They observe it critically and laugh. Laughter is rebellion, it empowers. It also opens the possibilities for own construction of reality.
Those concentrating on education are more numerous. This is, after all, the everyday reality for them. They problematize it, and through this they free themselves. Some feel good about the alternative ways of seeing management and organizations. But there is also bitterness and desillusion in their voices. Almost all of them adopt irony, which at times grows aggressive.
The authors writing about their personal experiences of liberation are the ones with a special need of authority. They take up the quest, they are courageous enough to feel good about their courage. I do not think that they laugh, rather - they smile, to themselves, but this self-centered smile is an invitation to others, a generous offer to join.
Some authors took up the dialogue with us, the teachers, wanting to redefine the relationship and the subject by their own initiative. They are most enterprising among the authors. Their laughter is flammable, they know that they will define their everyday reality with the same ease and individuality as they define management.
The last theme was absent in the first collection of poems. No-one then addressed directly management science, or management as a way of thinking. One author wrote and passed his poem to me after I have read my own poem to the students. He took up this missing theme, but did not fill the empty space. He talks about Utopia: the vain struggle for meaning, the quest for sense. The space should remain empty - disorder cannot be tamed. Through writing the poem the author authorizes this emptiness.
15
Irony was present in all texts. Irony is aggressive, it is strong, it brakes facades, crushes self-beautyfying mirrors of kitsch, shutters stereotypes and introduces the powerful individual voice. Irony is creative and generous, the proactive frame of mind.
The authors of the poems have thus defined reality critically, as something to be changed and reconstructed more on their own terms. The definitions are conceiving of empty spaces, inventing and delivering ambiguity into their context. They have power.
16
One more performative
As most authors, I cannot resist the temptation to formulate my own performative definition, after having collected, read and tried to understand the definitions of others. I have thus written an own poem, representing my reading of their texts - how I understand what they have been trying to say. My poem is then, not so much a performative definition of management as such - it is rather a performative definition of my private reading of the students' performative definitions.
17
Bibliography
Austin, John L. (1973/ 1993) "Jak dzia?a? s?owami" (How to do things with words) in: John L. Austin (collected works edited by Bogdan Chwede?czuk) Mówienie i poznawanie: Rozprawy i wyk?ady filozoficzne (Talking and learning: Discourses and philosophical lectures.) Warszawa: PWN, p. 545-708
Cohen, Claire (1995) The educational implications of "poetry" in management texts. paper presented at conference "Aesthetics of Organisation", Bolton
Czarniawska-Joerges Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara (1991) "Culture is the medium of life." in: P.J. Frost, L.F. Moore, M. Reis Lois, C.C. Lundberg i J. Martin (eds.) Reframing organizational culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, p. 285-297
Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara (1993)The three-dimensional organization: A constructionist view. Lund: Studentlitteratur
Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara (1995) "Narration or science? Collapsing the division in orgnization studies." Organization 2/1, p.11-23
Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara and Pierre Guillet de Monthoux (1994) Good novels, better management: Reading organizational realities. Harwood Academic Publishers
Guillet de Monthoux, Pierre (1993) Det sublimas konstnärliga ledning: Estetik, Konst och Företag. (The artistic management of the sublime: Esthetics, Art and Enterprise.) Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus
Hopfl, Heather (forthcoming) "Organizational rhetoric and the threat of ambivalence." Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 1(2)
Knorr Cetina, Karin (1994) "Primitive classification and postmodernity: Towards a sociological notion of fiction." Thory, culture and society. London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi: Sage Vol. 11, p. 1-22
18
Latour, Bruno (1986) "The powers of association". in: John Law (ed.) Power, action and belief. A new sociology of power? London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Linstead, Stephen (1994) "Objectivity, reflexivity, and fiction: Humanity, inhumanity, and the science of the social." Human Relations 47/11, p. 1321-1346
Sandelands, Lloyd E. and Georgette C. Buckner (1989) "Of art and work: Aesthetic experience and the psychology of work feelings." Research in Organizational Behavior 11, p. 105-131
Strati, Antonio (1992) "Aesthetic understanding of organizational life." The Acedemy of Management Review 17/3, p. 568-581
19
doc_538572003.docx
Study Reports on Collecting Poetical Definitions of Management: Personal per formatives:- Formative assessment or diagnostic testing is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures employed by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment.
Study Reports on Collecting Poetical Definitions of Management: Personal per formatives
Abstract
In this paper I present personal performative definitions of management that I collected from a group of students of the Warsaw University's School of Management. The definitions have the form of short poems. They are rooted in their everyday life and observations: taking part in management education in Poland, encountering alternative (non-mainstream) ways of looking at organization and management, and the transition to market economy.The poems are ironic and express the authors' need of creative reconstruction of reality.
1
Poetry and business administration
The idea to learn about management (and organizations) from literature and literary experience is not new. It has its roots in narrative science (see e.g. Czarniawska-Joerges, 1995), and especially the proposition to read fiction in order to learn better management (Czarniawska-Joerges and Guillet de Monthoux, 1994), and to write fiction with the purpose to understand more about organizational realities (Knorr Cetina, 1994).
The inspiration to explore the private and expressive of emotions, the sublime, derives from Pierre Guillet de Monthoux' fascinating book Det sublimas konstnärliga ledning: Estetik, Konst och Företag (1993). From that book I learned that management has a lot to do with the sublime, and the experience of beauty is highly relevant for widening and broadening of our notions of management. Aesthetics is becoming a current topic of interest for researchers of organization and management, and rightly so (see e.g. Sandelands and Buckner, 1989; Strati, 1992; Linstead, 1994)
Also the relationships between the poetical and organizational realities has been a subject of writings in our field. Claire Cohen (1995) speaks about sudden poetry in management textbooks, and emphasizes the positive influence it has on learning. Heather Hopfl (forthcoming) addresses the relationship between the poetic and the rhetoric, and the role of ambiguity in (organizational) life.
This paper is about poems defining management.
The Authors
The authors of the poems are all participants of a rather special lecture. It is an elective, authored by myself and Aleksander Chrostowski, the only non-functionalist lecture given at the School of Management of Warsaw University (as far as we know). The course covers 45 teaching hours and lasts one semester (spring 1995). It was intended for students of the fourth and fifth year, but as it started a very differentiated company formed, ranging from students of the first year to students about to have 2
their master's dissertation. Some started to attend and changed their mind. Others joined us later. A faithful group of about 20 students assembled after awhile.
The lecture covers briefly many non-mainstream fields and topics, such as constructivism, narrative science, organizational aesthetics, etc. Many of these topics were entirely new to the participants. Some of them heard about them for the first time ever. The lecture was partly traditional in the form, e.g. a lecture (monologue), and partly a conversation, in which all the participants joined, with their ideas and contributions. It was not only a discussion, but rather a joint construction of images and understandings. On one of these occasions, the students were asked to write poems about management. Some allowed us to collect their poems, while others did not.
The students are definitely not representative of "students of management", nor "students of the School of Management". I think they are quite un-representative - I see them as a rebellious group of very imaginative and creative people, not necessarily non-positivists (there are at least two self declared functionalists among them), but nevertheless very critical. Many of them are busy within some creative activities outside their studies: two are co-creators of the School's spontaneously formed students' monthly, some are active within an alternative theater, some write, etc. Most of them are intensive readers: of both scientific texts and various genres of literature.
The occasion when we asked our students to write poems was neither artificial nor planned as "data collection". It was a part of the learning process. After having collected the poems and read them, I decided that they say some really interesting things - about the authors, the context and management, in a way that is impossible to achieve in the case of most other types of definitions.
It would like to stress that the whole point with such definitions is the exceptional unobjectivity, lack of distance, their coming close to subjectivity. It is exactly what I see as interesting, a strong missing voice in our "data collections", even the intersubjectivist ones: that of private feelings. I do not think that it would be quite as interesting if the authors were asked to write their poems for the purpose of "data collection". The formality and distance such an occasion ordinarily means in terms of interpersonal relationships does away with much of the personal and subjective in people's voices. I do not claim it is necessarily so. My method of collection of definitions may be used in more planned and pre-arranged research. I would, however, like to discourage from a manipulative use of this method: the 3
case of the distanced, calculated researcher making people reveal their "inner feelings", but not giving them anything of the kind in return. Any "psychoanalytic" use of this method I would regard as a misuse. Reading people's mind I see as immoral. But I believe in reading people's poems, if there is a sharing relationship between them, and if there is confidence.
The poems in this paper are written as a more or less natural expression in a conversation between myself and the authors, published with their permission.
The poems
Performative definitions
Austin (1962/ 1993) distinguished a kind of statements that define the state of things. This statements he labeled "performatives": they not only communicate but also "perform". Latour (1986) has proposed, based on Austin's concept of performative, a distinction between two definitions of society: the ostensive and performative. Czarniawska-Joerges (1991, 1993) analogously differentiates between two ways of defining culture, and organization. According to her, the ostensive definition is based on the assumption that it is in principle possible to detect the qualities characteristic of the phenomenon. These characteristics "are there", but in practice they may be difficult to identify. The phenomenon should be approached "from the outside", by the objective researcher. The performative definition is based on an admission that the description characterizing the phenomenon is impossible, but in practice it might become possible. The actors themselves construct such definitions, in order to make action possible. They do this for themselves, as well as for others. While the researcher looking for ostensive definitions will be convinced that there are "objective methods" to employ in order to learn about the essence of the phenomenon, the researcher collecting performative definitions believes that the definitions of the 4
actors are neither "better" or "worse" that her or his own. Therefore the latter researcher treats the actors as legitimate authors of the definitions, and thus concentrates on local knowledge (CzarniawskaJoerges, 1991; 1993).
The knowledge of the actors is important, because it is the foundation of their actions. They are not absolute and can be many and varying. They are pragmatic and thus neither "false" nor "true", but instead they can be accurate, beautiful, important, etc.
Error! Bookmark not defined. Ostensive definitions - formulated from outside - "objective" - found in order to describe the "essence" of a phenonenon - the aim is to find the rules
Performative definitions - formulated from inside - "working" definitions - formulated in order to enable action - the aim is to explain practices - participants are authors
- participants as informants
Tab. 7. Ostensive and performative definitions. Based on Czarniawska-Joerges (1991; 1993)
I collected performatives, and special ones: personal, expressed in the form of poems.
The poems were originally written in Polish, except one. I have translated them into English, and the authors had the possibility to make corrections. Rhymes (where they were used)1 were translated into blank verse.
The poems the students have written express their personal definition of the subject, their own local knowledge. They explain practices, but also private ways of taking part in the experience of studying management in Poland during transition and intensive change, and of
1
Rhymes were originally used in 3 poems. 5
encountering a new way of thinking and feeling about organizations and management. These experiences together are in my reading the ground on which all the authors have built their definitions. The theme they concentrate on varies, however.
On management practice
Some of the authors addressed the contemporary management practice, and when they did it was a strongly ironical picture. One of them, YGA, tells the story of two pals who decided to start a business together, and how it came they had to hire and "expert".2
Once Zdzisiek said to Waldek - To make a little business would be nice we'll take some bucks out of the Polish Bank - They'll give us? - Sure! our brains are OK I'll be the boss and you'll be the vice our beautiful wives will do fine as secretaries - And what will we be doing? - And what goes now? - It doesn't wanna go? Goddammit! Have we forgotten something? lost something on the way? go get an expert do it fast let him fix our dear business fine so that it will no more run out of tune YGA
2
Polish original used rhymes.
6
Another author, Jarek D?browski, paints an equally ironic picture of the practice of management, although this poem is different to the first in that it introduces a cynical, self-conscious narrator, an observer in the text. The first poem is an ironical portrait painted by the author. In the next, the author lurks in the text, waiting to trap the reader. To the candid reader he reveals the news: management is chaos.
O wrath of the almighty come give the eye, agitate and then please let live long and well off the last is not What is first Profit is an intersubjective phenomenon I'll be bored to death if I don't shake this enterprise up What is important is to perceive, to be perceived perceiving, perceived, do not FORGET Chased, deprived I DO NOT WANT TO attempt at note about modesty Marketing is an art of mystification Craft or Artism?!? The most important is when THE CASH is OK the class of managers Away! you white mouse! "Specialists drink" (or rather, the trained do) Jarek D?browski
On management education
Another wide topic for reflection is management education. What are we being educated in? What is the meaning of this? The following poem addresses this problem with a frank irony: learning about management is like learning about pharmacology. The aim is to pick up recipes, which should be "effective". Recipe Take: 7
half a glass of sociology 2 glasses of psychology one half kilo of statistics a spoon of economics optionally dried fruit a pinch of fiction (imagination) Shake Keep in a cool, dry place a certain time... P.S. Should be effective Anonymous
Another author expresses his doubts about the meaning of traditional management education, the education aiming at "teaching the practices". The practices are something that cannot be taught - it is something a person "is":
Once upon a time there was a king he wanted to tell his son what it means to be king The son listened. about wars conquers taxes dreams. He fell asleep. Forgot about wars conquers taxes deals In his dream he did not have the time for this. He was king. P.K .
Irony is present in both the above poems: the "journalistic" recipe, the parabolic historical narrative. It is also strong (even though different) in a third poem, composed like a text of fantasy fiction. Here we are presented with a metaphorical narrative about the process of learning itself: how the author feels about it and about its meaning.
I. In the beginning, there was emptiness well, perhaps some crumbs of information then the space of earth, ready yet empty 8
II. The sowing men threw the seeds onto the soil Some fell where they should not the wrong time, the wrong place on soil that was inhospitable, infertile III. The seeds rested long on the soil Time could not touch them They lacked help, impulse? IV. When the right time came the act of will, carried with it the helping rain Some of the seeds developed fast, suddenly V. A majority remained there, waiting for their time The growing already developed branches Some were arrested in their growth VI. Thus emerged wastelands, some weeds Here there are meadows, some savannas, a few woods Maybe some day they will embrace the whole earth Maybe... Adrian Szumski This poem is quite optimistic. It ends on a hopeful note. A fourth poem, which I also read as defining the situation of taking part in management education, is a darker text. Irony is present here too, but as a force, springing from the text, stabbing the reader. The whole poem is in my opinion an attack, an aggression, not necessarily always directed at the reader, rather to some oppressive forces with which the author has to fight.
Management grows and entours. It slides through the brains and sticks the sensitive Approaching of the ear will not "increase the volume" of the buzz Intransparent does not make a whole ... Those who do not understand flee they can stumble but the meaningless aggression will demolish even the doubter ... Unused brains are like disgraced bodies. 9
Magda Kozlowska
Next author is aggressive too, and the aggression is partly directed toward the reader. The irony is bitter - there is probably no sense in the whole business of management education, what is "new" will be "outdated" soon enough. What happens is like processing that the students are subjected to, processing for its own sake, with little or no respect to the students. The non-mainstream lecture is no different in that - it is just another version of the processing.3
I'm sitting in a small room I see Ford, I see Sloan and so what, I think to myself I'll end up as a jerk anyway Obviously already Weber created something and Ko?minski remade it they won't come up with anything new those who are processing us here How do they process us? My dear they make us write, they make us read and what's more my pal we are supposed to write poems here Is management art? perhaps not, but it will be you have to study with eagerness all that won't be up to date Porter is the mentor of Ob?ój and Ob?ój is the mentor of Kostera and all those guys together are supposed to be sacred for you Without this, my dear your efforts will be vain it will not be your fate to become a good manager Anonymous
3
Polish original used rhymes.
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The next author experiences chaos, probably much because of the new ways of thinking about management he is learning about. The poem is energetic, serenely ironic - it ends with a tone I read as personal liberation. He discovers that things he believed in formerly, like motivation, can be seen as something entirely different and less benevolent. He shouts it all out, and he feels relieved. It feels good to be a rebel.
A MESS IN MY HEAD MOTIVATE MANIPULATE JUST DON'T BE SURPRISED THAT ALL THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MANAGEMENT Igor Bielobradek
On personal liberation
There are a few authors who speak explicitly about the feeling of personal liberation, not necessarily in connection to the process of education. Anna Antczak talks about herself, her experience of not being willing to be locked in the walls of concepts which are really a whole life style. She is not a part to that life style, she is different, and she enjoys it. Her rebellious poem is full with strength and optimism in which she wants invite the reader to join her:4
Enterprise and machine knowledge, science and discipline Dictators, workers And walkers on the street... Procedures, technologies and structures To me they are like walls, so let us look down on them from above!
4
Polish original used rhymes.
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Anna Antczak
The following author talks about the cosines of the past, when ambiguity was absent. It was peaceful, sleepy and safe. Out of these comfortable regions "they" made him enter the turbulence and uncertainty. "They" are most probably the teachers and other students. Who knows where it all leads?, it is painful and dangerous. But what Dariusz Jasi?ski sees is beautiful and his poem ends with strength, an "empty space" (Hopfl, forthcoming) which he powerfully and ostentatiously leaves unfilled.
From a peaceful depth of heavy waters they made us sail out on the stormy sea and they drag me, maybe into nets, towards the endless horizon Dariusz Jasi?ski
Personal vision: Metaphors
Other authors are not willing to give away their reactions and feelings explicitly. They produce ambiguity themselves, they create a space for the reader to feel and to reflect.
One of these poems is producing a feeling in me (the reader) of establishing relationships to others, and also between domains of life.
A young missionary stumbles over his complex before the harvester. Anonymous
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The anonymous author of the next poem is presenting chaos producing an own chaos. The mess is meaningless, but cheerful - the author feels comfortable with it, much more than the reader is supposed to feel.
-DA bicycle - a screw - a heart - a note
- a rew - a hrew - a screwcycle
- kidney - screwcle - flyo - cheesy - pipote - ote - te - CLE
- a little screw - a little bicycle - a little heart - a male note - a verse - harnote
- barrel - a frame -+D
Agata Miotkowska
Here is another poem by a chaos producer. The author feels more confused with it than the former, but she also enjoys the confusion the text generates in the reader. The chaos of this poem is aggressive and ironic, also self-conscious. It witnesses a certain habit with the chaos, it is nothing new, although it is confusing, it is something the author may - with some self-conscious superiority - declare she is familiar with since quite long.
*
Pandemonium
** I
lack inspiration
LOOK FOR A MUSE - ENLIGHTENMENT!
On management as reflection (science)
The following poem was written after I have put down my meditations in the form of draft and shared them with the students. I then also presented my own poem to them (with which this paper ends). The
theme - reflection, science - was until then absent in the collected poems (I also expressed this absence in my own poem). This is also the only poem (apart from my own) written directly in English.
My reading
My reading of the poems is, inevitably, as idiosyncratic as the poems themselves. As I said before, I see this as a strength, not a weakness. I would like to emphasize, however, that the reader of this text of mine may read the poems differently. Reading my reading, she or he produces yet another text.
I have divided the poems into four (plus one) themes. As I said before, they are all more or less concerned with the situation: the deviant lecture the authors participate in, within the broader context of management education and the Polish economic transformation that they perceive 14
from within the situation. The themes: management practice, management education, personal liberation and own metaphors, are overlapping and present in almost all poems simultaneously. Though, I have divided the texts according to what I read as Leitmotifs.
Students concentrating on management practice wrtite about their future profession, how they see the current stereotype of the Polish manager. They do not feel like becoming that. They observe it critically and laugh. Laughter is rebellion, it empowers. It also opens the possibilities for own construction of reality.
Those concentrating on education are more numerous. This is, after all, the everyday reality for them. They problematize it, and through this they free themselves. Some feel good about the alternative ways of seeing management and organizations. But there is also bitterness and desillusion in their voices. Almost all of them adopt irony, which at times grows aggressive.
The authors writing about their personal experiences of liberation are the ones with a special need of authority. They take up the quest, they are courageous enough to feel good about their courage. I do not think that they laugh, rather - they smile, to themselves, but this self-centered smile is an invitation to others, a generous offer to join.
Some authors took up the dialogue with us, the teachers, wanting to redefine the relationship and the subject by their own initiative. They are most enterprising among the authors. Their laughter is flammable, they know that they will define their everyday reality with the same ease and individuality as they define management.
The last theme was absent in the first collection of poems. No-one then addressed directly management science, or management as a way of thinking. One author wrote and passed his poem to me after I have read my own poem to the students. He took up this missing theme, but did not fill the empty space. He talks about Utopia: the vain struggle for meaning, the quest for sense. The space should remain empty - disorder cannot be tamed. Through writing the poem the author authorizes this emptiness.
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Irony was present in all texts. Irony is aggressive, it is strong, it brakes facades, crushes self-beautyfying mirrors of kitsch, shutters stereotypes and introduces the powerful individual voice. Irony is creative and generous, the proactive frame of mind.
The authors of the poems have thus defined reality critically, as something to be changed and reconstructed more on their own terms. The definitions are conceiving of empty spaces, inventing and delivering ambiguity into their context. They have power.
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One more performative
As most authors, I cannot resist the temptation to formulate my own performative definition, after having collected, read and tried to understand the definitions of others. I have thus written an own poem, representing my reading of their texts - how I understand what they have been trying to say. My poem is then, not so much a performative definition of management as such - it is rather a performative definition of my private reading of the students' performative definitions.
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