SUSTAINING MANAGERIAL DEVELOPMENT: THE

“RESEARCHING PRACTITIONER” IN ACTION LEARNING

SETTINGS

Gorli Mara1, Ripamonti Silvio, Galuppo Laura, Scaratti Giuseppe

mara.gorli@unicatt.it; silvio.ripamonti@unicatt.it; laura.galuppo@unicatt.it;

giuseppe.scaratti@unicatt.it

Università Cattolica di Milano, Milan, Italy

Abstract:

The paper discusses the challenge to sustain managerial development by moving from
the hypothesis that this should involve opportunities, for managers, to experience
reflexive processes and the creation of “communities of researching practitioners”.
An Action Learning process is presented, with a specific methodological choice. The
paper analyzes the proposal of research, narrative and ethnographic methods to sustain
managers to the incoming organizational challenges. It does so through an
organizational case, entering the details of the phases and the use of tools proposed.
More specifically, the use of an ethno-narrative tool is discussed, as well as its
effectiveness for managerial development.

Key words:

action learning; ethnonarrative; writing

INTRODUCTION

In the organizational contexts, the turning point is nowadays represented by the

challenge to develop professional identity as linked to innovation and change. The key-
level that is mostly challenged is the managerial one. Managers in effect are more than
ever pulled by the new organization requirements (speed, knowledge, innovation, cost
reduction, high reliability) and they are requested to invest on a challenged
professionality (sustainability of their role and responsibilities, expectation, learning,
growth, career…). According to a “learning perspective” on management (Easterby
smith, Thorpe and Jackson, 2008), managers are more and more asked to create learning
organizations (Senge, 1990; Easterby Smith, 1997), facilitate knowledge creation
(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Increasingly this perspective seems to be combined with
other views, such as the focus on change leading to dynamic capabilities (Winter,
2003).
Organizations nowadays require managers to take positions in an often chaotic flow of
events and actions. Managers are requested to identify and construct their problems
(problem setting) through an accurate analysis of complex organizational processes and
practices. They are also challenged to act urgently and to influence (not only to lead)

1
Mara Gorli, mara.gorli@unicatt.it; Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milan, Italy. Phone: +39 02 72343974

1
those processes and practices, by handling and mediating among different and
sometimes conflicting cultures and interests.
Moreover, organizations less than before require people to develop individual courses of
action. The new challenge is instead to act collectively, to create networks where every
stakeholder may have a role and an appreciation.
These aspects require not only the exercise of reflexive competences, but also
competences in developing authorship and networking that are more than ever crucial.

Moving from these premises, our hypothesis is that sustaining managerial development
means creating opportunities where managers can be involved in reflexive processes
and can also build and experience “communities practitioners”. These communities,
constituted by colleagues, would help them search around the working practices and
their cultural foundations, and permit an exchange of events‟ interpretations and
practical solutions (problem setting and problem solving). We can therefore call them
“communities of researching practitioners”.
This is the idea that guided the authors of this paper, who are going to present a
theoretical and also practical reflection stemming from a specific organizational
intervention in which they have been involved as researcher-consultants2.
The paper discusses the challenge to sustain managerial development through specific
methodological attentions. Within the framework of an Action Learning process,
traditionally centered on reflection and change, the paper reports and analyzes the
proposal of research setting and tools, coming from narrative and ethnographic
traditions, to sustain managers to the incoming organizational challenges.

NEW NEEDS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR MANAGING

COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONS

Organizational complexity and the changing market, constantly challenge managers

because of their responsibility in mediating between the macro and micro levels of the
organization, between the outside and the inside, and between the strategic issues and
the everyday practices. Therefore, managers are nowadays more and more required to
face such a complexity through a process of continuous professional development, that
challenges their daily practices as well as the organizational cultures.
We recognize that working practices, just like the organizational processes, are
symbolic and cultural results of continuous social exchanges and interactions that take
place in work settings, and that are in turn strongly influenced by local cultures.
Organizations, in this perspective, are seen as processes of continuous building and re-
building of cultures through narrative and discursive practices (Clifford-Marcus, 1986;
Schein, 1993). It is now recognized that cultures are situated, locally built, multiple and
contradictory and that they are not whole, coherent systems (Martin, 1992;
Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992).
Professional development, working practices and culture are thus strongly
interconnected concepts. Professional development is not to be intended as a process
which involves single individuals as separate “entities” from their organizational
context, nor do we think that organizational learning is a global process superimposed

2
We do not intend entering the debate about the differences between being “academic researchers” or
being “academic consultants”. Although we are aware that there is a strong debate in literature, for the
purposes of this paper we will here refer to our role in the organizational case by using the short term
“consultants”.

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on people‟s everyday experience. Rather, professional development has to do with the
relationship between the subject and his or her organizational context. Such a
relationship is chiefly of a symbolic and cultural kind and it is displayed through people
daily working practices.
People orient their professional practices in communication with the local (and often
fragmented) cultural systems, which they contribute to create and re-create over the
time.

As organizations are relatively unstable and organizational boundaries appear indefinite

and porous, the seek to define managers professional practices has acquired heightened
significance and complexity. The frequent organizational restructurings, that can occur
in many forms, produce different organizational discourses and competing stories that
sometimes fail to sustain coherent repertoires of practices and effective actions (Down
and Reveley, 2009).
According to these premises, we reckon that sustaining managers‟ professional
development means exploring and intervening on these complex discursive processes of
constructing and reconstructing cultural and symbolic systems that orient and shape, as
“theories-in-use” (Schön, 1983), their professional practices within the organizational
contexts. In other words, promoting managers‟ professional development in our
perspective means helping them better understand and try to modify their relationship
with the organizational context, particularly through working on the symbolic and
cultural domains that shape their working practices.
These premises induce to think that the process of managers‟ professional development
may be chiefly a reflexive process. The concept of reflexivity refers mostly to the post-
modernist perspective (Cunliffe, Easterby-Smith, 2004), and it indicates that knowledge
is built inter-subjectively and discursively and in such a way that subject and object
contribute to define one another. Reflexivity can be therefore defined as a “socially,
situated, political, collective process” of being aware of the self-in-action (Reynolds and
Vince, 2004, p. 6). Other authors (Bolan and Chamberlain, 2003) point out that
reflexivity “involves recognizing the situatedness of knowledge and practice” (p. 216).
Within the organizational and professional field, reflexivity thus becomes a way of co-
researching on the cultural assumptions underlying one‟s other professional actions and
experiences.
We recognize the relevance of the recent literature contributions on reflexivity in
organizations. Through the reflexive capacity people may involve, understand, give
meaning to what happen in their workplaces, and they can reflect on their strategies and
embedded knowledge in the work daily practices. Nevertheless, if the reflexive capacity
cannot be an optional feature anymore, because it assumes the value of a minimum
requirement for the majority of the strategic organizational positions (necessary for
being manager today), it is not alone sufficient to sustain the managerial level for the
incoming problems and organizational complexities. Nowadays organizations have to
cope with global economical interests, waves of crisis and recession, political decision
often not clear but always pushed by pressing needs “to do something” or “to go in any
direction” even if not agreed. In this scenario, the challenge is not only to understand, to
share and to become aware of our context and of its intrinsic logic: the challenge is to
agree on strategies and to proactively and cooperatively influence the organizational
processes..
Recent publications present the required skills for sustaining organizations in the future.
Weick and Sutcliffe, for instance, suggests the concepts of “mindfulness” and
“resilience” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007).We believe that the key-levers for the
“tomorrow manager” are necessarily a reflexive capacity, but also the competence to
build and to sustain networks (communities of practitioners) and the possibility to act
3
and influence collectively on problems. Specifically, we think that sustaining
managerial development should nowadays regard the possibility to:
help them identify and define their criticalities and problems
help them research on their contexts (knowledge development) and on their local in-use
cultures (the implicit premises that individually but also culturally determine the
managerial practices)
help them develop hypothesis on how to cope with problems and how to deal with
criticalities of the organizational life
help them influence their contexts (by modifying their practices and the diffuse cultures
around them).

We assume that these aspects should not be conceived as individual expression of

competences or managerial practices. Rather, they are processes that can be put in
action only within collective contexts that permit an exchange and agreement on
interpretations, knowledge, strategies and hypothesis about change and new actions.
Organizations are socially built, and only socially can they be dynamically de-construct
and re-construct according to the perceived needs. The community is a precious place
where to find sustainment for the incoming challenges and for their interpretation and
understanding. For this reason, a competitive pillar for organization is the construction
and the maintenance of informal and situated networks for practitioners.

ACTION LEARNING AND BEYOND: THE ETHNO-NARRATIVE PROPOSAL

Traditionally, in order to sustain managerial development, many intervention strategies

and settings have been tested and discussed. Action Learning represents in our view a
particularly fruitful and useful tradition (Pedler, 1997). It in fact represents one of the
most well-known and common used form of managerial development interventions.
Aims of this approach is to sustain managerial development through a group process
whereby participants develop reflection on their professional conducts and experiences
in order to improve their effectiveness (Revans, 1983). Action Learning uses the small
group setting both to enable each person to review the professional situations they have
experienced, and to develop group reflexivity and learning.
Action Learning stems from the idea of “learning from what we do by reflecting on it
and talking about it”, and develops a way for sustaining managerial learning (Revans,
1983).
A crucial ingredient of Action Learning is the “set”: the group of people engaged in
learning from their actions. A fundamental assumption underlying Action Learning is
that people are most likely to experience significant learning when working on issues of
real evidence to their life: the reflexive community creates learning by sharing materials
around events and problems that require actions on which it is necessary to take a
position.
This is why common tools for working within an Action Learning perspectives are
usually individual-centered and linked to the applicability in work situations that have
been previously understood through the support of a group (the Action Learning set).
Tools like case-study, business games, action plans, supervision groups, shadowing,
facilitation sessions, plenary conferences (Boshyk, 2002; Nicolini et al. 2004), are
frequently used for triggering action and learning, the two key terms of the approach.
Nevertheless, we observe that in the actual organizations it is rarely possible to define
just “one problem” and to assume its challenges in a clear and neat manner. Most of the
time people have different representations around problems, and problems are
interconnected in a complex hank. Local culture also influences the perception of what
4
is the problem and for whom it is. Finally, managers need not only to give meaning to
the problems they encounter, but also to imagine and test new work practices for
actively influencing their realities.
This is why we claim that the traditional tools that we mentioned in Action Learning are
not always enough. We reckon that there is more than ever the need to provide methods
that may help managers analyze their professional practices by detecting their cultural
and inter-subjective dimensions at play. It can be useful to experience working methods
that sustain cycles of action, reflection and new interpretations by inviting participants
to mutual research and experimentation on the field.
We feel promising tools, used in addition to the traditional ones, may complement
Action Learning processes. In particular, in this paper we consider the use of narrative
and ethnographical research methods. Although they seem not well explored in Action
Learning tradition, we think that both the ethnographical and the narrative research
methods, for their focus on the cultural and symbolic dimensions of the organizational
processes and of people working practices, could provide promising lens to look at -and
tools to promote- Action Learning paths towards professional and managerial
development. If the ethnographic approach in effect traditionally focuses on the
exploration of the cultural dimension, the narrative approach is centered on the texts,
that are (inter)subjective and discursive productions, which shape the local cultures
where they are in turn embedded and re-generated.
Our hypothesis is therefore that the combination of these two aspects, used within an
Action Learning process, would be particularly powerful to sustain managers in being
researching practitioners (learners) and authors (people able to influence) in their
organizations.

Ethno-narratives writing in Action Learning settings

Hansen, in 2006, defined the “Ethnonarrative approach” as a combination of

ethnographic methods in narrative research, with the aim to catch the sensemaking
processes -built and made visible in people‟s narrations about their working contexts-
and the tacit knowledge not immediately visible because captured only through
ethnographic observation.
Let‟s firstly explore the meaning of the two components of the term ethno-narrative.
Bruner (1990) argues that creating stories is a human and natural response for making
sense and comprehending the events in our lives. If the narrative creates meaning,
constructing narratives is then a primary means of organizing. We agree with Hansen
when he writes: “we make sense of our lives by creating narratives that explain our
experiences. In doing so, we are constructing subjective realities about what happened,
what is, and what will be. Narratives provide meaning by describing and creating the
relationship between ideas which we act on. A narrative plot connects a series of actions
and provides the rationale and expectations regarding those actions. Narrative theory
stresses the role language plays in these processes, focusing on how people use
discourse to build understandings and representations, make sense of their work lives,
and to organize, interpret and influence each others‟ actions.” (Hansen p. 1049-50)
What narrative research cannot easily reveal, i.e. the cultural and tacit knowledges, can
be obtained through other methods, which traditionally went into the ethnographic
tradition. “Context is material too, and the non-discursive makes meaning. Words are
only half the story.” (Hansen 2006, p. 1072)
The need to combine the narrative tradition with the ethnographic one derives by the
fact that meaning making must be embedded in a context (historical, social) for being
understood. Ethnonarrative relies on ethnographic methods to get at phenomena that is
outside of the organizational discourse, but is material (in both senses of the word) in
5
meaning making. (Hansen p. 1055). With this approach, it is possible to gain an
appreciation of how context is used as material that goes into meaning making, but also
show empirically how texts get their various meanings from the contexts in which they
operate.
The heuristic power of this approach is therefore evident, as its potentiality in allowing
richer understanding to organizational life.
We assume the challenge to adopt an ethnonarrative approach in an Action Learning
setting because we believe it can be potentially fruitful for exploring and working on the
cultural processes that produce and reproduce people professional practices..
Nevertheless, we suggest a different way to promote the synergy between the
“narrative” and the “ethno” dimension. In particular, we propose and discuss the use of
a tool that combines the two attentions: we name it the ethno-narrative writing. This
tool represents for us the possibility to help practitioners explore and reflect on the
culturally-made relationship between their practices and their context. We furthermore
believe that the focus on people working practices can facilitate the passage from
exploration and new understanding, to action. Before we present in details the specific
case where our proposal was tested, it is important to mention the relevance of the
writing exercise. One of the most important tools in accompanying people into an
inquiry process, among other ways to create knowledge and data, is writing. “Writing is,
and becomes, a form of knowing and discovery, a method of (auto) ethnographic
inquiry – of personal–cultural-writing – that enables the inquirer to learn more about the
„self‟ and more about the research topic. In this way, „„writing is thinking, writing is
analysis, [and] writing is indeed a seductive and tangled method of discovery‟‟
(Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 967). We use writing to dismantle our conceptual
frameworks and to build new knowledge from what we find. The most relevant function
that writing permits is the possibility to produce and to communicate data on which
people can return for analysis, discussion, interpretation. In this meaning we use writing
to research, to share and to learn individually and collectively.

In the next part of the paper a case study is presented for the purpose to show the
potential of Action Learning combined with the ethno-narrative approach in managerial
development.

SUSTAINING MANAGERIAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CONTEXT OF THE

INTERVENTION

The Action Learning intervention we present took place in a large organization in

Northern Italy that manages networks of services and centers for child education in
nursery schools, providing training, consultancy, support and innovation strategies.
The organization is a Federation that counts 160 schools distributed in different regional
areas and managed by the central service. At the beginning of the intervention, each
territorial area was coordinated by one pedagogical manager and one administrative
manager. These two functions represented two cultural anchors: the pedagogical one,
for which managing meant planning and supporting the educational activities, and the
administrative one, in which managing meant providing financial and administrative
consultancy and assistance in running the service.
Despite this structure had functioned for many years effectively, when the Federation
became more complex and large, several limitations were recognized: a fragmented or
chaotic communication between the administrative and pedagogical areas, too much
bureaucratic relationships and lack of flexibility in setting and solving the critical
situations.
6
The aim of the requested intervention was therefore to promote cultural change towards
more integrated and shared management practices. It was decided to develop and
support a new function: an unique manager as substitute of the two that were typical of
the “old” organization. Such a new unique manager was called “Unique Coordinator”
(UC).
At an organizational level, the mandate was to shift from a professional and
organizational culture made of divisional logic and procedures towards a greater
integration of work oriented towards a new professional approach and new ways of
organizing. The aim was to transform the organizational culture progressively from
bureaucratic stances to more responsible ones, from standardized duties to differentiated
tasks and goals according to the specific local contexts (schools, social environment and
organizational networks) and from individualistic work to integrated and shared
processes. The change, therefore, would touch on the management of delicate balances,
power dynamics, internal conflicts caused by the ignorance of the point of view of one
side of the managerial function or another.
The intervention was aimed at testing the new managerial function by sustaining a pilot
group of managers (7 managers selected out of 30) in restructuring and integrating their
knowledge and practices according to the new organizational mandate. The idea was
that, as new “unique coordinators”, they would have the two pedagogical and
administrative perspectives in mind, with less overlap and better proximity to the
stakeholders and direct clients of the service. This was to be a new profession with
consequences in terms of not only new actions and practices to be implemented but also
new responsibilities at a structural and organizational level.. The intervention went into
the direction of helping the managers construct a more integrated cultural frame suitable
for orienting their action within the changing organization. The Action Learning process
was set up to provide the pilot group with the possibility to recognize the value and the
richness of the practices they were experimenting within the new mandate, and share the
knowledge and the know-how arising from their experience (Gherardi, 2006; Gherardi,
2008; Zucchermaglio, Alby, 2006). If the general vision was clear to the board of the
organization, the final shape of the new role was still indefinite. Moreover, it must be
considered that every UC had its own specific territory to manage (a territory made up
of at least 5-10 schools to coordinate, different context requirements, a population of
different families with diverse needs, and historical relationship with the local services),
with its specific and local cultures and practical repertoires. Both practitioners and the
board thus had to deal with a high level of uncertainty. Exploring, researching and
discovering the new directions seemed the most fruitful attitudes to assume.
The paper now shows how the new professional challenge was faced by the managers
involved, and specifically how the introduction of the ethno-narrative writing in Action
Learning contributed to speed up the learning directed to the acquisition of new
practices and competences, as networking and building communities of practitioners,
and to the possibility to actively play for the benefit of those communities and the rest
of the organization (becoming organizational authors).

THE ACTION LEARNING PATH

We are now going to present the different phases that constituted our process proposal,
exploring in detail the methodological choices and their impact on the learning process
For each of the three main phases, the paper reports on:

Which hypothesis and aims have guided the consultants along the process?
What setting has been proposed?
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What kind of methods and specific tools have been introduced?
What have been the participants‟ reactions?
What have been the obtained results?
What can the consultants comment on that specific work phase?

1) Initial phase (the first three meetings): “The fatigue of reflexively re-discovering
our managerial mandate”

The hypothesis and aims that guided the consultants

The hypothesis that guided the Action Learning proposal came after an agreement with
the Federation‟s board. The conviction was that it was necessary to activate a reflexive
pathway for the
pilot group of 7 managers, the new Unique Coordinators (UC). For the process to begin,
an initial request for the managers was to recall some situations and critical incidents
happened in real work life that they could share with colleagues.

The proposed setting

Ten monthly meetings were organized and articulated in different work sessions, each
of it would collect stories and episodes for activating practitioners‟ sharing and mutual
understanding, before passing on to actions (change). Following one of the principle of
Action Learning, reflection would provoke ideas for changing, and every participants
would be invited to put in action the agreed direction of change inspired by the group.
Role of the external consultants, in this process, was to facilitate the critical reflection
among people and to nurture feedback and suggestions on the situations/incidents
reported. In this way, the inquiry process activated by participants would favor the on-
the-field exploration of critical knots of the new UC function and the emersion of new
actions and new management practices.

The methods and specific tools introduced

In this firth phase, round table free discussion among participants and the deepening of
everybody‟s specific work situation was the method used.

The participants’ reactions

Although the possibility to share problems was perceived important by the managers,
the first meetings were difficult because UCs found them hard to use. It was not clear to
them what kind of material was more proper for such meetings, and how to elaborate on
it effectively. The UCs had a constant flow of experience to report in that educational
development initiative, and they did not know how to depict it or make it accessible to
others. On-the-field experiences were reported in a confuse manner: it was not possible
to stop the thinking on some of the most relevant junctions. Discussing problems
seemed a too delicate process for jeopardizing it with confusion of tongues and
references. Managers were irritated by this added fatigue.

“I cannot see how we can work together. Each of us has its own
specific context to work in. We do not share much of it: we have
specific daily problems related to the local cultures in which we have
traditionally operated. Everyone has to survive in his context, with his
8
 referring partners, with his routines. Are we sure that sharing our
problems would be of any help?”

The obtained results

The themes raised in the three meetings concerned representations on the managerial
mandate, tasks perceived as strategic in the new role, role change and its impact on
schools and local partnership. These topics regard people‟s involvement and
representation of the mandate, the influence of one‟s own history and cultural
background, the networks activated along the professional life, personal needs and
values in place.
The outcomes of the first three meetings therefore consisted in the “opening of the
boiling pot”: lots of confused situations emerged, where the former and the new
functions fought in absence of any recipe or top down direction. Participants profited by
sharing experiences but were not able to offer or receive applicable feedback to/from
colleagues, because of the complexities of the situations brought.

The consultants comments on this specific work phase

From the beginning, the consultants understood that they had underestimated the
different contexts and cultural aspects raised by the events reported. In the Federation
there were territorial distances and cultural specificities that made the local educative
services very different. Traditions, routines, local practices modify the way the local
communities interpret the service and its management. UCs were challenged to be
sensitive knower of the context and of the different relations instituted among the
Federation and its schools.
UCs can in fact be consider local knowledge managers. Necessarily, the ways to
interpret their mandate are different, reflecting the territorial differences in place. If this
is a positive trait for a complex organization, it also requires to balance potential
conflicting or not coherent interpretations. The challenge in such a context was to value
the local practices as well as to allow not too fragmented positions and responses.

2) The intermediate phase (from the fourth to the seventh meeting): The
“research” turn. Searching practices through ethno-narrative writings.

The hypothesis and aims that guided the consultants

The first proposal created a too highly de-structured and free setting. Because the new
mandate strongly challenged the UCs and caused intense emotional responses, setting
where everyone was free to bring any thoughts and fears might not be functional for
mediating between thinking and action.
Consultants decided to change method: the complexity should have been put inside a
frame for focusing attention and producing data analyzable by managers in their
multifold aspects.

The proposed setting. The methods and specific tools introduced

The setting remained similar to the first three meetings and aligned to the Action
Learning principles, i.e. the 7 managers of the pilot group met once a month in Action
Learning set and, when alone at their workplace in the time from one meeting to the
9
following, they tried to put in action what they gained thanks to the colleagues‟
contributions. What did change were the tools to support their reflection and inquiry
attitude around the role‟s challenges.
Two new tools were introduced, named the ethno-narrative writing and the heuristic
map.

The ethno-narrative writing was aimed to orient the practitioners attention towards the
daily work practices. As said before in the paper, the ethnographic method allows to
detect data that have been observed, traced, sustained by researcher‟s documents and
notes. Writing is instead a method for capturing personal data on which it is possible to
orient reflexive thinking.
The turning point in the process was represented by the introduction of these two
qualities combined. In table 1. the tool is described in its part.

Table 1. The Ethno-narrative writing

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Table 1 - The ethno- narrative writing

For exercising on ethno- narrative writing, we created a frame composed by four columns that
requested different attentions by the managers.

In the first column, the “Critical events column” the participants are invited to describe in
details a situation or an event (related to the new role) that requested all their energies and
thinking.
Writing the first column should consider “fresh events”, recently happened and narrated as
freely as possible without any brain mediation. Participants should write down the details of
what happened and the specific aspects or condition of the context. It is important that the event
is also described in terms of the place where it happened, the actors involved, the organizational
feature at that time and the contextual characteristics that will be later useful to explain what
happened and why.

The second column is the “On the spot column”/ “Immediate column”. In this column
participants can express their emotional state influenced by the situation. What were the feelings
activated by the event? What was the personal reaction upon the critical event?

The third column, on the contrary, asks participants to express a sort of cold-press. The “Cold-
press column” / “Ex post column” is the place where participants may report their
interpretation and thoughts after a certain time from the event. This exercise aims to develop
reflexive thinking based on the knowledge possessed and revised as related to the event.

The fourth column is the “Group comments column”, a specific space where participants
registered comments, feedback, interpretation and considerations emerged from the Action
Learning group meetings. The fourth column has been compiled only after the discussion of the
critical event with colleagues.

Here is an example of the ethno-narrative writing exercise proposed to the UCs:

Critical events On the spot/ Immediate Cold-press/ Ex post Group comments

During the third meeting, consultants invited participants to consider the above ethno-
narrative writing proposal, and suggested to compile one writing every week per one
month. From the third to the fourth meeting the seven UCs produced four ethno-
narrative writings per person. Before the following (fourth) meeting they were asked to
select the most significant writing out of four, to send it to the other colleagues and
consultant and to present its content during the Action Learning meeting. Reading the
others‟ writings permitted to open an individual space of reflection before joining the
group. Presenting and discussing the contents in front of the colleagues, instead,
permitted to open up a group space for reflection.

The heuristic map is an artifact that consultants proposed at the fourth and following
Action Learning meetings. Due to the managers‟ confusion in the first phase of the
process, the idea was to orient the reading of the rich and complex incoming data.
Referred situations and critical events, keywords utilized, questions and crucial themes
11
reported by participants were positioned on a map which was named heuristic for its
potential in developing new connections and interpretations. (see table 2)

Table 2 Example of the Heuristic Map

with the family

with the with the

teacher employees

Area of enhacement local

local services practice
management
relations

Management CU Teaching
school
restructuring area challenges area training

Center
periphery
payroll innovation
relations

Institutional client
communications communications

Local
community to
Federations

This represented a new work phase that accompanied the rest of the process (from the
fourth meeting to the seventh). From a methodological point of view, every group
meeting focused on 4 ethno-narrative writings and permitted their analysis. The new
phase entailed a more active role of consultants in feeding back the collected data and
the calling of participants‟ engagement towards those data for further analysis.

The participants’ reactions

The map had a relevant function in the process. It put in words recurrent problems and
issues that characterized the work practices. It made visible that the complexity and
apparent diversity of those problems were actually experienced in the same way by
other colleagues –although with a few different contextual elements. It made also
visible, on the contrary, that similar situations were managed differently by colleagues,
thus suggesting new coping strategies.
Map caused intense emotional responses by the managers, because it was seen as a
synthesis of the challenges they have had to cope with.

“The possibility to work on ethno-narrative writings helped us better

know our work. Ex post comments are opportunities to take a distance
12
 from the emotional reactions experienced and help in the analysis.
And the Map…it simply says to me that there is somebody who
recognizes the mess I am experiencing!”

“Since we have been concentrating on writings, our group is

improving its capacity to get in depth to the situations described. We
have a great lot of data, and we ca play with analysis and reading”

The obtained results

Reading the ethno-narrative writings, discussing the heuristic maps, building new social
discourses derived by sharing the findings, caused a major implication and clearness of
topics. The author of the writing could thus receive feedback from colleagues in the
group and from consultants. At the same time every author pulled colleagues to
implication on his/her own context characteristics and specific problems.
Round table discussion favored the exchange among participants in terms of
similarities, subjectivities and cultural differences in role representation and in the
perceived challenges, strategies to cope with local critical events. It was a way to make
local knowledges emerge, and to canalize them into a new feeling of being a community
in research within the same organizational work-frame and vision.
For better representing the general obtained results for this phase of the process, we
attach an ethno-narrative writing filled in by participants after individual reading and
group discussion.

Critical events On the spot/ Cold-press/ Ex post Group comments

Immediate
Monday morning. I go I am too frustrated by What could I have done It may be necessary
to the school as every the fact that every time differently? I know that we think of our
Monday. There is one there is something there are some role as the one of an
thing that I am still which is not under my information that do not entrepreneur.
preoccupied of, form control and I have to be circulate very well. Entrepreneur cannot
last week. responsible of the Maybe it is a matter of wait for clients to
This year one class risks consequences in front of making possible the come, he/she has to go
to not be activated other people. communication to them and attract
because there is channel…Those them all.
insufficient number of Pupils enrollment is not families, that did not It is his/her
pupils. The secretary is my duty! Why do I have enroll their children, did responsibility. Nobody
waiting for reactions. to pay the they have the right should be blame apart
The President…well, it consequences?! information about time, from him/her.
is better I don‟t even requirements, The image of the
mention how alternatives? school is what we
disappointed he was. If I was a family of should be concerned
The secretary tells me those, I would complain about mostly. This will
that 149 pupils enrolled. about the scarce level of attract families, that are
7 are still missing, and circulating documents… the direct clients of our
they will make a Well, but the secretary service.
difference in terms of should have done
personnel employed and something. Or myself? In group the discussion
class start up. suggests some
I analyze with her the Does this new UC role alternatives of action:
list of children names mean that we have to be And if it was you to go
that so far have not more proactive? What to the families,
presented their does it mean in this knocking at their door
enrollment form. specific situation? and providing
We stop looking at that information about the

13
list when we see there is enrollment of their
nothing we can do. I call pupils?
the President (with A door to door
anger!). function, for
example….
And if it was you to
post up some other
necessary information
at the school door? Or
in the local newspaper?
Phoning the families!
That could also be an
alternative.

In this example it is quite evident that the first column is radically different from the
positions emerged in the fourth. A progressive level of action is conceived thanks to the
exchange with colleagues. Being able to invent alternative ways in being manager does
not happen naturally or spontaneously by reflecting on problems. Making these
alternatives “good practices” to be implemented, and pushing them into the Federation‟s
code of action or philosophy, is a precious process that can emerge only when
individuals have a community of reference behind them as support and as steering
committee for the most fundamental things to sponsor.

The consultants comments on this specific work phase

Given the overall good appreciation of the use of ethno-narrative writings, the
consultants decided to propose their utilization for the entire central phase of the
process. Starting with the fifth meeting, every month the UCs were asked to compile
one writing for continue discussing. The emerging issues served to define the cultural
anchorage of the Federation, and to include them into progressive definition of the new
repertoire of managerial practices.

3) The third and final phase: Recognizing and managing critical challenges. New
practices for new managers.

The hypothesis and aims that guided the consultants

Consultants staff recognized that UCs were ready to a step forward in their elaboration.
Once they became strong enough to cope with their new practices and challenges,
thanks to the support of colleagues in Action Learning, they were ready to define the
centrality of the new mandate for the Federation‟s purposes and reorganization. The
organizational challenge was to use the support to the pilot group of first 7 new UCs, for
a cascading effect to the rest of the coordinators. For obtaining this, the seven managers
had to explicit in which direction their practices were in line with the Federation‟s
service philosophy and values, and what were their efficiency and effectiveness.
If in the first and second phase the aim was to provide support to individuals‟ situations
or perceived problems, in the third one the process should have aimed to the overall
managerial functions needed by the organization.

The proposed setting

14
The former setting was maintained, but the effort was to lead managers to new
considerations in terms of authors and organizers of the Federation‟s future. Discussion
raised with the help of the research tools, was canalized in a new map that was
progressively built and confirmed in the last two meetings.

The methods and specific tools introduced

The new map was named “Mandate dimensions Map”. Aim of it was to highlight the
critical areas of the service that the Federation had to provide, and the characteristics of
the former coordinator mandate compared to the new ones.

Table 2 - Mandate dimensions Map

Critical area Characteristic of the Characteristic of the new

former mandate mandate

Mandate interpretation Fulfilment and obedience Interpretation

to the Federation‟s Proactive behaviour
command
Management functions Top-down transmission of Management of exchange
the Federation‟s orders to processes between the
territorial schools Federation and the
schools.
Logic of control and Best practices must
technical supervision for circulate for becoming
the schools (coordinator everybody‟s property.
seen as content expert)
Logic of information,
circulation and support for
learning and for process
consultancy.

Sources of authority Formal legitimation by the Negotiated and shared

Federation legitimation, constructed
with local stakeholders
and colleagues.

The participants’ reactions

Participants reacted to the new group functioning and to the new product (the Mandate
dimensions Map) with enthusiasm. The Action Learning group became the collective
subject able to evaluate, integrate or change the managerial practices highlighted in the
writings.
Organizational change was interpreted as well as managerial change.
15
The obtained results

Group was used not only for sharing ideas and solutions, but also for validating and
proposing new repertoires of practices to be implemented in the new managerial
function. Main first result was the possibility to act as authors of the new mandate.
Second result was that this was possible only because a network of colleagues (a
community in research) had been activated and trusted.

The consultants comments on this specific work phase

The third phase ended up with an evaluation of the overall process, and with new ideas
to be exported in the Federation. The seven UCs had the duty to inform the organization
and the rest of their colleagues about the managerial development investment and its
effects. Cascading effect had to be built in the future, with the support of the Federation.
The group also suggested a few ways to continue their learning in the distance and
along the time. These are the challenges that the Federation is still investing on
nowadays.

In Table 3 we summarize the key-elements and phases of the process as it happened.

16
 Introduc tion of New maps for
the ethno- new manag erial
narrative writing mandate

Initial phase T he intermediate phase T he final phase

T he fatigue of reflexively re- T he research turn. S earching practices R ecognizing and managing
discovering our managerial through ethno-narrative writings. critical challenges. New
mandate practices for new managers
1° 2° 3° 4° 5° 6° 7° 8° 9° 10°
meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting
Hypotheses Activating a reflexive pathways B ecause the new role strongly challenged the Introducing change in managerial
and aims allows the group to investigate how UC s and caused intense emotional responses, a practices, according to the new
each manager is facing the new non-structured setting may not be functional. A mandata
mandate and building new change of method is required
managerial practices

S etting Action learning Introduction of both group and individual spaces New leadership functions
for analysing the managerial practices
through more structured research tools

Methods and Analysis of managerial practices E thno-narrative writings “R ole dimensions map”
tools through a free discussion
Heuristic map

P articipants ’ L ow commitment More commitment in exploring each other’s E nthusiasm in trying to modify the
reactions writings managerial practices

R esults “O pening of the boiling pot” Deep exchange of experiences and Validating and implementing new
interpretations repertoires

C omments T he emerging etherogeneity F or the vauable results obtained, the use of the P lanning “cascading” pathways
requires to balance conflicting ethno-narrative writing is maintained along the
interpretations, in order to identify a whole Action L earning process
common repertoire of practices

Table 3. The process, its key-elements and phases

DISCUSSION

The Action Learning was set up to help managers face the challenges of a new mandate,
that required to integrate pedagogical and administrative functions within their
organization. The analysis presented above has highlighted, from the beginning to the
end of the process, the setting and multiple tools that were proposed to sustain the
managerial development toward such a direction.
Main outcomes were:
 the possibility, for the managers involved, to better focus and set the common
problems and the critical issues related to the new mandate
 the foundation of a community of managers able to co-research around their
problems and their practices reflexively, by sharing not only interpretations and
suggestions but also a renewed repertoire of knowledge and professional
practices that they could have in common.

17
  the concrete put in action of such a new and shared repertoire of managerial
knowledge and practices.

We reckon that the proposal of a research setting and research methods and tools -more
specifically, the ethno-narrative writings- within the Action Learning path, has played a
meaningful role in achieving these outcomes. The use of ethno-narrative method, in
effect, seemed to increase and better sustain the effectiveness of the Action Learning
process in three ways:
1. In helping managers better explore and focus on their problems
2. In facilitating the foundation of a community of researching practitioners
3. In orienting and sustaining managers‟ actions

In the following paragraphs we describe each of these.

1. Helping managers better explore and focus their problems

The ethno-narrative writings let the managers research around their practices from a
new and valuable standpoint. As a matter of fact, it gave them the possibility to better
focus the critical aspects of their new mandate, by helping them highlight both the
cultural and the psycho-social dimensions of their daily practices.
More specifically, the writings allowed to collect and to display a repertoire of critical
incidents related to the managers‟ interpretation of their new mandate. They also
allowed to order such criticalities and to start up a process of systematic and progressive
construction of a map of the most important and critical practices related to their
mandate.
The joint production and analysis of the writings, together with the consultants‟
presentation of a report summarizing the most significant and common themes,
provided managers with data and interpretations suitable for seeing more clearly the
“theories in use” embedded in their practices. It also offered them the opportunity to
deal with and to discuss their differences, as well as to re-structure interpretations and
new orientations to action. Such an effort had a great impact, for it allowed to explicitly
prioritize both the challenges and the new requirements provided by the reorganization.
Furthermore, the ethno-narrative writings, in integrating the ethno and the narrative
aspects, allowed managers to research both on the cultural and on the psycho-social side
of the “theories” embedded in their professional practices. Such a tool therefore
sustained the emergence of important information around the cultural and local contexts
where managers operated, as well as around their personal interpretation of the
managerial mandate. This allowed the group not to lose neither the cultural nor the
subjective nature of the problems and practices described by each manager. It finally
helped them produce more complex and articulated pictures of their situation. Moving
from it, managers developed a deeper awareness and clearer stance of the organizational
requirements.

2. Facilitating the foundation of a community of researching practitioners

The ethno-narrative writings facilitated managers‟ team working, and helped them build
a community of practitioners, active and committed in co-researching around their
practices and in elaborating more shared and renewed repertoires.
More specifically, the proposal of writing not only the critical episodes (first column),
but also the emotional reactions as well as the individual and group interpretations of
the incidents (second-third and fourth column), allowed the generation of comments and
reflections which were visible, shareable and dialectically usable by the group.
18
Given the heterogeneity and the richness of managers‟ professional stories, as well as of
the local sub-cultures and contexts within the Federation, the ethno-narrative tool
allowed to disclose such a variety and make it visible to the managers‟ eyes and to the
rest of the organization‟s, thus generating a deeper understanding of the different values
and representations. This was an important milestone that originated a higher
confrontation around the managerial practices, within a climate of progressive
reciprocal legitimation.
From such a work, therefore, managers could trace, systematize and validate their
interpretations about the critical incidents, as well as their new agreements towards a
more shared set of beliefs, values, practices. Each of them could trace and benefit from
the group‟s suggestions and comments, in order to re-orient their practice within their
specific context. They also traced the agreements related to the foundation of a new and
more integrated system of languages, knowledge and practices shared by the emerging
community.
The dialogical and recursive use of the writings, the joint analyses and the presentation
of summaries, reports and maps, helped managers, as co-researchers, commit
themselves in a cooperative process where they recognized each others as sources of
knowledge and support. In this sense the writings sustained the reflexive process, based
on a joint analysis of the common problems and on the generation of new shared
understandings and possibilities of actions.

3. Orienting and sustaining managers’ actions

Finally, the ethno-narrative writings, within the Action Learning setting, facilitated a
process where managers built new agreements and could re-position themselves with
regard to their mandate and their professional practices. They found opportunities to
support each other towards the implementation of such agreements and new stances.
The fourth column, written after the group discussion of the writings, was in particular
recognized as the most valuable leverage which facilitated the possibility to put in
action the knowledge and the indication generated. As a matter of fact, the written
artefact traced reflections and orientations arising from the group and gave more
emphasis and validity to the new managers‟ positions towards their mandate.
Furthermore, the ethno-narrative writing revealed itself not only as a tool for collecting
data and interpretations related to the “there and then” of the organizational and
managerial field. It was also used as a tool for generating data around the “here and
now” of the discussions and the agreements within the Action Learning process. It
therefore allowed to collect and integrate information around the managers‟ daily
practices “within their contexts”, as well as information around the managers‟ research
practices within the Action Learning context. It finally provided non-ambiguous
orientations, and was recognized as an useful set of evidences from which the process of
researching and reflecting together as a community of practitioners could start and was
sustained, even after the end of the intervention.
Within a long-term perspective, the writings could be also used as evidence that
periodically reminded managers‟ need of confrontation and legitimated the maintenance
of settings where they could re-discuss and offer reciprocal support around the shared
repertoire of practices. They finally provided a basis for further dissemination of such a
repertoire within the organization, in order to promote awareness and involvement
among the other managers towards their new mandate.

While the proposal of ethno-narrative tools provided the Action Learning process with
the advantages and opportunities described above, we are well aware of some
limitations and criticalities concerning its application.
19
The first criticality is related to the time and the efforts required for sustaining the
research work. Editing an ethno-narrative writing takes at least one hour, and a great
commitment in breaking up the work-flow, in reflecting around meaningful episodes, in
focusing and writing down descriptions, reactions and reflections.
We reckon that in our case such an effort was made possible thanks to several
conditions: the Action Learning was set up in an educational organization, whose
managers were familiar with constant “training on the job” approach; they trusted the
consultants that had been introduced to the Federation long time before the intervention;
and had, for their professional humanistic culture, a good attitude and passion for
writing. In other contexts and with other participants these facilitating conditions should
not be taken for granted; nevertheless they can be considered and carefully evaluated.
Furthermore, from an organizational and logistic perspective, the proposal of an Action
Learning setting focused on ethno-narrative writings and, more generally, on a
cooperative research process, requires time (a great number of days and hours, even for
the back office work of reading all the participants‟ writings products) and resources
(economic, technological, etc). This availability must be negotiated in every single
situation.
Finally, working with the ethno-narrative tools requires participants to trust each others,
the organization and the consultants. A minimum trust is necessary, in effect, to avoid
the risk that managers commit themselves only superficially in writing and dealing with
their real problems, as in the case of suspicion or worry in being evaluated or in losing
competitiveness. In competitive organizations, or where the organizational change is
perceived as too threatening for managers‟ survival, it seems necessary to build a higher
degree of trust and psychological security before proposing the described setting and
tools. Consultants are therefore required to evaluate and to eventually discuss with their
clients and their participants such conditions, in order to stipulate a psychological
agreement and to safeguard the consultancy process from mystifications and perverse
dynamics.

Conclusion

The paper discussed the challenge to sustain managerial development by moving from
the hypothesis that this should involve opportunities, for managers, to experience
reflexive processes and the creation of “communities of researching practitioners”.
An Action Learning process is presented, described in line with its traditional principles
but with a new methodological attention. The paper explored and analyzed specifically
the proposal of research, narrative and ethnographic methods to sustain managers to the
incoming organizational challenges. It did so through an organizational case, entering
the details of the phases and the use of tools proposed. More specifically, the use of an
ethno-narrative tool is discussed, as well as its effectiveness in sustaining managerial
development. We can here briefly summarize some aspects:

1. The ethno-narrative writing oriented the group work. It allowed an ordered emersion
of local knowledge arranged for discussion.

2. The process therefore provided a new individual and group reflexive space, necessary
for long-life learning. Thinking activity became oriented and everyone could profit,
lightening the burden of everyday managerial difficulties.

3. The ethno-narrative writing constituted a precious research tool and methodology for
a new managerial feature: the role of co-researcher of the managers, accompanied by
20
colleagues and consultants. Managers became protagonist of their own inquiry. They
not any more waited for somebody to propose a solution, by engage themselves in its
search.
The new process was that participants focused together on specific issues, and became a
work team in defining their new role and the partners they could consider for their tasks.

4. The “researching managers” became authors of their own work practices: they gained
responsibility and appreciation about the innovative responses that they could find to
recurrent or unexpected problems. They also learnt to build new partnership and
network activities for not responding only individually to their challenges.

The paper ends up with the analysis of the advantages and limitations of these uses and
the conditions for making the best out of this method.

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