Social:Diverspection

From HandWiki

Diverspection - is a blended word (diverse + perspective), which documents a different approach to understanding and dealing with complexity in psychosocial environments. The approach is based on abandoning the traditional view on roles and processes in organizations. A new set of questions destroys the “matrix of routines” and generates new lenses which enable a diverse perspective on complexity. Diverspection builds on clinical approaches to management[1] which refer to the psychodynamic-systemic way of looking at people in organizations.

Diverspective approaches require clinical trained executive consultants in order to address competently the human element in organizations. One of the basic methodological assumptions of the clinical approach is that the key information for assessment and intervention can only be collected in direct contact with the client.[2]

There are two typical cases for a diverspective approach:

  1. the transitional group intervention in order to tackle stuckness in organizations. Stuckness is a stage in the process where the “on-task” work directed toward a "primary task" (the project’s or organization’s mission) becomes overburdened or weighed down by “off-task” activities (social and individual defense, cognitive biases). Things either do not move forward or do so very slowly. This is often the case during restructurings, M&As, transformation projects or simply complex businesses.
  2. the evaluation of the structural and human capital in organizations. 70% of the value of the average company is intangible.[3] Diverspection evaluates the structural risk and the organization’s capability and capacity to deliver against its “primary task”. It appraises the organization’s structural, human and psychological capital and provides a well-founded indication and recommendation for investments and business decisions by answering the following questions:
      • Which are the major structural capital risks?
      • How thoughtfully deployed are resources (people and money)?
      • How capable is the organization in leading complexity?
      • What is the transformation management potential?
      • Where is the link between key intangibles, value creation and value capture?
      • How good can or could systems, processes and routines support the “primary task”?
      • What is the psychological stance of the organization?

References:

  1. Kets De Vries, Manfred F. R. (2009). Organizational Paradoxes : Clinical approaches to management. Routledge. ISBN 9780415488280. 
  2. Van De Loo, Erik; Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, Konstantin Korotov and Elisabeth Florent-Treacy (2007). "12". -The art of listening- in Coach and Couch: the psychology of making better leaders. ISBN 978-0-230-50638-1. 
  3. Adams, Mary; Michael Oleksak (2010). Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st-Century Organization. ISBN 9780313380747.