Action Research
This action research project explores the conscious and unconscious experiences of individuals as well as the group and social processes of the system in order to try to explain behaviours. Action research is a research process or methodology which offers the organisation the opportunity to learn from its experience and change while the research is in progress. It offers members an opportunity to reflect on their system and understand their part in it so that a paradigm shift can occur resulting in a change in a fundamental belief on which a particular behaviour is based (Argyris, 1991). This challenge to the original paradigm can cause different levels of anxiety which some members will try to deflect through denial or resistance, while others will find ways to channel it into creative responses. Such different responses reflect overall ambivalence, expressed by different people differently.
Action research does not begin with a research focus or question which is
systematically and clinically explored. Action research involves the development of working hypotheses that are tested as the research progresses. It uses the
hypothesis to test a „kind of truth‟ or a „flimsy‟. This process of hypothesis
development is described as „always [being] in a state of becoming and never in a state of arrival. We are open for new ideas and never closed to another hypothesis‟ (Borwick, 2006).
36 Collaborative action research involves working with the organisational members as members of the research team. They are at once, the researchers and that which is being researched, which opens up potential for confusion if roles are not clearly understood (Newton, 2002). My original intention was to conduct collaborative action research, but due to the busyness of the individuals involved, the handover of sponsors, and the impact of the Global Financial Crisis, true collaborative research was never fully achieved. I had co-operation, but never true collaboration.
In order to triangulate the data, a process of in-depth individual interviews was used in conjunction with generational and inter-generational focus groups and workshops. This data was then compared with that which was extracted from a company-wide Engagement Survey.
Individual Interviews
In negotiating entry into the organisation, I suggested that I be authorised to work with twelve individuals from three different age-groups and assorted backgrounds, professions and genders. I explained that I wanted to work with them individually over two 2-hour sessions in order to analyse the way they took up their role in the organisation. I then proposed to work with them in their different age groups to develop hypotheses before bringing them all together in the group of twelve. These hypotheses would then be tested on different groups, in particular a group of
younger professionals and other mixed groups across the different Australian locations. I deliberately excluded other international locations as I proposed to limit the study to the Australian workplace.
My Feelings as Data
Part of collaborative action research also involves the study of one‟s own feelings as data. The researcher learns to ask why certain situations mobilise different
emotions in her and hypotheses of parallel processes can be drawn from this. The external researcher also becomes a part of the system she is researching and this interaction must be taken into account. Just as she is researching the system, she
37 is also influencing it and becoming influenced by it (Lewin, 1951;Schein, 1995) and a consciousness of working at the margins or boundaries is useful so that she can appreciate when she is becoming too much a part of the system to be objective (Antal, 2005).
As an external researcher I was nervous about the degree of authority I would have in order to support collaboration but I was confident that my organisational sponsor was interested in the project and keen to open doors for me. Unfortunately this did not last for the duration of the project and at times I struggled to maintain traction in a changing organisational and economic environment.
Organisational Role Analysis
Organisational Role Analysis (ORA) is a form of research which involves analysing the way a person takes up his or her role in the organisational environment. I opted to conduct two 2-hour sessions with each selected employee in order to find out what they brought to their roles (consciously and unconsciously) and how the organisational environment enabled them to take up their roles. Although extensive role analyses were not conducted, the organisational framework and some of the tools of role analysis, e.g. drawings, were employed.
The process is based on the Krantz and Maltz (1997) model which looks at the role as „taken‟ and „given‟ as well as the influence of the task and sentient systems. It also incorporates the role analysis model as explained by Long (2006, p. 128). As explained by Krantz and Maltz (1997, p. 147) „The assumption used in ORC [Organizational Role Consultation] is that an individual‟s contribution and
effectiveness in an organization can be understood only as a function of how well the individual and the organization negotiate the boundary between the role as given (which constitutes the organization‟s expectations) and the role as taken (how one‟s role is taken up and internally held).‟ This distinction is important when working with organisational role analysis (ORA) as it enables the individuals to see themselves objectively and understand the systemic influences both conscious and
unconscious, which determine the way they take up their roles. In a sense it depersonalises what could be seen as very personal.
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Fig 2. Adapted from
Krantz & Maltz (1997)
In the ORA approach, the researcher and client contract to collaborate in the development of hypotheses about the client‟s work role. The aim is „to make a bridge between the client‟s consciousness of experience and the realities of the institution‟ (Reed, 1976). According to Krantz and Maltz (1997 p.150), ORA is „a means of making the unknown known, of surfacing the change that has yet to be discovered, and of grounding people to their role, each other and their organization‟. One of the techniques used to help the individual see themselves in their role was role analysis drawing. Each of my subjects was asked to draw themselves in their role, thinking about what it was like to work in the organisation and how they liked to be managed. We then discussed what they had drawn and used this to help them reflect on the reasons why they took up their roles the way they did, what they liked and disliked about their roles in the organisational environment, and how they saw others taking up their roles.
I also used a Career Values exercise (Knowdell, 2006) which was designed to see if there were any significant differences in the espoused values of the different age groups. In this exercise, participants are given a deck of 54 cards of „values‟ and encouraged to sort them according to whether they „Always Value‟, „Often Value‟, „Sometimes Value‟, „Seldom Value‟ or „Never Value‟ them. While participants sort, discussion takes place around their prioritising of the different values and whether they are encouraged to enact them within the organisational environment.
Role
Organisation Person
Conscious System
39 Focus Groups and Workshops
With Research Group
Through the individual ORAs I was able to develop some hypotheses about the different generations at work in this particular organisation. I then played these back to each of the different age or generational groups for their comment and review, culminating in a workshop with all twelve participants. So far I had developed hypotheses and tested them with the individual collaborators.
With Other Managers
Research such as this does not happen in a vacuum. While these interviews were being conducted I was also delivering a series of 2-day „leadership development‟ workshops around the country in my capacity as external consultant to the
organisation. It turns out that I had a receptive audience, all very willing to discuss the theme of generational differences and how they saw them applying to their roles as managers.
With the Young Professionals Group
I was also invited to facilitate a conference of young professionals. This group was set up some years ago to enable younger workers to network and gain access to others in the organisation. Until now, they had not had a constitution and their role was unclear – some thought their role was to raise money for charities, others believed they were able have influence in the organisation by inviting decision- makers to their meetings. In 2008 the conference included representatives from the Middle East, Asia and South America and I was able to gain access to views on different generations in these different cultures within the organisation as well as test some of my initial findings.
40 Survey
The survey I have drawn on to add weight to an otherwise small group of
participants, is the annual „Engagement Survey‟ which collects information about likes/dislikes etc, from the whole organisation. I have been able to extract data on an age-related basis from the Survey taken in 2008. This has been useful as a quantitative analysis for my findings.
Group Relations Conference
I have also drawn on my experience as a participant in a week-long Group Relations Australia (GRA) Conference whose theme was „Intergenerational Dynamics in the Workplace: Age, Generations and the Future‟. Group Relations workshops such as this are based on the Leicester and Tavistock tradition (Miller,1967,1990; Gould 2004; Fraher, 2004) and members are invited to learn experientially about their own predilections, valencies and anxieties, in particular their responses to authority and leadership. Members of the conference work in a range of groups, all of which are contained within the boundaries of a temporary organisation with an authorised Director and other consultants to the „organisation‟.
According to the Brochure, „People from different generations are brought together and intermix in the workplace. This diversity can be rich and productive. It can also be problematic and the cause of misunderstandings. This conference gives the opportunity to explore the intergenerational dynamics present in today's groups and organisations. It will examine both the creative and destructive potential of these dynamics in order to prepare for better futures‟ (Conference Brochure 2008, p.1).
Since this particular GRC was developed around the theme of the different generations, this was a perfect opportunity to draw on mine and others‟ learnings about generational differences in an experiential situation.
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